ed. Ephes. i, 10; which, therefore, they endeavored (with fear and reverence) to look into, 1 Pet. i, 12, 13. And as to men, the church of the elect, nothing could be so glorious in their sight, nothing so desirable. By this call of Christ, "behold I come," the eyes of all creatures in heaven and earth ought to be fixed on him, to behold the glorious work he had undertaken, and its wonderful accomplishment. He came forth like the rising sun, with healing in his wings, or as a giant rejoicing to run his race.

The faith of the old testament was, that he was thus to come; and this is the life of the new, that he is come. They by whom this is denied, overthrow the faith of the gospel, 1 John iii, 1-3. He that did not exist before in the divine nature, could not promise to come in the human. God, and he alone, knew what was necessary to the accomplishment of his will; and if it might have been otherwise effected, he would have spared his only Son, and not have given him to death.

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$11. The end of this promising to come, is to do the will of God; "lo, I come to do thy will, O God."

The "will of God" is here taken for his eternal purpose and design, called the "counsel of his will," Eph. i, 11; yet Christ came so to fulfil the will God's pur. pose, as that we may be enabled to fulfil the will of his command; yea, and he himself had a command from God to lay down his life for the accomplishment of this work. When the fulness of time was come, the glorious counsels of God, Father, Son, and Spirit, broke forth with light, like the sun in his strength from under the cloud, in the tender the Son made of himself to the Father, "lo, I come to do thy will, O God;" this, this is the way, the only way whereby the will of God might be accomplished. Herein were all the riches

of divine wisdom displayed, all the treasures of grace laid open, all shades and clouds dispelled, and the open door of salvation made evident to all.

This will of God, Christ came to do, (To Tonsav) to effect, to establish and perfectly fulfil; he did it in the whole work of his mediation, from the susception of our nature in the womb, to what he doth in his supreme agency in heaven at the right hand of God.

This seems to me the first sense of the place; I should not however, as I said before, exclude the sense, that he fulfilled the will of his purpose, by obedience to the will of his commands; hence it is added in the psalm, that he "delighted to do the will of God, and that his law was in the midst of his bowels."

§12. The last thing is the ground and rule of this undertaking," "in the volume of the book it is written of me."

The Socinian expositors have a peculiar notion on this place. They suppose the apostle useth this expression, (ev nadıdı) in the volume, to denote some special chapter or place in the law, and conjecture it to be that of Deut. xvii, 18, 19. David they say. spoke those words in the psalm, and it is no where said that he should come to do the will of God, but in this place of Deuteronomy, as he was to be the king of that people; but there can be nothing more fond than this empty conjecture. For,

1. He that speaks, doth absolutely prefer his own obedience, as to worth and efficacy, before all God's institutions; he presents it to God, as that which is more useful to the church, than all the sacrifices which God had ordained; this David could not justly do.

2. There is nothing spoken in Deuteronomy concerning the sacerdotal office, but only of the regal; and in the psalmist there is no respect to the kingly

office, but only to the priesthood; for the comparison is made with the sacrifices of the law, but the offering of these sacrifices was expressly forbidden to the kings; as is manifest in the instance of king Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi, 18-20; besides, there is in that place of Deuteronomy nothing that belongs to David in a peculiar manner.

3. The words there recorded contain a mere prescription of duty, no prediction of the event, which for the most part was contrary to what is required; but the words of the psalmist are a divine prediction which must be actually accomplished. Nor doth our Lord Christ in them declare what was prescribed to him, but what he did undertake to do, and the record that was made of that undertaking.

4. There is not one word in that place of Moses concerning the removal of sacrifices and burnt offerings,which, as the apostle declares, is the principal thing intended by the psalmist; yea, the contrary, as to the intended season, is expressly asserted; for the king was to read in the book of the law continually, that he might observe and do all that is written therein, a part whereof consists in the institution and observation of sacrifices.

5. This interpretation of the words utterly overthrows what they dispute for immediately before; viz. that the entrance of Christ into the world was not indeed his coming into this world, but his going out of it and entering into heaven; for it cannot be denied but that the obedience of reading the law continually, and doing it, is to be attended to in this world and not in heaven; and this they seem to acknowledge so as to recall their own exposition. Other absurdities, which are very many in this place, I shall not insist upon.

$13. "In the volume of the book;” (ev ne@arıdı) in

the volume, or roll. But the Hebrew word (0) which we translate a book, doth not signify a book as written in a roll, but only an enuntiation or declaration of any thing; but another word is properly a

roll, and the words used by the psalmist signify, that the declaration of the will of God made in this matter was written in a roll.

As the book itself, was one roll, so in the head, or the beginning of it, amongst the first things written in it, is this recorded concerning the coming of Christ to do the will of God. Now this can be no other than the first promise recorded Gen. iii, 15. In this promise, and the writing of it in the head of the volume, is the psalmist's assertion verified. However, the following declarations of the will of God are not excluded; for indeed the whole volume of the law is nothing but a prediction of the coming of Christ, and a presignification of what he had to do; even that book which God had given to the church, as the only guide of its faith— the BIBLE wherein all divine precepts and promises are enrolled or recorded.

$14. "Above when he says," &c. What he designed to prove was, that by the introduction and establishment of the sacrifice of Christ in the church, there was an end put to all legal sacrifices; and now adds, that the ground and reason of this great alteration was the utter insufficiency ofthese legal sacrifices in themselves for the expiation of sin and sanctification of the church. And ver. 9, he gives us this as the sum of his design; "He takes away the first, that he may establish the second." But the apostle doth not here directly argue from the matter of the testimony itself, but from the order of the words, and the regard they have in their order to one another; for there is in them a two-fold proposition; one concerning the rejection of legal sacrifices; the other, an introduc-.

tion and tender of Christ and his mediation. And he declares, from the order of the words in the psalmist, that these things are inseparable, viz. the taking away of legal sacrifices and the establishment of that of Christ. Again, we may remark, he had respect not only to the removal of the sacrifices, but also of the law itself, whereby they were retained. Allowing these sacrifices and offerings all that they could pretend to, that they were established by the law; yet, notwithstanding this, God rejects them as to the expiation of sin and the salvation of the church.

After this was stated and delivered, when the mind of God was expressly declared, as to his rejection of legal sacrifices, and offerings, (Tole) then he said upon the grounds before mentioned, "sacrifice," &c. In the former words he declared the mind of God, and in the latter his own resolution to comply with his will, in order to another way of atonement, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." It is evident, that these words (avaipei to apolov) "taketh away the first," intend sacrifices and offerings, which he did not immediately, but declaratively, indicating the time, that is, when the second should be introduced. The end of this removal of the first was the establishment of the second: this second, say some, "is the will of God;" but the opposition made before is not between the will of God and the legal sacrifices, but between those sacrifices and the coming of Christ to do the will of God. Wherefore the second" is the way of expiating sin, and of the complete sanctification of the church by the coming and sacrifice of Christ.

$15. "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." From the whole context the apostle makes an inference, which comprehends the substance of the gospel. (Hyidoμevol eoμev) we are sanctified, relates not only