VER. 6.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 297
filling up Christ’s promised kingdom, gave countenance thereby unto their own violence, rapine, and filthiness: (2.) That we be not peremp- tory, troubling our own faith and that of others about the future ac- complishment of such promises as probably are fulfilled already, and that in a sense suited to the analogy of faith and tenor of the new covenant: (3.) That in such as wherein we have a well-grounded assurance that they are yet to be fulfilled, we wait quietly and pa- tiently for the salvation of God; not making our understanding of them the rule of any actions for which we have not a plain war- ranty in the prescription of our duty in other places of Scripture. Obs. IY. 3. Some promises of God, as to their full accomplishment, may beconfined unto some certain time and season, although they may have, and have, their use and benefit in all seasons; and until this is come there can be no failure charged, though they be not fulfilled. Thus was it with the great promise of the coming of Christ before mentioned. It was given out from the foundation of the world, Gen. iii. 15, and in the counsel of God confined to a certain period of time, determined afterwards in the prophecies of Jacob, Daniel, Haggai, and otherwise. This all the saints of God were in expec- tation of from the first giving of the promise itself. Some think that Eve, upon the birth of Cain,—concerning whom she used these words, “I have obtained a man from the Lorn,” which they contend should be rendered, “the man the Lorp,’—did suppose and hope that the promise of the exhibiting of the blessing Seed was accom- plished. And if they looked for him on the nativity of the first man that was born in the world, it is very probable that their hearts were frequently made sick, when their hopes were deferred for four thousand years. See Gen. v. 29, xlix. 18, compared with Luke ii. 80, Exod. iv. 18. And many a time, no doubt, they were ready to call the truth of the promise, and therein the faithfulness of God, into question. Great desires they had, and great expectations, which were frustrated. Hence our Saviour tells his disciples, that “ many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which they saw, and saw them not,” Matt. xiii. 17. They desired, hoped, prayed, that the promise might be fulfilled in their days; which yet it was not. Hence our apostle tells us that “these all died in faith, not having received the promise,’ Heb. xi. 13; that is, not the ac- complishment of it. Yet this their disappointment did not in the least shake the stability of the promise; for although it was not yet actually fulfilled, yet they had benefit from it, yea, life and salvation by it. And this God hath provided, in reference unto those pro- mises whose actual accomplishment is confined unto a certain sea- son, which a present generation shall not be made partakers of :— there is that grace and consolation in them, for and unto them that do believe, that they have the full benefit of the merciful and spi-
298 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. Iv.
ritual part of them, when they are utterly useless to them who have only a carnal expectation of their outward accomplishment. Thus, that other promise made unto Abraham, for the delivery of his pos- terity out of thraldom, was limited to the space of four hundred years, Gen. xv. 13, 14. Very probable it is that the Israelites, during their bondage in Egypt, were utterly unacquainted with the computation of this time, although they knew that there was a pro- mise of deliverance; for, as it is most likely they had lost the tra- dition of the revelation itself, or at least knew not how to state and compute the time, so did God order things that they should depend on his absolute sovereignty, and neither make haste nor despond. And yet, doubtless, through the delay they apprehended in the ac- complishment of the promise, some of them fell into one of these extremes, and some of them into the other;—the first way the children of Ephraim seem to have offended, “whom the men of Gath who were born in the land slew,” when “they came down to take away their cattle,’ 1 Chron. vii. 21. Probably these sons of Ephraim would have been entering upon Canaan, and spoiling of the Amorites before the appointed and full time came; and they perished in their undertaking. Others again, no doubt, in their great distresses and anguish of soul, were exercised with many fears lest the promise had utterly failed. But there was no alteration in God or his word all this while. This made the holy men afterwards have a great respect unto the set time of the fulfilling of promises, when by any means it was infallibly discovered, and then to fix themselves to such duties as might be meet for their season. So the psalmist prays that “God would arise and have mercy upon Zion, because the time to favour her, yea, the set time,” the time fore-designed and appointed, “ was come,” Ps. cii. 13. And when Daniel understood, by the books of Jeremiah the prophet, that the time of the fulfilling of the promise for returning the captivity of Judah was at hand, he set himself to prayer, that it might he done accordingly, Dan. ix. 2, 3, 17. But what shall men do in reference unto such promises, when they know not by any means the set time of their accomplishment?