he speaks down to the capacities of men, as fathers among us do to their little children, who could not understand them, if spoken to in such language as fathers use to one another; though the difference here is so minute, if compared to the difference between God and man. With stammering lips and another tongue, God vouchsafes to speak to us his poor ignorant people. Isa. xxviii.11,

83. Ibid. i. 28. (Things that are not, to bring to nought things that are.) It is God who doth this, and calleth things that are not, as though they were. Rom. iv. 17.

84. Ibid. iii. 28. (Let him become a fool, that he may be wise.) No man ever became wise, until after he had found himself to be a fool, for how indeed should he? A man thinking himself full to the brim with knowledge, thinks he can hold no more, and therefore will not read, inquire, or take advice. However, the wisdom condemned in this text is worldly wisdom, and the wisdom recommended is spiritual. The worldly, of all men, is the most closely shut up against religion. His briars and thorns choke the word. Above all others he is that natural man, to whom the things of God are foolishness. If the grace of God was ever with him, he scatters it from him faster than he gathers money.

85. Ibid. vii. 31. (Not abusing) should be (not indulging themselves much in the enjoyment of it.) The context requires this interpretation, and the preposition kara signifies intensively, as well as contrarily.

86. Ibid. viii. 13. Instead of (lest I make my brother to offend) it should be (lest I offend my brother.)

87. Ibid. xv. 28. Were this deep text found any where but in the Bible, we should think it a vain presumption to inquire into the meaning. As the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with their respective offices in the economy of creation, redemption, and sanctification, was revealed as necessary to our understanding that economy, it appears to me, that the dominion over all things in heaven and earth committed to the Son, is to terminate as soon as the final judgment shall be passed; and that then God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, shall during eternity afterward, and to the whole intelligent creation, be God all in all, as the apostle expresses it ra πavra ev Tao, that is, all things, Father, Saviour, Comforter, in and to all things, without any ideas, or terms of distinction. If I am too bold here, I pray God to forgive me, and I trust he will, as I write with fear and trembling.

88. Ibid. xv. 29. (If the dead rise not, why are they then baptized for the dead?) This appears a difficult passage, insomuch that some heretics of old, laying hold of it, baptized a living person for one who had died unbaptized. The Marcionites were among these, whom Tertullian corrects by a very just interpretation of the passage. To be baptized for the dead, saith this father, is to be baptized for the body, which is declared to be dead by baptism; that is, we are baptized into the belief of the resurrection of the body, the death and resurrection of which are both represented in baptism. This interpretation, let me add, is justified by St. Paul himself, his own best interpreter, in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. However, as his expression here in the fifteenth of his first Epistle to the Corinthians is VπEρ TWV VEKρv, strictly speaking, upon the dead, it is hardly a doubt with me, no more than it was with several men of more learning than me, that some pious catechumens, even in the time of our apostle, chose to be baptized on the graves of martyrs in the nocturnal assemblies of the Christians, who, in time of persecution, met at night about those graves for every purpose of devotion and edification, in order to be more feelingly reminded of all Christian duties, and more especially of their federal engagements entered into in the sacrament of baptism. When persecution ceased, and they had the benefit of churches, this might have given occasion to their burying in or near those sacred edifices, and calling them by the names of the most distinguished martyrs and saints. This, I confess, is but matter of very probable conjecture, as we cannot trace the practice historically up to the time of St. Paul, though we may as far as a few centuries after.

89. Ibid. xv. 32. (Let us eat and drink, &c.) Eat, drink, and play, saith Sardanapalus in his epitaph at Tarsus, the birth place of St. Paul, which city, together with Anchiale, that luxurious prince is said to have built in one day.

90. Ephes. ii. 14. (Middle wall) which divided the Jews, repairing to the temple, from their Gentile converts, or half proselytes.

91. Philippians iii. 2. (Concision) cutting in sunder of the church by meu not circumcised themselves, but insisting on the law to the division of Christ's body.

92. 2 Thess. ii. 3. (He who now letteth or hindereth.) The Roman emperor, or empire; for antichrist could not come until the dissolution of that empire, and then did come in the character

of a man that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. It was this prophecy that alarmed the primitive Christians in such a manner, that though persecuted by the Romans, they continually and earnestly prayed for the preservation of that empire, lest a tyranny more destructive of true religion should succeed it, which soon followed on the irruption of the northern nations.

93. 1 Tim. v. 17. 19. (Let the elders, &c.) these were the same with bishops, chapter iii. and here subject to the jurisdiction of Timothy. The terms, apostle, evangelist, bishop, elder, were not used technically, but sometimes promiscuously, by the writers of the New Testament. Here however the powers of three offices, one ruling, and the other two subordinate, are kept distinct. Timothy governs, and the elders and deacons obey. This government and subordination was originally the appointment of the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls; and here by the Holy Spirit set forth in fact as ruled and established for the body or church of Christ. As long as the apostles were able to attend and govern the few churches, gathered out of Jews and Greeks, they themselves filled the highest order of the church, and exercised the episcopal power. But James, instead of circulating to convert, confirm, and govern churches in different parts of the world, took up his residence in Jerusalem, and governed that diocess episcopally. As the number of churches increased; as the apostolic college was thinned by death; and as divisions arose in this or that church; the establishment of resident bishops became every where necessary, that the original institution and regular government might be preserved, and that the promise of Christ to be with his church to the end of the world, might be fulfilled in an ostensible succession of governors, filling the office of the apostles in every age, so far as all the intents and purposes of the spiritual society could be answered, after the ceasing of miracles and divine inspiration. Were it necessary to be proved, which it is not, that this spiritual society, like all others, must have some particular form of government, some subordination, and order, the practice of those churches, which have rashly renounced the sacred appointment of Christ and the Holy Ghost, would fully prove it, for they have been forced to invent a form of government for themselves, as far inferior to the old, as to every purpose of peace and charity, to say no more, as the inventions of men are to the ordinances of God.

94. Second Epistle to Timothy, i. 10. The immortality of the soul was an article of faith with many Gentiles, as well as Jews, before the coming of Christ, but groped after by the former so much in the dark, and by the latter founded on a twilight-prospect, that our blessed Saviour may be truly said, as here, to have brought it into open day-light. There was but one nation among the old Scythians that believed in it; and Greeks had little or no notion of it, before they were taught it by Pherecydes the Syrian, the preceptor of Pythagoras. As to the Jews, this leading article of faith, together with other dependent truths of religion, was dispensed, precept upon precept, line upon line, more and more, but rose not to its full meridian or perfect day, until it shone forth in Jesus Christ.

95. Ibid. iv. 6. (σñevdoμai) I am libated, the libation is poured on my head, and I am ready to be offered up.

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96. In the Epistle to Titus, bishops and elders signify the same persons, namely elders, for they were all subject to Titus, as in his days there were no such officers as archbishops.

97. Ibid. iii. 4-6. (God our Saviour) by the washing of regeneration hath saved us, and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. We have but one Saviour, who is God.

98. Ibid. ver. 11. (Being condemned of himself,) for if, after the first and second admonition by his bishop, he still persists in his heresy, is he not condemned by himself? What need of farther evidence in any court or trial?

99. Heb. ii. 16. (éπıdaμßaveraɩ,) laid hold of, is in our translation rightly rendered (took on him the nature) as to the real meaning which could not be verbatim made intelligible in English.

100. Ibid. chap. vii. Herein the apostle, speaking of Melchisedec, says, he was without father and mother; without be. ginning or ending of days; receiving tithes of Abraham; as better and superior, blessing that patriarch; and founding an everlasting priesthood; not only commencing before, but continuing after, the priesthood of Aaron; and must, by Melchisedec, King of Righteousness, and Prince of Peace, have meant our blessed Saviour, who is our righteousness and Prince of our peace with his Father. It is the priority and superiority of Melchisedec and his priesthood to Aaron and the Jewish dispensation, that make the matter and drift of this chapter. It is indeed impossible to find the character of Melchisedec, as here given, in any mere

man.

As to the Melchisedecian heretics of old, their principles were wholly different from, and opposite to, the interpretation given above of this chapter.

101. James iii. 1. [My brethren, be not many masters (SSaokaλo, teachers, in the Greek) knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation, for in many things we offend] all directly contrary to this charge of the Holy Ghost, and in contempt of his menace, here awfully delivered, is the practice of our fanatics, among whom every man takes upon him to be a teacher, and to pass his own nonsense upon his poor giddy brethren, for the dictates of the Holy Ghost. This is a degree of spiritual pride and presumption, so impious that the condemnation threatened must, sooner or later, fall on them with proportionable aggravation.

102. 1 Peter iv. 8. (Fervent) EKTεvη, extensive both in time and number of objects.—(Charity shall cover the multitude of sins) shall not only throw an indulgent skirt over the weaknesses of others, and even the injuries of our own enemies, but shall cover and hide our sins also, if we practise it, from the eyes of God. 1 signifies both a covering and a sacrifice for sin. If the apostle had the twofold sense of this word in his eye, the allusion is beautiful. The author of the book of Tobit makes the angel speak to him and his son Tobias after much the same manner, chap. xii. 9. Alms shall deliver from death, and shall purge away all sin.

103. 1 John i. 5. God is light. Jesus is every where styled light, and the light, particularly in the writings of this apostle; Jesus therefore is God.

104. Ibid. v. 20. This is the true God, and eternal life, spoken of Jesus, as is evident from its connexion with the foregoing part of the same verse, see chap. i. ver. 5. of this Epistle, ver. 12. of this chapter; Gospel of St. John xiv. 16. where Christ calls himself the life, ibid, viii. 58. where Christ takes to himself the incommunicable name of God.

105. St. Jude, ver. iv. 25. Who were these creepers into the church? Not unconverted Jews, not Atheists, not Pagans, surely. No; but a sort of Christians, or professors rather of Christianity, Now all professors of Christianity did then, as they do still, confess the Father to be God. They therefore, who in the days of St. Jude, denied the only Lord God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, were the Ebionites and Cerinthians. These men denied the divinity of Christ, and in some degree his humanity likewise. To