VER. 15-19.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 181
siah, Itis literally much more true concerning the believing Gentiles, whose calling is expressly foretold and prophesied of in the foregoing verses, who saw the severe judgment of God on the unbelieving Jews, when, in the fatal destruction of their city and temple, their car- casses were truly cast out on the earth, and were “ an abhorring unto all flesh.” But here is also a representation of the final judgment of the last day, and everlasting punishment of the wicked; where- unto some of the words are applied, Mark ix. 44; which the Targum on the place also applies them unto. The casting out, therefore, of carcasses to be beheld and abhorred is a sore judgment. And the Jews suppose that all those who died under God’s displeasure in the wilderness were shut out of heaven or the world to come, Tractat. Sanhed. Perek. x. They inquire expressly who shall and who shall not be saved; and at once they deal pretty liberally with themselves: san pdiyd pon ond wr dyyy $5 ,—* All Israel shall have a part in the world to come:” which they prove out of these words of the pro- phet, “Thy people shall be all righteous,” Isa, lx. 21; which in- deed would do it to the purpose, could they prove themselves all to be the people there intended. But afterwards they lay in many exceptions to this rule, and among the rest pon pnd px oaten WW xan pbiyb;—* The generation in the wilderness have no portion in the world to come.” And they add their reason: Yon) 7IN 7aq. Nw wn’ ne ;—“ Because it is said, ‘In the wilderness shall ye be con- sumed, and there shall ye die’”” The redoubling of the expression, “ye shall be consumed,” “ye shall die,” they would have to signify first temporal death, then eternal.
Their carcasses évecov; “prostrata sunt,” say some,—‘ were cast down ;” properly “ceciderunt,” “fell,” that is, penally,—an aggrava- tion of their destruction. He doth not say, they “died,” but their carcasses “fell;” which intimates contempt and indignation; and so do the words denote in the story itself. And this is the second part of the description that is given of those with whom God was displeased for their sin, “Their carcasses fell in the wilderness;” the use whereof to the apostle’s purpose hath been declared. And we may see that,—
Obs. I1I. God sometimes will make men who have been wickedly exemplary in sin righteously exemplary in their punishment.
_ “They sinned,” saith the apostle, “and provoked God; and their carcasses fell in the wilderness.” To what end is this reported? It is that we might take heed that we “fall not after the same example of unbelief,’ Heb. iv. 11. There is an example in unbelief, and there is an example in the fall and punishment of unbelievers. This subject our apostle handles at large, 1 Cor. x. 5, 8-11. The sub- stance of his discourse in that place is, that God made the people in the wilderness, upon their sinful provocations, examples of his severity unto them that should afterwards live ungodly. And the
182 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. IIL
apostle Peter declares the same truth in the instances of the angels that sinned, the old world, and Sodom and Gomorrah, 2 Hpist. ii. 4-6. God made them irédsrywa, an express “ example” and “ representa- tion” of what should be done in others. And in the law of old, the reason why punishment was to be indispensably inflicted on pre- sumptuous sinners, was that others might “hear and fear, and do so no more.” Besides, in that government of the world by his provi- dence which God is pleased to continue, all ages and stories are full of instances of exemplary judgments and punishments, befalling and inflicted on such as have been notorious in their provocations; he thereby “revealing his wrath from heaven against the ungodliness of men,” Rom. i. 18. And oftentimes those judgments have had in them a direct testimony against and discovery of the nature of the sins revenged by them. Our Saviour, indeed, hath taught us that we are not to fix particular demerits and sins, by our own surmises, on persons that may be overtaken with dismal providences in the world, merely because they were so overtaken. Such was the con- dition of the “‘Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sac- rifices,” and the “ eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them ;” of whom he denies that, from what befell them, we have any ground to judge that they were “ greater sinners” than others, Luke xiii. 1-5. This only in such cases may be concluded, namely, that such persons were sinners as all are, and therefore righteously obnoxious at any time unto any severe judgment of God.
And the reason of God’s singling them out in such a manner is that mentioned in the same place by our Saviour, namely, to de- clare and proclaim unto others in the like condition with themselves, that “unless they repented, they should all likewise perish,” And so it befell this people, who neglected these instructive examples. Within a few years, thousands and tens of thousands of them had their blood, as it were, mingled with their sacrifices, being slain by multitudes in the temple, the place of their offerings; and no less number of them perishing in the fall and ruin of their walls and build- ings, battered down by the Romans. But in such cases God takes out men to be instructive in their sufferings unto others in a way of sove- reignty, as he caused the man to be born blind, without any respect unto particular demerit in himself or his parents, John ix. 2, 3, But yet this hinders not but that when men’s sins are visible, they are, as the apostle speaks, “open beforehand, going before to judg- ment,” 1 Tim. v, 24. They are spédnro, “manifest” to the judg- ment of all men, before they come to be laid open at the last day, And they “go to judgment” before the sinners themselves are brought thither. And with respect unto such as these, God may, and doth oftentimes, so connect provoking sins and extraordinary judgments or punishments, that men cannot but see and own the