misery. And however any may flatter and deceive themselves, it is the present condition of all who have not an interest in Christ by faith. They are far off from God, as he is the foundation of all goodness and blessedness; inhabiting, as the prophet speaks, the parched places of the wilderness, and shall not see when good cometh, Jer. xvii, 6. Far from the dews and showers of mercy, far from Divine love and favor; cast out of the bounds of them, as Adam out of paradise, without any hope or power to return. The flaming sword of the law turns every way to keep them from the tree of life. Yet let them fly whither they please, wish for mountains and rocks to fall on them,hide themselves in the darkness and shades of their own ignorance, like Adam among the trees of the garden, or immerge themselves in the pleasures of sin for a season; all is one, the wrath of God abideth on them. And they are far from God in their own minds also; being alienated from him, enemies against him, and in all things allied to Satan, the head of the apostasy. Thus, and inconceivably worse, is it with all that embrace not this better hope to bring them nigh to God. §13. Obs. It is an effect of infinite condescension and grace, that God would appoint a way of recovery for those who had wilfully cast themselves into this woful distance from him. Why should God look after such fugitives any more? He had no need of us or of our services in our best condition, much less in that useless, depraved state whereinto we had brought ourselves. And although we had transgressed the rule of our moral dependance on him in the way of obedi ence, and thereby done what we could to stain and eclipse his glory; yet he knew how to repair it to ad vantage by reducing us under the order of punishment. By our sins we ourselves come short of the glory of

God, but he could lose none by us, whilst it was absolutely secured by the penalty annexed to the law. When upon the entrance of sin, he came and found Adam in the bushes, wherein he thought foolishly to hide himself, who could expect, (Adam did not,) but that his only design was to apprehend the poor rebellious fugitive, and give him up to condign punishment? But it was quite otherwise; above all thoughts that could ever have entered into the hearts of angels or men, after he had declared the nature of the apostasy, and his own indignation against it, he proposeth and promiseth a way of deliverance and recovery. This is that which the scriptures so magnify under the name of divine grace and love, which are beyond expression or conception, John iii, 16. And whereas he might have recalled us to himself, and yet leave some mark of displeasure upon us, to keep us at a greater distance from him than we stood at before; as David brought back his wicked Absalom to Jerusalem, but would not suffer him to come into his presence; he chose to act like himself in infinite wisdom and grace, to bring us yet nearer to him, than ever we could approach by the law of our creation. And as the foundation, means, and pledge hereof, he contrived and brought forth that most glorious and unparalleled effect of divine wisdom, in taking our nature into that inconceivable nearness to himself, in the union of it to the person of his Son. For as all things in this "bringing of us nigh to God," who were afar off, are expressive effects of wisdom and grace so that of taking our nature into union with himself is glorious to astonishment. "O Lord our God, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens," Psal. viii, 1. Finally; all our approximation to God in any kind, all our approaches to him in holy worship, is by him alone whe

was the blessed hope of the saints under the Old Testament, and is the life of them under the New.

VERSES 20-22.

And in as much as not without an oath he was made priest. For those priests were made without an oath, by him that said to him, the Lord sware, and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec: by so much was Jesus made a surety for a better Testament.

$1. Connexion, and recapitulation of the past argument. $2 (I.) Exposition of the words. $3. The Levitical priesthood not confirmed with an oath $4. But Christ's was $5. Jesus a surety of a better Testament. 96 What that includes. $7. The person of the surety, Jesus. $8 Remarks on the better covenant. $9. The proper office of a surety. $10. Wherein consists the suretiship of Christ. $11, 12. (II.) Observations.

$1. THE HE apostle had warned the Hebrews before, that he had many things to say, and those not easy to be understood, concerning Melchisedec. And herein he intended not only those things which he expresseth directly concerning that person and his office, but the things themselves signified thereby in the person and office of Christ. And therefore he omits nothing which may from thence be any way justly represented. So from that one testimony of the psalmist he makes sundry inferences to his purpose:-That the Lord Christ was to be a priest, which included in it the cessation of the Levitical priesthood, seeing he was of the tribe of Judah, and not of the tribe of Levi;-That he was to be another priest, that is, a priest of another order;—And that he was to be a priest for ever, so that there should never more upon his death or otherwise, be any need of another priest, nor any possibility of a return of the former priesthood into the church. Neither yet doth he rest here, but observes, moreover, the manner how God in the testimony insisted on, de

clared his purpose of making the Lord Jesus Christ, a priest, which was constitutive of his office, viz. by his oath; and thence he takes occasion to manifest how far his priesthood is exalted above that under the law. This last is what lies before us in these verses.

§2. "And inasmuch as not without an oath. (Kai) and is oftentimes as much as moreover; not an immediate connexion with, or dependance on what went before in particular, but only a process in the same general argument. And so it is here a note of introduction, of a new special consideration for confirming the (same design. Kab ́ "cov, eatenus quantum, in quantum) “inasmuch," so much. Hereto answers (nala rosulov, in tantum, quanto, tanto.) by so much, ver. 22. The excellency of the covenant whereof Christ was made mediator, above the old covenant, had proportion with the pre-eminence of his priesthood above that of Aaron, in that he was made a priest by an oath, but they were without an oath. Two things the apostle supposeth in this negative proposition:-That there were two ways whereby men might be made priests, either with, or without an oath; and, that the dignity of the priesthood depends on, and is declared in the way whereby God was pleased to initiate men into that office.

These two things being in general laid down, as those which could not be denied; the apostle makes application of them in the next verse, distinctly to the priests of the law, on the one hand, and Christ on the other, in a comparison between whom he is now engaged,

§3. "For those priests were made without an oath." In the application of this assertion the apostle affirms, that the priests under the law were made "without an oath." No such thing is mentioned in all that is re48

VOL. III.

corded concerning their call and consecration, for indeed God did never solemnly interpose with an oath, in a way of privilege, or mercy, but with direct respect to Jesus Christ. This is the account the apostle gives of the Aaronical priests (var i μɛv) and they truly; that is, Aaron and all his posterity that exercised the priest's office in a due manner, were all made priests, that is, by God himself. They did not originally take this honor to themselves, but were called of God. But neither all of them nor any of them were made priests by an oath.

§4. "But this with an oath;" (de) but he, this man, he who was to be a priest after the order of Melchisedec, (μɛð opnwpoosus) with an oath. His call, constitution, or consecration was confirmed and ratified with an oath; whereas God used not an oath about any thing that belonged to the former. The form of it is in these words, "The Lord sware and will not repent," Rom. vii.

The person swearing is God the Father, who speaks to the Son in the Psalm cx, 1, "The Lord said to my Lord:" and the oath of God is nothing but the solemn, eternal, unchangeable purpose of his will, under a special mode of declaration.

If then it be demanded, when God thus sware to Christ? I answer; we must consider the decree itself to this purpose, and the peculiar revelation or declaration of it, in which two this oath consists. As to the first, it belongs entirely to those eternal transactions between the Father and the Son, which were the original of the priesthood of Christ; and as for the second, it was when he gave out that revelation of his mind with the force and efficacy of an oath in the forementioned Psalm