VER. 15-19.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 185
shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,” Ps. lviii. 9, 10;—that is, God’s executing of dreadful judgments on wicked men to their destruction, shall justify them in their testimony and profession, and wash off all as- persions cast upon them; which shall cause them to “rejoice,” or cleanse their own ways upon the example set before them, and the mouth of iniquity shall at least for a season be stopped.
The use hereof is——1. That which Hannah proposeth, 1 Sam. ii. 3, “Tall no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth; for the LorpD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” Let men take heed how they arrogantly boast themselves in their sin and wickedness,—which is too common with provoking sinners; for God is a God of knowledge and judg- ment, If they regard not the judgment that is for to come, but put the evil day far away from them, yet let them take heed lest God single them out unto some signal vengeance in this world, to make them examples unto those that shall afterwards live un- godly. It is to me strange, that some men, considering their course and ways, should be so stupidly secure as not to fear every moment lest the earth should open and swallow them up, as it did Dathan and Abiram, or that thunder or lightning from heaven should con- sume them as it did Sodom, or that one judgment or other should overtake them as they are acting their villanies. But they are secure, and will cry “peace,” until they are surprised with “ sudden destruction.”
2. Let us learn to glorify God because of his righteous judgments. The saints in heaven go before us in this work and duty, Rev. xi. 15-18, xv. 8, 4, xix. 1, 2. So they did of old in the earth; as in that signal instance of the song of Moses upon the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, Exod. xv. 1-19. And God requires it at our hands. Not that we should rejoice in the misery of men, but we should do $0 in the vindication of the glory of God, which is infinitely to be preferred before the impunity of profligate sinners.
Obs. IV. Great destructions, in a way of judgment and vengeance, are instituted representations of the judgment and vengeance to come.
I dare not say, with the Jews, that all this provoking generation perished eternally, and that none of them shall have a blessed lot or portion in the world to come. They might repent of their sins and provocations. The oath of God was as to their temporal punish- ment, not their eternal ruin. There is a repentance which may prevail for the removal, or at least deferring, of a temporal judg- ment threatened and denounced, if not confirmed by oath, which yet is not prevalent to free the sinner from eternal ruin. Such
186 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. IIL
was the repentance of Ahab, and probably that of Nineveh. And there is a repentance and humiliation that may free the soul from eternal ruin, and yet not take off a temporal judgment threatened against it. Such was the repentance of David upon his adultery. The Lord put away the guilt of his sin, and told him that he should not die penally, but would not be entreated to spare the life of the child, nor him in those other sore afflictions which afterwards befell him on the same account, And thus might it be with some, yea, with many of those Israelites, God might give them repentance to make way for the pardon and forgiveness of their persons; never- theless he would so far take vengeance on their inventions as to cause their carcasses to fall in the wilderness. But yet this must be acknowledged, that their punishment was a great representation of the future judgment, wherein ungodly unbelievers shall be cast off for ever; for, as they fell visibly under the wrath and displeasure of God, and their carcasses were cast out in the wilderness as a loath- some abomination, so their judgment overtook them under this formal consideration, that they were excluded out of the rest of God. And these things together give an evident resemblance of the judgment to come, when sinners shall perish eternally under the wrath of God, and be for ever excluded out of his rest. So Jude affirms the same of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, verse 7. And hence many of God’s great judgments in this world are set out under such expressions, as that the teaching of the dread of the final judgment at the last day seems principally to be in- tended in them. See Isa. xxxiv. 1-5; Dan. vii. 9-11; Matt. xxiv. 29; Heb. x. 26, 27; 2 Pet. iii. 5-7; Rev. vi. 12-17.
Ver. 18.—The apostle pursues his design yet further, in making application of the example laid down and insisted on unto the He- brews, by way of interrogation, as to one circumstance more. And hereunto an answer is returned by him, and that such as is evidently supplied out of the story itself. Here also he discovers what was that particular sin which was the ground of all their other trans- gressions and miscarriages, the declaration of the danger and guilt whereof he principally intends: “ And to whom sware he that they should not.enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?”