To sum up this whole matter: These outward means are granted unto men in a way of grace, favour, and bounty. Their ends, singly considered, are good, holy, and righteous. Moreover, they are all of them properly effectual in that they always attain the end where- unto they are designed. And that men are not bettered by them, or more advantaged than they are, is merely from their own pravity and obstinacy. And those who approve not of this dispensation
VER. 7-11.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 85
seem to have a great mind to contend with Him who is mightier than they.
Furthermore, from the exposition before premised we may ob- serve, that,—
Obs. XXIV. No privilege, no outward means of grace, no other advantage whatever, will secure men in a course of sinning from the wrath and justice of God.
Who could be made partakers of more things of that kind than were this people at that time? Besides the great privilege derived unto them from their fathers, in that they were the posterity of Abraham, the friend of God, and had the token of his covenant in their flesh, they had newly erected amongst them a glorious church-state, wherein they were intrusted with all the ordinances of God’s worship. These privileges the apostle sums up, Rom. ix. 4, 5, “ Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers.” “The adoption” was theirs; God had no other children or family in the world but them,—they were his family when his curse was upon all other families of the earth. And “the glory” was theirs; it was unto them and amongst them that God so mani- fested his glory as that it became their glory, their glory above all the nations of the world. And “the covenants” were theirs; both the covenant that was made with Abraham, in all the benefits of it, and the especial covenant that God made with them at Sinai. There also was the law given unto them, and the solemn worship of God, in all the laws and ordinances thereof, made their peculiar. What works of providence God wrought amongst them we have declared. Doubtless they bare themselves high on these things) So when they contended with Moses and Aaron, their plea was, “ that all the people was holy,” so that they saw no reason for their peculiar pre- eminence. And who also amongst the sons of men is not ready on far less occasions so to do? Some cry they are the church, and some boast of other things; but be men what they will, their pri- vileges and advantages what they can desire, if they are secure and obstinate sinners, the wrath of God at one time or other will over- take them. And some will one day find to their sorrow what their boasting will cost them. lLaodicea hath done so long ago; and so in due time will she who says, “I sit as a queen, and shall see no sorrow.” For although the hand of church privilege should join in with the hand of secular advantage, yet the guilty shall not go un- punished. And one reason hereof lies in another proposition that ariseth from the words, namely, that,—
Obs. XXV. There are determinate bounds fixed unto God’s patience and forbearance towards obstinate sinners.
So here he assigned the space of forty years for the consumption
86 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. IIT.
of this provoking generation. And as in the point of promise it is observed, that the very same night wherein the time limited was accomplished the people were delivered out of Egypt; so in the point of threatening it is remembered, that at the end of forty years, wherein the people wandered in the wilderness, there was not one remaining of those who were first numbered in Horeb. However men may flatter and please themselves, nothing can secure sinners from punishment in the appointed season. See 2 Pet. iii, 8-10.
Secondly, We shall now proceed to the last thing contained in the example insisted on by the apostle; and that is, the consequent of the sin of the people in their punishment. And this is expressed,—
1. In the procuring cause of it,—that in the sense God had of their sin, it grieved him: “ Wherefore I was grieved with that generation.” The meaning of the words, both in the psalm and in this place, hath been before declared. It expresseth how God stood affected towards the people, as to the inward frame of his heart; for these affections doth God take upon himself for our instruction. He says that he will “ rejoice over his people, assuredly with his whole heart and his whole soul,” Jer. xxxii, 41; and upon the account of their sin it is said, that it “grieved him at his heart that he had made man on the earth,” Gen. vi. 6. And these expressions, wherever they are used, are signs of great and signal actions. So in the last case mentioned, God said “it grieved him at his heart,” because he was going to do that which could proceed from no principle that we can apprehend but great trouble and molestation. That, then, which is here intended is such a oxéo1s, such a “ frame” or “ habit” of mind or heart in God, as had the people of that generation for its object. It is not, then, Adqa, “ dolor,” or “ grief,” properly so called, that is here intended; neither does either of the words here used, the one by the psalmist, the other by the apostle, express that passion: for although God ascribes it often unto himself, yet it is not here intended, but rather indigna- tion and trouble. He was burdened, vexed, displeased beyond what patience or forbearance could extend unto. In brief, it includes these two things:—(1.) The judgment or mind of God concerning the greatness of their sin, with all its aggravations; and, (2.) His determinate will of punishing them. Hence we may observe that,—