Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

eternal life, This is the law and the prophets), as "This signifies my body;" and as to the phrase, Crucify the Son of God afresh (Heb. vi. 6), it is plainly figurative, and equivalent to putting him to open shame. Christ once suffered (1 Peter iii. 18), once in the end of the world: he was offered in his own blood, not like the high-priest offering every year a sacrifice, Heb. ix. 25, 26, Rom. vi. 10. He died unto sin once, ¿páñaž-once for all, Heb. vii. 27, ix. 12, x. 10.

As nothing can be a sign of itself, it is equally a solecism to call a present event a remembrance of itself.

28. The Trinity.

John i. 1, Kai Dɛòs ĥv ò Xóyos. The Christian church considers the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to be three persons, but one in substance, power, and eternity; the Father neither created nor begotten; the Son not created, but eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost neither created nor begotten, but eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son (Nicene and Athanasian creeds): it considers Christ as God, of the substance of the Father, because he is the λóyoç, John i. 1. SYLLOGISM I. By the Word (or λóyos) all things were made, John i. 3. By Christ all things

were made, 2 Peter iii. 5, Ephes. iii. 9, Coloss. i. 16. Therefore Christ is the

Word.

SYLLOGISM II. The Word is God, John i. 1. Christ is the
Word, Rev. xix. 30. Therefore Christ

is God.

That Christ is of one substance with the Father, follows of course -not oμolovσios, as the semi-Arians maintained at the Council of Nice, but oμoovaios, having one will with the Father, as God: I and my Father are one, John x. 30.

Socinus said, “The Word was the mandate of the Father;" but Dr. Hey asks, Could the mandate be the Father, or be with the Father before mandates were made; or could the mandate make all things? Hey, Divinity Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 110, 329.

Here, in avoiding a division of the substance, we do not, like the Sabellians, confound the persons; for the offices of the

the first devising a plan,

several persons keep them distinct the second executing, and the third applying it. He (the Spirit) shall glorify me; for He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you, John xvi. 14: these are the words of that Son whom God sent into the world.

29. Peculiarities of St. Luke's style.

Matthew and Mark arrange the facts chronologically; Luke (like Livy, Suetonius, &c.), according to a classification of events; and here tenses are less regarded or material. Luke wrote the Acts (in the latter part of which he was personally concerned, quorum pars magna fuit) as a journal; and men write journals, sometimes in the present, and sometimes in the imperfect tense. Luke wrote his gospel under the dictation of Paul, and caught his master's manner. He was a man, too, of education, and may have adopted the enallage of change of tense to give his treatise a livelier interest. His rehearsal of the songs of Mary, Simeon, and Zacharias, shews an elegant mind; and the history of the transactions at Emmaus may be singled out as graphical. See Bishop Cleaver's sermon on St. Luke's style; and Adam Clarke's Commentary.

30. The genealogy of Christ.

It was necessary that a virgin should conceive, and bring forth a son, of the tribe of Judah and family of David,--who should be born at Bethlehem. Now, when Joseph was diverted, by the angel Gabriel, from his purpose of divorcing Mary, he repaired with her to Bethlehem, his own city, to be enrolled in the Roman census, as he was of the house and lineage of David; and, not prosecuting Mary according to Deuteronomy xxii. 23, 24, he was held to be the legal father of the child Jesus.

But as Gentiles, to whom Luke wrote, might ask, how was Christ of the family of David, if Joseph was not his real father, it was necessary to trace the genealogy of Mary, and to connect her too with the family of David.

It was not strictly necessary that the mother of the Messiah should be of the tribe of Judah, any more than it was necessary that every or any female of the ancestral line should be of that

tribe: we find, indeed, among these females, Rahab a Canaanitess, and Ruth a Moabitess; and the Jewish women of every tribe longed for a numerous offspring, as multiplying their chances for the honour of bringing forth the great Deliverer. Hence records were kept in every family of their domestic pedigree, in addition to the public records; but chiefly in the tribe of Judah.

Mary, as the cousin of Elisabeth, it is said, was of the tribe of Levi; but this tribe had been blended with that of Judah by the marriage of Aaron with Elisheba, sister of Naashon, prince of Judah, Exod. vi. 23, Num. i. 7. Jeremiah blends the two tribes as giving birth to the Messiah--Judah as king, Levi as priest, Jer. xxxiii. 17, 24, Mal. ii. 4.

Gabriel had told the virgin, that God should give her divine Son the throne of his father David. Mary is called by the Jews the daughter of Heli, (see Lightfoot on Luke iii. 23), and by the early Christian historians, the daughter of Joachim ; but Joachim and Eliakim, of which Eli is a contraction, are transposable (2 Chron. xxxvi. 4), both being names of God, and Matthan and Melchi, says Eusebius (lib. i. c. 8), married the same woman, so that Jacob in the line of Solomon, and Heli in that of Nathan, were half-brothers. Joseph came from David, by the line of Solomon (Matt. i. 6); Mary from David, by the line of Nathan, his other son (Luke iii. 31); and both lines met in Salathiel (Matt. i. 12, 13, Luke iii. 27), and again diverged in the sons of Zerubbabel. See Adam Clarke's Bible, Prolegom., and Barrett's Genealogy.

The Jews never inserted women in their public genealogies; but when a line ended with a female, the name of her husband was inserted, and he was called the son of her father, though really the son-in-law. Hence Joseph's genealogy was the public recorded and legal genealogy. Observe, Matthew, recording the natural pedigree in the descending line, says all along, “A begat B," &c.: Luke, ascending from Joseph, through Heli, according to the public line or legal genealogy, writes, "which was the son," &c.; and says of Jesus wç ¿voμížɛto, as was reckoned by law," the son of Joseph."

The female established the descent in both branches, but Joseph was the legal representative. Son signifies, in both the cases of Salathiel and Joseph, son-in-law. Hale, vol. iii. p. 42.

31. The birth-right and the blessing.

A birth-right implied, 1st, A double portion of the father's effects, called, or the first-born, that the head and representative of the family might support its honour, and assist the younger children; 2d, An authority over his brethren, as a judge for settling internal differences, and a leader in redressing external wrongs, Gen. xxvii. 29, xlix. 3, 4, 8 (Brown's Antiq. vol. ii. p. 285); 3d, Before the law, the first-born presided as priest at the family-sacrifices; 4th, He occupied the first place, Gen. xliii. 33; 5th, To the first-born was attached the honour of being the progenitor of the Messiah; and, 6th, The firstborn were, all along, the types of Him who should be the firstborn among many brethren (Parkhurst, Rom. viii. 29), and should be the first-born from the dead, Colos. i. 18, Acts xxvi. 22, 1 Cor. 15, 20, 23, Rev. i. 5.

All these privileges might be forfeited by gross misconduct, or sold for base advantage. Esau sold them for a mess of pottage. The parent might reserve the whole or part of his own blessing for which son soever he pleased. In Jacob's family, the first-born, Reuben, was set aside from the honour of giving birth to the Messiah, by reason of his invading his father's bed by concubinage with Bilhah (Gen. xxxv. 22, xlix. 40); as were the two next, Simeon and Levi, as instruments of treachery and cruelty to the Shechemites (Gen. xxxiv. 25, xlix. 5-7): and Judah, the fourth son, was selected as the next in order to be blessed as the progenitor of Shiloh, and the holder of the sceptre or rod of authority, Gen. xlix. 10. In the case of Esau, Isaac pronounced the blessing on Jacob by mistake, and could not recall it; for as to the birth-right in the family, Esau had to blame himself: consequently he hated Jacob, not on account of the birth-right, but of the blessing he had filched from their father, Gen. xxvii. 41. Yet he received a blessing; which his posterity have amply realised. Another instance of the blessing conveyed ignorantly and involuntarily-contrary to the right of primogeniture—was that of Jacob's setting his right hand on the head of Ephraim, instead of that of Manasseh, the firstborn; which displeased Joseph, but could not be retracted, Gen. xlviii. 8-22, xli. 51, 52.

[ocr errors]

32. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire: mine ears hast thou opened. Margin, "digged;" "penetrated," Parkhurst. Psalm xl. 6. Allusion to a Jewish custom.

The whole purport of this verse, and of various other passages in the Old Testament, is to depreciate the sacrifices of the Levitical law as substitutes for moral obedience, or as having any value save as types of the one sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. The passage in question is quoted, with some slight variation, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. x. 5, A body hast thou prepared me; karηpríow, adjusted, adapted to me. As to the custom alluded to, it is that of a master's boring with an awl, to the door or door-post, the ear of a servant, who, on the seventh year of service, had the option of going out free, but of his own accord chose to remain, through pure love of his master (Exod. xxi. 2, Deut. xv. 16, 17, Jer. xxxiv. 14); so that this custom is consistent with Bishop Horne's interpretation, "God hath made me obedient"-founded on Isaiah 1. 5, The Lord hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious: I willingly devote myself, through his grace, to his service, on a principle of love to him; and consent to the rite which makes me his for ever. The meaning of David and Paul, then, is the same, as applied to the Messiah, who took upon him the form of a servant, Philip. ii. 7.

33. Dates of the principal epochs in the Old and New Testament histories.

B.C.

Heb. text.

Epochs of the Old Testament history.

4004 Creation of the world.*

2349 Deluge.

2247 Babel built, and confusion of tongues.

2217 Assyrian empire founded by Nimrod; Nineveh by Ninus.

* According to the Hebrew text, 4,004; Septuagint, 5,872; Samaritan, 4,700. With these dates of the creation, the year of any other event according to the common Hebrew text being given, it will be easy to ascertain the Septuagint and Samaritan dates. Hale and the best later divines shew satisfactorily the Samaritan to be the true reckoning.

D

« ZurückWeiter »