Karérauety.
VER. 4.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 285
copies, as also followed by some ancient translations, as the Sama- ritan and the Syriac. The occasion of this corruption was to avoid a pretended difficulty in the text, seeming to assert that God rested on the seventh day, and yet that he finished his work on that day. Besides, the story of the creation doth confine it to six days, and no more. But this expression, “ He finished his work on the seventh day,” seems to denote the continuance of his operation on that day; and indeed the Jews have many odd evasions, from an apprehension of a difficulty in this place. And Jerome thinks, though very un- duly, that from this expression in the original they may be pressed with an argument against their sabbatical rest. But there is a double resolution of this difficulty, either of them sufficient for its removal, and both consistent with each other. The first is, that the Hebrew word, by the conversive prefix having a sense of what is past given unto it, may well be rendered by the preterpluperfect tense. And so it is by Junius: “Cum autem perfecisset Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat, quievit ;’—“ And when God had perfected his work, on the seventh day he rested.” Thus the seventh day is not expressed as a time wherein any work was done, but as the time immediately present after it was finished. And “ finis operis non est ipsum opus;’—“ the term, end, or complement of a work, is not the work itself.” Again, the word here used, mp3, doth not properly signify “to work” or “effect,” but “to complete,” “perfect” or “accomplish.” TY WW in2NdD 50 ;—“ Had perfected his work that he had made.” Sothat on the seventh day there was no more work to do.
By this discourse the apostle seems only to have proved that the works were finished, and that God rested, or ceased from his work, on the seventh day. But this seemeth not to answer his intention, for he treats not absolutely about the rest of God (for that would not have been to his present purpose), but such a rest as his obedient creatures might enter into, whereof that rest of God was the founda- tion,—such as the rests were which he afterwards mentions in the land of Canaan, and under the gospel. Wherefore in this quota- tion he includes the sense of the whole words before laid down, namely, that upon and because of the rest of God on the seventh day, he sanctified and blessed that day to be a day of rest unto them that worship him, and a pledge of their entering into rest with him. Here, therefore, the command and appointment of the seventh day to be a Sabbath, or a day of rest unto men, from the foundation of the world, is asserted, as hath been proved elsewhere.
This, then, is the sum of what is here laid down, namely, that from the beginning, “from the foundation of the world,” there was a work of God, and a rest ensuing thereon, and an entrance pro- posed unto men into that rest, and a day of rest as a pledge thereof,
286 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [ CHAP. IV.
given unto them; which yet was not the rest intended by the psalmist, which is mentioned afterwards, as in the next verse.
Before we proceed, according to our designed method, we may take notice of the ensuing observations:—
Obs. I. Whatever the Scripture saith in any place, being rightly understood and applied, is a firm foundation for faith to rest upon, and for arguments or proofs in the matter of God’s worship to be deduced from.
Thus the apostle here confirms his own purpose and intention. His aim is to settle the judgment of these Hebrews in things per- taining to the worship of God; and to supply them with a sufficient authority which their faith might be resolved into. This he doth by referring them to a certain place of Scripture, where the truth he urgeth is confirmed. For, as I have showed before, he designed to deal with these Hebrews, not merely upon his apostolical autho- rity, and the revelations that he had received from Jesus Christ, as he dealt with the churches of the Gentiles, but on the common principles of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, which were mutually acknowledged by him and them. And a great work it was that he had undertaken, namely, to prove the abolishing of the worship of the Old Testament, and the introduction of a new kind of worship in the room of it, from testimonies of the Old Testament itself ;—a matter, as of great appearing difficulties in itself, so ex- ceedingly suited to the conviction of the Jews, as utterly depriving them of all pretences for the continuance in their Judaism. And this, through the especial wisdom given unto him and skill in holy writ, he hath so performed as to leave a blessed warranty unto the church of Christ for the relinquishment of the whole system of Mosaical worship, and a rock for the obstinate Jews to break them- selves upon in all ages, And this should encourage us,—1. To be diligent in searching of the Scriptures, whereby we may have in readiness wherewith at all times to confirm the truth and to stop the mouths of gainsayers; and without which we shall be easily tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. 2. Not to fear any kind of opposition unto what we profess in the ways and worship of God, if we have a word of truth to secure us, namely, such a word of prophecy as is more firm than a voice from heaven. It is utterly impossible that, in things concerning religion and the worship of God, we can ever be engaged in a cause attended with more diffi- culties, and liable to more specious opposition, than that was which our apostle was now in the management of. He had the practice and profession of the church, continued from the first foundation of it, resolved into the authority of God himself as to its institution, and attended with his acceptation of the worshippers in all ages, with other seeming disadvantages, and prejudices innumerable, to