HEB. VI. 4-6 EXPLAINED. 25
they had a mind to leave the finest wheat for their old acorns. Wherefore, although tasting contains a diminution in it, if compared _ with that spiritual eating and drinking, with that digestion of gospel truths, turning them into nourishment, which are in true believers, yet, absolutely considered, it denotes that apprehension and experi- ence of the excellency of the gospel as administered by the Spirit, which is a great privilege and spiritual advantage, the contempt whereof will prove an unspeakable aggravation of the sin, and the remediless ruin of apostates. The meaning, then, of this character given concerning these apostates is, that they had some experience of the power and efficacy of the Holy Spirit from heaven, in gospel administrations and worship. For what some say of faith, it hath here no place; and what others affirm of Christ, and his being the gift of God, comes in the issue unto what we have proposed. And we may observe, farther to clear the design of the apostle in this commination,—
I. That all the gifts of God under the gospel are peculiarly hea- venly, John iii. 12; Eph. i. 3;—and that in opposition, 1. To earthly things, Col. iii. 1, 2; 2. To carnal ordinances, Heb. ix. 23. Let them beware by whom they are despised.
II. The Holy Ghost, for the revelation of the mysteries of the gospel, and the institution of the ordinances of spiritual worship, vs the great gift of God under the new testament.
III. There ts a goodness and excellency in this heavenly guft which may be tasted or experienced in some measure by such as never receive them in their life, power, and efficacy. They may taste,—1. Of the word in its truth, not its power; 2. Of the worship of the church in its outward order, not in its inward beauty; 3. Of the gifts of the church, not its graces.
IV. A rejection of the gospel, tts truth and worship, after some
- experience had of their worth and eacellency, is a high aggravation of sin, and a certain presage of destruction.
The THIRD property whereby these persons are described is added in these words, Kal mwerdsous yevndzvrag Ilvebwarog &yiov,—“ And were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” This is placed in the middle or centre of the privileges enumerated, two preceding it and two following after, as that which is the root and animating principle of them all. They all are effects of the Holy Ghost, in his gifts or his graces, and so do depend on the participation of him. Now, men do so partake of the Holy Ghost as they do receive him; and he may be received either as unto personal inhabitation or as unto spiri-
tual operations. In the first way, “the world cannot receive him,”
John xiv. 17,—where the world is opposed unto true believers; and therefore those here intended were not in that sense partakers of
26 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
him. His operations respect his gifts. So to partake of him is to have a part, share, or portion in what he distributes by way of spiri- tual gifts; in answer unto that expression, “All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will,” 1 Cor. xii. 11. So Peter told Simon the magician that he had no part in spiritual gifts; he was not partaker of the Holy Ghost, Acts viii. 21. Wherefore, to be partaker of the Holy Ghost is to have a share in and benefit of his spiritual operations.
But whereas the other things mentioned are also gifts or operations of the Holy Ghost, on what ground or for what reason is this men- tioned here in particular, that they were “made partakers of him,” which, if his operations only be intended, seems to be expressed in the other instances?
Ans. 1. It is, as we observed before, no unusual thing in the Scripture to express the same thing under various notions, the more effectually to impress a consideration and sense of it on our mind, especially where an expression hath a singular emphasis in it, as this hath here used; for it is an exceeding aggravation of the sins of those apostates, that in these thimgs they were “partakers of the Holy Ghost.”
2, As was before intimated also, this participation of the Holy Ghost is placed, it may be, in the midst of the several parts of this description, as that whereon they do all depend, and that they are all but instances of it. They were “ partakers of the Holy Ghost” in that they were “once enlightened ;” and so of the rest.
3. It expresseth their own personal interest in these things. They had an interest in the things mentioned not only objectively, as they were proposed and presented to them in the church, but subjectively, as they themselves in their ow persons were made partakers of them. It is one thing for a man to have a share in and benefit by the gifts of the church, another to be personally himself endowed with them. ©
4. To mind them in an especial manner of the privilege they en- joyed under the gospel, above what they had in their Judaism: for whereas they had not then so much as heard that there was a Holy Ghost,—that is, a blessed dispensation of him in spiritual gifts, Acts xix. 2,—now they themselves in their own persons were made par- takers of him; than which there could be no greater aggravation of their apostasy. And we may observe, in our way, that the Holy Ghost is present with many as unto powerful operations with whom he is not present as to gracious inhabitation; or, many are made partakers of him in his spiritual gifts who are never made partakers of him in his saving graces, Matt. vii, 22, 23.