(5.) His last refuge is in Isa. li. 16, “ Where the work of God,” as he observes, “in the reduction of the people of the Jews from the captivity of Babylon is called his planting the heavens, and laying the foundations of the earth. And the Vulgar Latin translation,’ as he further observes, “renders the word, ‘ut ccelum plantes, ut terram fundes, ascribing that to the prophet which he did but de- clare. And in this sense he contends that God the Father is said to make the worlds by his Son.” Ans. [1.] The work mentioned is not that which God would do in the reduction of the people from Babylon, but that which he had done in their delivery from Egypt, recorded to strengthen the faith of believers in what for the future he would yet do for them. [2.] The expressions, of planting the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, are in this place of the prophet plainly allegorical, and are in the very same place de- clared so to be:—Ist. In the circumstance of time when this work is sald to be wrought, namely, at the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt, when the bone and the earth, properly so called, could not be made, planted, founded, or crete’. 2dly. By an adjoined exposition of the allegory: “I ners put my words in thy mouth, othe and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.” This was his planting of the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, even the erection of a church and political state amongst the Israelites, [3.] It is not to the prophet, but to the church, that the words are spoken; and Y3? and 7b’? are not “ut plantes” and “ut fundes,” but “ad plantandum,” “to plant,” and “ad fundandum,” “ to lay
VER. 1, 2.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 73
the foundation.” And our author prejudicates his cause by making use of a translation to uphold it which himself knows to be corrupt. [4.] There is not, then, any similitude between that place of the prophet, wherein words are used allegorically (the allegory in them being instantly explained), and this of the apostle, whose discourse is didactical, and the words used in it proper and suited to the things intended by him to be expressed. And this is the substance of what is pleaded to wrest from believers this illustrious testimony given to the eternal deity of the Son of God. We may yet further consider the reasons that offer themselves from the context for the removal of the interpretation suggested :—
1. It sinks under its own weakness and absurdity. The apostle,
intending to set out the excellency of the Son of God, affirms that “by him the worlds were made;” that is, say they, “Christ preach- ing the gospel converted some to the faith of it, and many more were converted by the apostles’ preaching the same doctrine; where- upon blessed times of light and salvation ensued.” Who not overpowered with prejudice could once imagine any such sense in these words, especially considering that it is as contrary to the design ot the apostle as it is to the importance of the words themselves? This is: that which Peter calls men’s “wresting the Scripture” to their own perdition. _ 2. The apostle, as we observed, writes didactically, plainly express- ing the matter whereof he treats in words usual and proper. To what end, then, should he use so strained an allegory in a point of doctrine, yea, a fundamental article of the religion he taught, and that to express what he had immediately in the words foregoing properly expressed; for,‘ By whom he made the worlds” is no more, in these men’s apprehensions, than, “In him hath he spoken in these latter days?” Nor is this expression anywhere used, no, not in the most allegorical prophecies of the Old Testament, to denote that which here they would wrest it unto. But making of the world signifies making of the world in the whole Scripture throughout, and nothing else.
8. The making of the worlds here intended was a thing then past: “Exofnoc, “He made them;” that is, he did so of old. And the same word is used by the LXX. to express the old creation. But now that which the Jews called “The world to come,” or the blessed state of the church under the Messiah, the apostle speaks of as of that which was not yet come, the present worldly state of the Judaical church yet continuing.
4, The words aidy and aidives, or pby and piney which are so rendered, taken absolutely, as they are here used, do never in any one place of the Scripture, in the Old or New Testament, signify the new creation, or state of the church under the gospel; but the whole
74 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. L
world, and all things therein contained, they do in this very epistle, chap. xi. 3.
5. Wherever the apostle in this epistle speaks in the Judaical idiom of the church-state under the Messiah, he never calls it by the name of ofxovuévy or aidy, but still with the limitation of, “to come,” as chap. ii. 5, vi. 5. And where the word is used absolutely, as in this place and chap. xi. 3, it is the whole world that is in- tended.