be destroyed; which is fulfilled to the godly at the beginning of the thousand years; and when the thousand years are finished, death shall be removed from the wicked dead, to the end that they, with their companions, who a little before made head against Christ in his saints, may receive their final judgement. And death being here mentioned as an enemy to Christ's kingdom, must of necessity mean the abolishing of corporal death from the saints, at the beginning of the thousand years; since the death temporal or eternal of the wicked is a friend to Christ's kingdom. And death being also placed as the last of the enemies of Christ and his Church, clearly intimates, that many others of his enemies must be previously destroyed. And this is confirmed by verses 51 and 52: “ Behold I shew you a

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mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in " a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incor"ruptible, and we shall be changed." For Saint John tells us, that the last trumpet is the seventh; so that six will have sounded before this and he further saith, that the last end of all is not till the last trumpet. But there is a great interval and space within the time of the last trumpet, in which many things are to be done for at the first blast of it the enemy so falls, that the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ, in spite of all enemies and their anger; the dead saints are raised, and a reward given to them b but the whole space of this trumpet is the thousand years' reign of the saints, down to the last end of all, which shall not be till the last end of the last trumpet.c

I must yet consider one more place in which this Psalm is quoted. "Every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take

away sins ;

I but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for

ever,* sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool, &c." It is

b Rev. xi, 15-18. c Rev. xx, 1-12, &c. d Heb. x, 11-13.

* Dr. Homes omits the words 'for ever' (Elg to dinvekes :) I have placed them, but pointed according to what I conceive with Bowyer to be the true For the antithesis evidently is, that instead of offering the same sacrifices (plur.) oftentimes (woλλakıç) he offered one sacrifice for a continuance. ED.

sense.

here evident, that the Apostle applies this to explain the eminency of Christ's priesthood above the Levitical, in that the Levitical priests offered daily, Christ but once; they oftentimes the same sacrifice, he a perpetual one; they took not away sins, he did; they stood as servants, he sat down as Lord, according to Psalm cx.

This shews, that Christ did effectually attain to reign spiritually, in overcoming sin and Satan; which was witnessed by his making perfect atonement for the sins of all that are sanctified; and by his overcoming death and Satan in his resurrection, ascension, and assession at the right hand of God; whereby he got above all his enemies. And yet for all this the Apostle wrote, that Christ's enemies were not made his footstool; but (saith he) there he sits from thenceforth expecting till they be made his footstool (which we on carth also expect :) all which plainly signifies, that Christ must have another government, another manner or degree of subduing his enemies, than this. But it is now time to look at the other verses of this Psalm.

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v. 2. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies." Mr. Ainsworth, and our new Annotationists* parallel this with Psalm ii; asserting, that as the Jewish expositors generally acknowledge that Psalm to be concerning the Messiah, there is equal reason to acknowledge this. Now as in Psalm ii, it is said, Christ shall rule his enemies with a rod of iron, and break the incorrigible as a potter's vessel; even so in this Psalm it is said, he shall rule with the rod of his strength. This cannot be restrained to a mere spiritual efficacy: for he is to rule in the midst of his enemies; and how can Christ rule enemies spiritually?

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v. 3. Thy people shall be willing (or voluntaries) in the day of thy power," (or army, as Ainsworth asserts.) Now Peter assures us, that the great day of Christ is a thousand years;e and we must grant that this day of power must signify a distinct, determinate time, when Christ's power shall most eminently appear. Whether therefore we take this in a spiritual sense of acting grace after conversion; or in an ecclesiastical sense, as

* The New Annotationists, to whom our Author frequently appeals, are the Assembly of Divines, who in 1651 published the Bible with annotations, in two volumes folio. ED.

e 2 Pet. iii, 8.

that Christ's people shall be assembled to his Church, whose increase shall be abundant as the drops of the dew, falling from the womb of the morning; or in a corporal sense, that men shall be willing to pull down Christ's antichristian enemies in the day of his army, raised up to that end;-and whether we apply it specially to the Jews, first chosen to be his people and Church; or generally to all sorts of nations ;—when, I ask, since the incarnation, was there a day of power,' in which the generality of either sort, in any one of the said senses, were a willing people? On the contrary, ten for one in all ages are obstinate against Christ, and more especially the Jews. And therefore this must yet be fulfilled before the ultimate day of judgement, which doth not mend but end the incurable enemies of Christ.

v. 4. "

The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." The Apostle first infers the exceeding eminency of Christ's priesthood above that of Aaron; f secondly, that Christ must be a kingly priest, and that at Salem. Now, seeing Christ, by the oath of God, was made king of Salem, (a contraction of Jerusalem,) we must expect that infallibly to be fulfilled already. He hath indeed at Salem visibly acted the priest; but he hath never yet visibly acted his royalty there; which it is clear he will do by the next verse ;

v. 5. "The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath." So that when Christ acts the king there, then the kings of the earth that submit not to him must be stricken through by the wrath of God.

v. 6. "He shall judge among the Heathen, and fill the places with dead bodies: he shall wound the HEAD (NT not heads) over many countries." The words are plain for bringing Jews and Gentiles to submit to Christ, or they must be slain on heaps in fulfilling which, the Lord shall wound that same

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head over many countries,' that is, ANTICHRIST. And then, v. 7. Christ shall lift up his head :" i. e. his own power shall be as visibly exalted above his capital enemy, as his enemy's power was exalted against him.

Thus we have proved from these Psalms two of the heads,

f Heb, vii.

touching Christ's kingdom yet to come, viz. the universality of Christ's power, and the time when to be fulfilled. Next follows the third head—the SABBATISM which the saints shall then enjoy.

Psalm xcv, 7—11.

To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart, as "in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the 'wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: unto whom I swear in 'my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest.”

This Psalm was penned by a Jew, and is first urged upon the Hebrews by Paul (also a Jew) by way of exhortation to hear Christ's voice, and not fail of entering into the rest of God, as their forefathers did in the wilderness; and, secondly, by way of assurance, that some of the Jews (though they in the wilderness did not) shall enter into Christ's rest.g This the Apostle collects by a strong consequence thus: (see the Greek:) "For God saith,If they shall enter into my rest.' Seeing "therefore it remaineth that some must enter into it, and they "first evangelized entered not in through unbelief, He limiteth again a certain day—‘To-day’—saying in David, after so long "a time as it is said, To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden "not your hearts :' so that long after the Israelites were entered into Canaan under the conduct of Joshua, the Psalmist saith, To-day, &c.' 'For if Joshua, (the same as Jesus) had "given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a SABBATISM to the "people of God." Observe, the Apostle avoids the word Jews or Israelites, and uses a more general one, including both Jews. and Gentiles that shall believe, the people of God.' Observe further, that he calls the rest a Sabbatism; that is, a rest answering to the Sabbath that God appointed to man in the state of innocency. For by the Apostle's argument God so ordered it from the beginning, that one rest should aptly typify

g Heb. iii, 7, to end; and iv, 1-12.

another, in a descending line of order: the first Sabbath typified the rest in Canaan; and that in Canaan all other rests yet to come, whether spiritual, millennial, or ultimate glory.

But the precise question is, What rest does the Apostle here principally intend? The Jews had long enjoyed the Sabbath and Canaan rests; therefore these cannot be in the mind of the Apostle. And as to the spiritual rest by grace in the state of regeneration, &c., the Hebrews to whom Paul now writes knew this so well, that the Apostle needed not to use any arguments to prove it to them: "Beloved we are persuaded better things of you, and such as accompany salvation." h Therefore at first

sight one would be apt to think, that the Apostle must chiefly intend the eternal rest in ultimate glory: but pardon me if I cannot bring my spirit to believe this, for the following reasons.

FIRST, the Apostle needed not to labour (as in this place he does by several arguments) to prove to the Jews, that there is a state of ultimate glory and eternal rest therein; for this was in a good measure known even to the Heathen in their doctrine of Hades.* SECONDLY, who will dare to say, that all the souls of them whose bodies fell in the wilderness went to the hell of the damned, and were all shut out from that eternal rest? For the Apostle saith precisely their carcases (not their souls) fell in the wilderness: i just as the Scripture notes it as a mark of God's favor) that though Nadab and Abihu were punished with death by fire, yet neither their bodies nor clothes were consumed ; j and though the good old prophet was slain by the lion for his sin, yet was he not devoured or torn by the lion?k THIRDLY, the affliction of these Jews when Paul wrote to them was, that they were for the most part scattered; (as Peter and James shew more fully;1) and thereby prevented from the quiet enjoyment in their spirits, either in expectation or reality, of any sort of rest. For an outward rest is the fair opportunity to enjoy all sorts of rests. And therefore the Apostle strives with so many arguments to prove to them, that now, even after

h Heb. vi, 9. i τα κωλα, Heb. iii, 17. j Lev. x, 5. k 1 Kings xiii, 18. 1 2 Pet. i, 1; James i, 1.

* Homer brings in the friends of the widows whose husbands were slain in the Trojan war, comforting them with this, that their deceased husbands' souls were gone suc ade, i. e. to the invisible world of eternal bliss. And see Plato, &c.