IL.—THE PREFACE,
Tue general concernments of this Epistle have all of them been discussed and cleared in the preceding Exercitations and Discourses. The things and matters confirmed in them we therefore here suppose, and take for granted. And they are such, some of them, as without a demonstration whereof a genuine and perspicuous declaration of the design of the author, and sense of the Epistle, cannot be well
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founded or carried on. Unto them, therefore, we must remit the reader who de- sires to peruse the ensuing Exposition with profit and advantage. But yet, because the manner of the handling of things in those Discourses may not be so suited unto the minds of all who would willingly inquire into the Exposition itself, I shall here make an entrance into it, by laying down some such general principles and cir- cumstances of the Epistle as may give a competent prospect into the design and argument of the apostle in the whole thereof :—
I. The first of these concerns the persons whose instruction and edification in the faith is here aimed at. These in general were the Hebrews, the posterity of Abraham, and the only church of God before the promulgation of the gospel; who in those days were distributed into three sorts or parties :—
1. Some of them, believing in Christ through the gospel, were perfectly in- structed in the liberty given them from the Mosaical law, with the foundation of that liberty in its accomplishment in the person, office, and work of the Messiah, Acts ii. 41, 42.
2. Some, with their profession of faith in Christ as the Messiah promised, re- tained an opinion of the necessary observation of Mosaical rites; and these also were of two sorts:—(1.) Such as, from a pure reverence of their original insti- tutions, either being not fully instructed in their liberty, or, by reason of pre- judices, not readily admitting the consequences of that truth wherein they were instructed, abode in their observation, without seeking for righteousness or sal- vation by them, Acts xxi, 20. (2.) Such as urged their observation as indispen- sably necessary to our justification before God, Acts xy. 1; Gal. iii.,iv. The first sort of these the apostles bare with in all meekness, yea, and, using the liberty given them of the Lord, to avoid offending of them, joined with them in their practice as occasion did require, Acts xvi. 3, xxi. 23, 24, 26, xxyil. 9; 1 Cor. ix. 20; whence for a long season, in many places, the worship of the gospel and synagogue worship of the law were observed together, James ii. 2; though in process of time many disputes and differences were occasioned thereby between the Gentile and Jewish worshippers, Rom. xiv. The other sort they opposed as perverters of the gospel which they pretended to profess, Acts xv. 5, 6; Gal. ii. 13-16, iv. 9-11, v. 2. And of these some afterwards apostatized to Judaism; others, abiding in a corrupt mixture of both professions, separated themselves from the church, and were called Nazarenes and Ebionites.
3. Others,—far the greatest number of the whole people,—persisted in their old church-state, not receiving the salvation that was tendered unto them in the preaching of the gospel; and these also were of two sorts:—(1.) Such as, al- though they had not embraced the faith, yet were free and willing to attend unto the doctrine of it, “ searching the Scriptures” for a discovery of its truth, and in the meantime “instantly serving God,” according to the light of the Old Testa- ment which they had received; and in these was the essence of the Judaical church preserved unto its final dissolution, Acts xvii. 11, xxviii. 22-24, (2.) Such as, being hardened in their infidelity, blasphemed, scoffed at, and persecuted the gospel, with all that professed it, Acts xiii. 45, 50, xvii. 5, xviii. 6; 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16; Rom. xi. 7-10: whom, not long after, the vengeance of God overtook in their total de- struction.
Now, our apostle vehemently thirsting after the salvation of the Hebrews in general, Rom. ix. 1-3, x. 1, having all these several sorts or parties to deal withal, he so frames his Epistle unto them that it might be suited to all their good, in their conversion, instruction, edification, and establishment, as their several con- ditions did require,—the latter sort only excepted, who, being under judicial blind- ness, were cast out of the care of God and his, Acts xiii. 46,51. Hence in part is that admirable contexture of this Epistle, which Peter ascribes unto his eminent wisdom, 2 Pet. iii. 15: as it is indeed evident from the story that he did excel in
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applying himself to the various principles, capacities, and prejudices, of them with whom he had to do; the Lord Christ having set him forth as a great example of that diligence, zeal, and prudence, which he requires in the dispensers of the gos- pel. Divine reasonings, instructions, exhortations, promises, threats, arguments, are so interwoven in this Epistle, from the beginning to the end, that all to whose hands or hearing it should come might everywhere meet with that which was of especial and immediate concernment to themselves, unto which of the sorts before mentioned soever they did belong. And this principle we must have respect unto, in that intermixture of arguments to prove the truth of the gospel with exhorta- tions to constancy in the profession of it which we shall meet withal. The several conditions of those to whom the apostle wrote required that way of procedure. Hence no one chapter in the Epistle is purely dogmatical, the first only excepted, nor purely parenetical: for though the design that lies in view, and is never out of sight, be exhortation, yet far the greatest part of the Epistle is taken up in those doctrinals wherein the foundations of the exhortations do lie; both interwoven to- gether, somewhat variously from the method of the same apostle in all his other epistles, as hath been observed, that to the Galatians, which is of the like nature with this, only excepted.