served to the appointed season of its deliverance; the world shall never have the victory over it.

5. It becomes us to be filled with thoughts of and affections to spiritual things, to labor for an anticipation of glory, that we faint not in the consideration of the evils that may befall us on account of the gospel.

VERSES 39, 40.

And all these having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise; God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

$1. The apostle's concluding remark, and the subject stated. §2. (I.) Of whom he speaks. s. (II.) What is affirmed of them. $4. (III) What is denied concerning them. $5-7. (IV.) The reason of it. $8, 9. Observations.

§1. In this close of the apostle's discourse, which is IN an observation concerning all the instances of the faith of believers under the Old Testament, and his judgment concerning their state, four things are considerable;

1. Who they are of whom he speaks; "All these." 2. What he allows and ascribes to them; "They obtained a good report through faith."

3. What he yet denies to them; "They received not the promise."

4. The reason of it; "God having provided," &c.

$2. (I.) Those of whom he speaks in this close of his discourse, that they "obtained a good report through faith," are the same of whom he affirms in the beginning of it, ver. 2; for, of any distinction to be made between them, as some would insinuate, there is not the least intimation. It is said expressly of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that they "received not the promises," ver. 13; as well as of those now mentioned. It is one thing to obtain (εTayyεhas) promises, indefinitely, promises of any sort, as some are said to do, ver. 33;

and another to receive (THY ETAYYEλav) that signal promise which was made to the fathers. Nothing can be more alien from the design of the apostle, than to apply the promise intended to temporal deliverance, and freedom from suffering. Wherefore the "all these". intended, are all those who have been reckoned up from the giving out of the first promise concerning the Savior and Redeemer of the church, with the destruction of the works of the devil.

§3. (II.) Of all these it is affirmed, that they (papΤυρηθεντες δια πισίεως) obtained a good report through faith; they were well testified unto; they were God's martyrs, and he in a sense was theirs, giving witness to their faith; (see the Exposition of ver. 2.) That they were all of them so testified unto on account of their faith, we need no other testimony but this of the apostle; yet is there no doubt but that in the several ages of the church wherein they lived, they were renowned for their faith and the fruits of it in what they did or suffered.

$4. (III.) What he denies concerning them, is, that they "received not the promise." It is affirmed of Abraham that he "received the promise," ver. 17; which promise is declared by the apostle to be the great fundamental promise of the gospel, chap. vi, 13-18. The same which is the object of the faith of the church in all ages; wherefore the promise formally considered must in the one place be intended; and in the other it is considered materially as to the thing itself promised. The promise, as a faithful engagement of future good, they received; but the good thing itself was not in their days exhibited; besides, whatever this promise be, the apostle is positive that they did not receive it, but that the Christians in those days had received it. It is therefore not only untrue, and unsafe, but contrary to

the fundamental principles of our religion, the faith of Christians in all ages, and the design of the apostle in this whole epistle, to interpret this promise, as some do, of any thing but the coming of Christ in the flesh, of his accomplishment of the work of our redemption, with the unspeakable privileges and advantages that the church hath received thereby. That this promise was made to the elders from the beginning of the world; that it was not actually accomplished to them, which was necessarily confined to one season, called "the fulness of time;" and that herein lies the great difference of the two states of the church, that under the Old Testament, and that under the New, with the prerogative of the latter above the former, are such weighty sacred truths, that without an acknowledgment of them no important doctrine either of the Old Testament or the New can be rightly understood. This then was the state of believers under the Old Testament; they had the promise of the exhibition of Christ the Son of God in the flesh for the redemption of the church; this promise they received, saw afar off as to its actual accomplishment, were persuaded of the truth of it, and embraced it, ver. 13; the actual accomplishment of it they desired, longed for, and looked after, Luke x, 24; inquiring diligently into the grace of God contained therein, 1 Pet. i, 11-13; hereby they enjoyed the benefits of it even as we, Acts xv, 11; yet they received it not as to its actual accomplishment, in the coming of Christ; and the reason hereof the apostle gives in the next verse.

§5. (IV.) "God having provided," &c. Having declared the victorious faith of believers under the Old Testament, with what it enabled them to do and suffer, and given an account of their state, as to the actual ac¬ complishment of that promise which they lived on,

and trusted to, the apostle now compares that state of theirs with that of believers under the gospel, giving the pre-eminence to the latter, with the reason of it.

In the exposition of these words, Schlictingius proceeds on these principles; that the promise intended ver. 39, is the promise of eternal life; that under the Old Testament, believers had no such promise, whatever hopes or conjectures they might have of it; that both they and we at death, cease to be in soul and body until the resurrection, none entering before into eternal life. But, if so, if when any one dies, he is nothing or as nothing; if it is but one moment between death and the resurrection, as he contends, the state of the one is in nothing better than the other, although they should die thousands of years one before another. But as all these things are openly false, and contrary to the chief principles of the Christian religion, so they are utterly remote from the mind of the apostle, as we shall see in the exposition of the words.

Those of the church of Rome do hereby fancy a limbus, a subterraneous receptacle of souls, wherein, they say, the spirits of believers under the Old Testament were detained until after the resurrection of Christ, so that "they without us were not made perfect." But the apostle treats not here at all about the difference between one sort of men and another after death; but of that which was between them who lived under the Old Testament church state, whilst they lived, and those that live under and enjoy the privileges of the New, as is evident in the very reading of the epistle.

§6. "God having (poßλε↓μevs) provided; the word properly signifies foreseeing; but God's prævision is his provision, as being always accompanied with his preordination; his foresight with his decree. For known unto him are all his works from the foundation of the

world, Acts xv, 18. Now this provision of God is the (novoμa v napov) dispensation of the times, Ephes. i, 10; the ordering of the state, times, and seasons of the church, and the revelation of himself to it. "Something better;" that is, more excellent, a state above theirs, or all that is granted them. I suppose it ought to be out of question with all Christians, that it is the actual exhibition of the Son of God in the flesh, the coming of the promised seed, with his accomplishment of the work of redemption, and all the privileges of the church, in light, grace, liberty, spiritual worship, with boldness of access to God that ensued thereon, which is intended. For, were not these the things which they "received not" under the Old Testament? Were not these the things which were "promised" from the beginning; which were expected, longed for, and desired by all believers of old, who yet saw them only afar off, though through faith they were saved by virtue of them? And are not these the things whereby the church state of the gospel was perfected; the things alone wherein our state is better than theirs? For, as to outward appearances of things, they had more glory, costly ceremonies and splendor in their worship, than is appointed in the Christian church; and their worldly prosperity was for a long season very great, much exceeding any thing that the Christian church did then enjoy. To deny, therefore, these to be the better things that God provided for us, is to overthrow the faith of the Old Testament and the New.

§7. That they without us were not made perfect." Without us, is as much as without the things which are actually exhibited to us, the things provided for us, and our participation of them. They and we, though distributed by divine provision into distinct states, yet, with respect to the first promise, and the renovation of it to Abraham, are but one church, built on the same