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ed of in the psalm are a prophetical direction designed for your special use in your present condition.

§2. (I.) (Poßnowμev.) "Let us fear," The noun (CoẞOS,) and the verb (Poßεopa,) are used in the New Testament to express all sorts of fears; natural, civil, sinful, and religious fear. The fear here intended is religious, relating to God, his worship, and our obedience; and this is fourfold, (1.) of terror, (2.) of diffidence, (3.) of reverence, (4.) of care, solicitousness, and watchfulness. Let us inquire which of them it is that is intended.

In this example of God's dealing with their progenitors in the wilderness, he declares also that there is included a commination of similar dealing with all others who shall fall into the same sin of unbelief; none may flatter themselves with vain hopes of any exemption in this matter; for unbelievers shall never enter into the rest of God, which he farther confirms in these two verses, though his present exhortation be an immediate inference from what went before; "Wherefore let us fear." How must we do this? With what kind of fear? Not with a fear of diffidence, of doubting, of wavering, of uncertainty as to the event of our obedience; this is enjoined to none, but is evidently a fruit of unbelief, and therefore cannot be our duty. Neither can it be a dismayedness of mind upon a prospect of difficulties and dangers in the way; for this is the sluggard's fear, who cries, "there is a lion in the streets, I shall be slain." Nor is it that general fear of reverence with which we ought to be possessed in all our concerns with God; for that is not particularly influenced by threatenings and the severity of God; seeing we are bound always, in that sense to "fear the Lord and his goodness." It remains, therefore, that the fear here intended, is compounded of an awful apprehension of the holiness and greatness of God, with

his severity against sin, balancing the soul against temptation, and careful diligence, in the use of means to avoid the threatened evil.

§3. 'Lest a promise being left us,' (pyrole naladesπομένης της επαγγελίας.) The intention of these words is variously apprehended by interpreters; but the dif ference comes to this, whether by (naladeiroμevns) being left,' the act of God in giving the promise, or the neglect of men in refusing it, be intended. The verb here used, (nalaλew) is of an ambiguous signification; sometimes it is used for (desero, negligo,) to desert, neglect, or forsake in a culpable manner. Frequent instances of this occur in all authors; and if that sense be here admitted, it confines the meaning of the words to the latter interpretation; 'Lest the promise being forsaken or neglected.' The word may here well de. note the act of God, in leaving or proposing the promise to us; a promise remaining for us to mix with faith. Whichever of them you embrace, the main design of the apostle, in the whole verse, is kept entire, and either way the result of the whole verse is the same. According to the first, this is the sum: seeing therefore that they miscarried through contumacy and unbelief, let us fear lest we fall into the same sins by leaving the promises, and so come short of entering into the rest now proposed. In the second way: take heed lest by your unbelief, rejecting the promise graciously left us, you fall short of the rest of God. I shall not absolutely determine upon either sense, but am inclined to embrace the former; because the apostle seems in these words to lay the foundation of all his ensuing arguments and exhortations in this chapter; and this is, that a promise of entering into the rest of God is left us now under the gospel. Besides, the last clause of the words, 'Lest any of you should seem

to come short of it," do primarily and directly express the sin and not the punishment of unbelievers, as we shall see afterwards; the promise, and not the rest of God, is therefore the object in them considered. Moreover the apostle after sundry arguments gathers up all into a conclusion, ver. 11, "there remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God;", where the word (atodeitelα) rendered remaineth, of the same root with this, is used in the sense of the first interpretation.

$4. Of entering into his rest.' Expositors generally grant, that it is the rest of glory which is here intended; but I must take the liberty to dissent from that supposition, upon the following reasons:

1. The rest here proposed is peculiar to the gospel, and contradistinct from that proposed to the people under the economy of Moses; for, whereas it is said, that the people in the wilderness failed, and came short of entering into the rest promised them, the apostle proves from the psalmist, that there is another rest proposed under the gospel; and this cannot be the eternal rest of glory, because those under the Old Testament had the promise of that rest, no less than we have under the gospel. For with respect that, our apostle affirms, that the gospel was preached to them as well as to us; no less truly, though less clearly. And this rest multitudes of them entered into; for they were both justified by faith, Rom. iv, 3-8, and had the adoption of his children, Rom. ix, 5. And when they died, entered into eternal rest with God. This, therefore, cannot be that other rest which is vided under the gospel, in opposition to that proposed under the law.

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2. He plainly carrieth on, throughout his discourse, an antithesis consisting of many parts: the principal

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subject of it is, the two people; those in the wilderness, and the Hebrews to whom the gospel was now preached. Now that rest whereinto they entered not, was the quiet settled state of God's solemn worship in the land of Canaan, or, in other words, a peaceable church state for the worship of God, in the land and place chosen for that purpose. Now it is not the rest of heaven that, in the antithesis between the law and gospel, is opposed to that just mentioned; but the rest that believers have in Christ, with that churchstate and worship, which, as the great prophet of the church, he has erected; and into the possession of which he powerfully leads them, as did Joshua the people of old into the rest of Canaan.

3. The apostle plainly affirms this to be his intention, ver. 3, "For we which have believed do enter into rest;" it is such a rest, it is that very rest, which believers enter into in this world; and this is the rest which we have by Christ in the grace and worship of the gospel.

4. Christ and the gospel were promised of old to the people as a means and state of rest; and in answer to those promises, they are here actually proposed to their enjoyment. This is that which the people of God in all ages looked for, and which in the preaching of the gospel was proposed to them.

5. The true nature of this rest may be discovered from the promise of it; for a promise is said to remain of entering into his rest. Now this promise is no other but the gospel itself, as preached to us, as the apostle expressly declares in the next verse. The want of a due consideration of this particular is what, I presume, hath led expositors into a mistake in this matter. For they eye only the promise of eternal life given in the gospel; which is but a part of it, and that con

sequentially to sundry other promises. That promise concerns only them who actually believe, but the apostle principally intends a promise proposed to men as the prime object of their faith and encouragement to believing, Christ himself, and the benefits of his mediation; which we must be first interested in, before we can lay any claim to the promise of eternal life. 6. The apostle's design is not to prefer heaven, immortality, and glory, above the law, and that rest in God's worship which the people had in the land of Canaan; for who, even of the Hebrews themselves, ever doubted of this? but to set out the excellency of the gospel, its worship, and the church-state, to which we are called by Jesus Christ, above all prior privileges; and if this be not always duly considered, no part of the epistle can be rightly understood.

$5. This being the rest here proposed, as promised in the gospel; our next inquiry is into the nature of it, or wherein it consists. And we shall find that it consists

1. In peace with God, in the free and full justification of the persons of believers from all their sins by the blood of Christ, Rom. v, 1, "Being justified by faith we have peace with God," Ephes. i, 4. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins." This is fully expressed, Acts xiii, 32, 33— 38, 39, "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise that was made unto the fathers: God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Nor is it of force to except, that this was enjoyed also un

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