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pel, but because they were given from God by Moses, in such a manner as never to be changed or abrogated. This the apostle lays down as an acknowledged principle with the most, that both law and gospel received their original from God himself; proving also, as we shall see in the progress of our Discourse, to the conviction of others, that such a revelation as that of the gospel, was foretold and expected, and that in particular the gospel which was preached to them, was the revelation which had been promised by God.

This

Now God being here spoken of in distinction from the Son expressly, and from the Holy Ghost by evident implication, it being He by whom he spake in the prophets, that name is not taken wows, substantially, to denote primarily the essence or being of the Deity, and each person as partaking in the same nature, but TaTxas, denoting primarily one certain person, and the divine nature only as subsisting in that person. is the person of the Father; as elsewhere the person of the Son is so signified by that name, Acts xx. 28. John i. 1, 2. Rom. ix. 5. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 1 John iii. 16. v. 20. As also the person of the Holy Spirit, Acts v. 3, 4. 1 Cor. xii. 7. 11. Col. ii. 2. So that God even the Father, by the way of eminency, was the peculiar author of both law and gospel, of which afterwards. And this observation is made necessary from hence, even because he immediately assigns divine properties and excellencies to another person, evidently distinguished from him whom he intends to denote by the name God in this place, which he could not do, did that name primarily express, as here used by him, the divine nature absolutely, but only as it is subsisting in the person of the Father.

From this head of their agreement, the apostle proceeds to the instances of the difference that was between the law and the gospel, as to their revelation from God, of which a little inverting the order of the words, we shall first consider that which concerns the times of their being given out, sundry of the other instances being regulated thereby.

For the first, or the revelation of the will of God under the Old Testament, it was of old, God spake #aλal, formerly,' or of old. Some space of time is denoted in this word, which had then received both its beginning and end; both which we may inquire after. Take the word absolutely, and it comprises the whole space of time from the giving out of the first promise, to that end which was put to all revelations of public use under the Old Testament. Take it as relating to the Jews, and the rise of the time expressed in it, is the "giving of the Jaw by Moses" in the wilderness. And this is that which the apostle hath respect to. He had no contest with the Jews about the first promise, and the service of God in the world

built thereon; nor about their privilege, as they were the sons of Abraham; but only about their then present church privilege and claim by Moses' law. The proper date then and bound of this παλαι, of old, is from the giving out of the law of Moses, and therein the constitution of the Judaical church and worship, to the close of public prophecy in the days of Malachi. From thence to the days of John the Baptist, God granted no extraordinary revelation of his will, for the standing use of the whole church. So that this dispensation of God's "speaking in the prophets," continued for the space of twenty-one jubilees, or near eleven hundred years. That it had now ceased for a long time, the apostle intimates in this word, and that agreeably to the confessed principles of the Jews, whereby also he confirmed his own of the coming of the Messiah, by the reviving of the gift of prophecy, as was foretold, Joel ii. 28, 29.

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And we may by the way a little consider their thoughts in this matter; for, as we have observed and proved before, the apostle engageth with them upon their own acknowledged prin ciples. The Jews then generally grant unto this day, that prophecy for the public use of the church, was not bestowed under the second temple after the days of Malachi; nor is to be expected until the coming of Elias. The delusions that have been put upon them by impostors, they now labour all they can to conceal; and are of late by experience made incredulous towards such pretenders, as in former ages they have been brought to much misery by. Now as their manner is to fasten all their conjectures, be they true or false, on some place, word, or letter of the Scripture, so have they done this assertion also. Observing or supposing the want of sundry things in the second house, they pretend that want to be intimated, Hag. i. 7,8. where God promising to glorify himself in that temple, the word 238, I will glorify, is written defectively, without , as the Keri notes. That letter being the numeral note of five, signifies, as they say, the want of five things in that house. The first of these was the ark and Cherubim. The second was non pw, the anointing oil. The third was

, the wood of disposition, or perpetual fire. The fourth was

the רוח הקדש Urim and Thummim. The fifth was אורים ותומים

Holy Ghost, or spirit of prophecy. They are not indeed all
agreed in this enumeration; the Talmud in 8721 Joma, cap. 5.
reckons them somewhat otherwise: 1. The ark with the pro-
pitiation and Cherubim: 2. The fire from heaven, which an-
swers the third, or wood of disposition in the former order. 3.
The divine majesty, in the room of the anointing oil: 4. The
Holy Ghost; 5. Urim and Thummim. Another order there is
according to Rabbi Bechai, Comment. in Pentateuch, sectione
who places the anointing oil distinctly, and confounds the M,

;

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or divine majesty with wpm, the Holy Ghost, contradicting the Gemara. The commonly approved order is that of the author of Aruch; in the root, 725.

708 21731 192 1178, The Ark, propitiatory, and Cherubim,

one.

wow, the divine majesty, the second thing.

the Holy Ghost, which is רוח הקדוש שהוא נבואה שלישי

phecy, the third.

pro

syran bıbını D8, Urim and Thummim, the fourth thing. WAN D’DWN JW, fire from Heaven, the fifth thing. But as this argument is ridiculous, both in general, in wiredrawing conclusions from letters deficient or redundant in writing, and in particular in reference to this word, which in other places is written as in this, as Numb. xxiv. 12. 1 Sam. ii. 20. Isa. lxvi. 5. so the observation itself of the want of all these five things in the second house, is very questionable, and seems to be invented to give countenance to the confessed ceasing of prophecy, by which their church had been planted, nourished and maintained, and by the want of which it was signified that their church was now near expiration. For although I will grant that they might offer sacrifices with other fire, than that which was traduced from the flame descending from heaven, though Nadab and Abihu were destroyed for so doing, because the law of that fire attended the giving of it, whence upon its providential ceasing, it was as lawful to use other fire in sacrifice, as it was before its giving out; yet as to the ark, the Urim and Thummim, the matter is more questionable; and as to the anointing oil out of question, because it being lawful for the high priest to make it at any time, it was no doubt restored in the time of Ezra's reformation. I know Abarbinel on Exod. xxx. sec. Nwn, affirms that there was no high priest anointed with oil under the second house, for which he gives this reason;

because the anointing oil pas לפי שכבר היה נגנו שמן המשחה for Josiah, שגנזו יאשיהו עם שאר הדברים הקדושים ; now hid

and they had no ולא היה להם רשות לעשותו,to which he adds

had hid it with the rest of the holy things; a Talmudical figment;

power to make it; I will not much contend about matter of fact, or what they did; but that they might have done otherwise, is evident from the first institution of it; for the prohibition mentioned, Exod. xxx. 31, 32. respects only private persons. And Josephus tells us, that God ceased to give answer by Urim and Thummim two hundred years before he wrote, Lib. iii. cap. 12. which proves they had it.

"It is indeed certain, that at their first return from Babylon, they had not the Urim and Thummim, Ezra ii. 63. There was no priest with Urim and Thummim; yet it doth not appear that afterwards that jewel, whatever it were, was not made

upon the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, whereby the re-
storation of the temple, and the worship belonging thereunto,
was carried on to perfection. Especially considering the vision
of Zechariah, about "clothing the high priest with the robes of
his office, ch. iii. after which time it seems they were made and
in use, as Josephus shews us, lib. xi. cap. 8. treating of the re-
verence done by Alexander the Great to the name of God, en-
graven in the plate of gold on the high-priest's forehead. And
Maimonides, Tractat. Saned. cap. 10. sect. 10. says expressly,
that all the eight robes of the high priest were made under the
second temple, and particularly the Urim and Thummim; how-
beit, as he says, they inquired not of God by them, because the
Holy Ghost was not on the priests. Of the ark, we shall
have occasion to treat afterwards, and of its fictitious hiding by
Jeremiah, or Josiah, as the Jews fancy. This we may observe
for the present, that it is certain that it was carried away by the
Babylonians amongst other vessels of gold belonging to the tem-
ple, either amongst them that were taken away in the days of
Jehoiakim, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7. or those taken away with Jehoi-
achin his son, ver. 11. or when all that were left before, great
and small, were carried away in the days of Zedekiah, ver. 18.
And it may be supposed, that it was restored by Cyrus, of whom
it is said, that "he returned all the vessels of the house of the
Lord, that Nebuchadnezzar brought from Jerusalem," Ezra i.
6. And it is uncertain, to what end the solemn yearly entrance
of the high priest into the most holy place was observed, to the
very destruction of the second house, if neither ark nor mercy-
seat were there. Neither is this impeached by what Tacitus af-
firms, Hist. lib. 5. that when Pompey entered the temple, he
found nullas Deum effigies, vacuam sedem, et inania arcana; for
as he wrote of the Jews with shameful negligence, so he only
intimates that they had no such images as were used among
other nations, nor the head of an ass, which not many lines be-
fore, he had affirmed to be consecrated in their sanctuary.
aught then that appears to the contrary, the ark might be
in the second house, and be carried thence to Rome with the
book of the law, which Josephus expressly mentions. And
therefore the same Abarbinel, in his Comment on Joel, tells us,
that Israel, by captivity out of his own land, lost nun wbu

,three excelicant gifts ,שתיו הם נבואה ומפתים וידיעת אל קות

prophecy, miracles, and divine knowledge, Psal. lxxiv. 9. all which he grants were to be restored by the Messiah; without mention of the other things before recited. And they confess this openly

משמתו הנביאים האחרונים חגי .in Sota distinc. gla humpha after the death of * זכריה ומלאכי נסתלקה רוח הקודש מישראל

the latter prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit was taken away from Israel.'

"It is then confessed that God ceased to speak to the church in prophets as to their oral teaching and writing, after the days of Malachi; which reason of the want of vision, though continuing four hundred years and upwards, is called by Haggai, chap. ii. 6. o nanum pusillum, a little while, in reference to the continuance of it from the days of Moses. Whereby the Jews may see that they are long since past all grounds of expectation of its restoration, all prophecy having left them double the time that their church enjoyed it, which cannot be called by a little while,' in comparison thereof."

return,

אחת מעט

6

To

This was the λ, these the times, wherein God spake in the prophets; which determines one instance more of the comparison, namely, the fathers, Tos Targari, to whom he spake in them, which were all the faithful of the Judaical church from the days of giving the law, until the ceasing of prophecy in the days of Malachi.

In answer to this first instance, on the part of the gospel, the revelation of it is affirmed to be made in these last days," hath spoken in these last days," KT WV TWY nμsgar TT; the true stating of which time will also discover who the persons were to whom it was made, "hath spoken to us."

Most expositors suppose that this expression," the last days," is a periphrasis for the times of the gospel.' But it doth not appear, that they are any where so called; nor were they ever known by that name among the Jews, upon whose principles the apostle proceeds. Some seasons indeed under the gospel, in reference to some churches, are called the last days, Ï Tim. iv. 1. 2 Tim. iii. 1.; but the whole time of the gospel absolutely, is no where so termed. It is the last days of the Judaical church and state, which were then drawing to their period and abolition, that are here and elsewhere called the "last days," or the latter days, or the last hour, 2 Pet. iii. 3. 1 John ii. 18. Jude 18. For,

1. As we before observed, the apostle takes it for granted, that the Judaical church-state did yet continue, and proves that it was drawing to its period, chap. viii. ult. having its present station in the patience and forbearance of God only, without any necessity as to its worship, or preservation in the world. And hereunto doth the reading of the words in some copies, before intimated, give testimony, ' STXATY THY йMEGNY TETNY, in the end or extremity of these days,' which, as the event hath proved, can no way relate to the times of the gospel.

2. The personal ministry of the Son, whilst he was on the earth in the days of his flesh, is here eminently, though not solely intended. "For as God of old spake in the prophets, so in these last days he spake in the Son :" that is, in him, personally present with the church, as the prophets also were in their

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