Whatever notion such persons have or may have of the ways of God, whatever skill in the outward letter of his laws and institutions, yet they know neither the righteousness, nor the holiness, nor the efficacy, nor the usefulness, nor the beauty of any of them. These things are spiritually discerned, and they are spiritually blind; these are spirit and life, and they are flesh, and dead. And all this is evident from men’s despising of the ways of God or their dereliction of them. This none can do but those that know them not; for, “they that know the name of the Lorp,”—that is, any of the ways whereby he reveals himself,—“ will put their trust in him,” Ps, ix. 10. They will forsake neither him nor them. What Paul speaks in a way of extenuation as to some of the Jews, “ Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of life,” we may apply by way of exprobration unto some: ‘ Had they known the ways of God, as once they professed they did, they would not have forsaken them.’ And this may support us against the offences and scandals that are in the world upon the account of the apostasies of professors. Some that have professed religion in its power turn sensual worldlings; some who have professed it in its truth, as Protestants, turn Papists and idolaters. Shall any reflection be taken from hence, or be cast on the right ways of God, as though they were such as deserved to
VER. 7-11.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 93
be deserted? Whatever men, such men, have pretended or pro- fessed, the truth is, they never knew the ways of God in their light, power, efficacy, or beauty. Julian, that infamous apostate, was wont to boast concerning the Scriptures, “That he had read them, known them, and condemned them.” Unto whom it was truly replied, “That if he had read them, yet he understood or knew them not;” of which there needed no other evidence but that he condemned them.
3. “Unto whom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest.”
This is the last thing that remaineth to be considered; and it is the issue or event of the sin before declared,—what it came to in the holiness and righteousness of God, and what was the punishment that was inflicted on the offenders. And in this decretory sentence of God concerning this people, after all their temptations and pro- vocations, there is considerable,—
(1.) The trrevocableness of the sentence denounced against them. It is not any longer a mere threatening, but a sentence irreversibly passed, and enrolled in the court of heaven, and committed for execu- tion unto the honour, power, and veracity of God ; for he “sware” unto it, or confirmed it by his oath. All mere promises or threatenings whatever about temporal things have a tacit condition included in them. This, as occasion requires, is drawn forth, so as to alter and change the event promised or threatened. But when God inter- poseth with his oath, it is to exclude all reserves on such tacit con- ditions,—it is to show that the time wherein they might take place or be of use is elapsed. And the threatening so confirmed becomes an absolute sentence. And until it comes unto this, the state of sin- ners is not absolutely deplorable. But when the oath of God is gone out against them, all reserves for mercy, all former allowances of conditions are utterly cut off. And this is not the state only of them concerning whom it is recorded in an especial manner that he did so swear; but in such instances God shows what is the way of his holiness and severity with all sinners who fall into the like pro- vocations with them. For hereon doth the apostle ground his ex- hortation and caution, Heb. iv. 11, “ Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief ;” but if the tenor of God’s dealings with such unbelievers were not ab- solutely the same, if the oath of God extended only unto that gene- ration, though they fell, yet others might stand under the same guilt with them, which the apostle hence demonstrates to be otherwise.
(2.) The greatness of their sin, in the great offence that God took at it, and the provocation which, as it were, befell him thereon: He “sware in his wrath ;” that is, with great indignation. Let the place be read as before set down, where the frame of the heart of God towards them is expressed, and the greatness of his wrath and
94 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. III.
indignation will appear. Now, whereas the holy nature of God is not in itself eapable of such commotions, of such smoking wrath and anger as are therein described and represented, the sole end of these expressions must needs be to show the heinousness of the sin that the people were guilty of. And herein lies an infinite condescen- sion of God, in taking care to instruct some in and by his deserved wrath against others: for such weak and mean creatures are we, that we have need thus to be instructed in the holiness of God’s nature and the severity of his justice against sin; for whatever we may ween concerning ourselves, we are not indeed capable of any perfect notions or direct. apprehensions of them, but stand in need to have them represented unto us by such effects as we can take in the species of into [our] minds.