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that will make no material alteration in the fenfe contended for. Either way the meaning will be nearly the fame, and to this effect: "In discharging the duty, upon which I' now fend you, ye will meet with many, who will not receive the tidings which ye bring, but will caft you out. When they shall do fo, when they perfecute in one city, flee to another. And fear not left your enemies fhould follow you thither, or the men of that city fhould likewife perfecute you, fo that places of refuge fhould at last fail you. For I tell you of a truth, ye fhall not have gone through the cities of Ifrael, before the throne of David fhall be given unto me, when ye shall be endued with power to encounter dangers far greater than any of thofe, which your firft miffion ye shall experience."

in this

Still there is one text, and that of some difficulty, which demands our attention on the present occafion. Our bleffed Saviour, the night before he suffered, eating his last supper with the twelve, having delivered to them the cup, faid unto them, as we read in St. Matthew, "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I

drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom '."

Many have supposed that this paffage reprefents to us, in figurative language, the joys of heaven: but to this, I conceive, there are weighty objections. It is readily granted, that the happiness of another life is, both in the New and Old Testament, metaphorically expreffed by eating and drinking; but if we do not force the paffage before us to that fenfe, I think it is no where faid, in regard to that state, that the Son of God shall eat or drink with Us, or even that we fhall eat or drink with Him ".

In the Apocalypfe mention is made of the "marriage fupper of the Lamb"." Our blef

Matt. xxvi. 29,

m Dr. Trapp indeed on Matt. xxvi. 29. quotes, as from Luke xxii. 30. "Ye fhall eat and drink with me at my table in my kingdom." But the quotation and the remark upon it are borrowed, without examination, from Whitby on Mark xiv. 25. There are no fuch words as with me in St. Luke. In the Rev. c. iii. 20. we read "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will fup with bim, and he with me." But this feems to be rightly explained by the commentators of spiritual bleffings and comfort in this life; the reward of another life is spoken of in the following verse.

" Rev. xix.

9.

fed

fed Saviour, in one of his parables, compared the kingdom of heaven to a marriage, which a certain king made for his fon°; and in the parable of the ten virgins, the wife, who were prepared, go in with the bridegroom to the marriage; but on none of these occafions is it intimated, that the bridegroom fat down with the guests. It is faid, in one instance, that the king came in ; but it was to see the guests, not to feaft with them 1. We are elsewhere told, that many fhall come from the east and weft, and fhall fit down as to meat, avax.nσovтal, in the kingdom of heaven; but it is not faid, with their Redeemer, but with his faints, with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob'. "If we be dead with Chrift, we are affured by an apostle, "that we fhall alfo live with him ";"" if we fuffer, we shall also reign with him;" but of Him who is exalted to the right hand of GoD, and crowned with the glory, which he had with the Father before the world began ", holy scripture seems not to authorise a metaphor borrowed from the neceffary fupplies of our

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mortal bodies. Should we not be cautious then, of explaining in this fenfe the paffage in question, if it will bear a different meaning? And why may we not, with authors of the first eminence*, understand it, without a figure, of the time between our Lord's refurrection and afcenfion; during which, we know, to prove beyond difpute the verity of his body, he condefcended both to eat and to drink with his difciples?

To this application the words "that day" can be no just exception. They fometimes denote the day of judgement; but they were ufed by our Lord, as we learn from St. John', on the very fame night of which we are treating, three different times, with relation certainly, in every inftance, to fome future portion of the natural life of his apoftles; and once at least with a view to the period, to which we fuppofe him to allude in St. Matthew, the days immediately following his refurrection.

With regard to the term "new," if it is not easy to affign its precife meaning, the

* St. Chryfoftom, Theophylact, in loc. Lightfoot, Vol. I. P. 569. y Acts x. 41.

z See c. xiv. 20. The other places are xvi. 23. 26.

difficulty

difficulty however, which is neither created nor augmented by this interpretation, should not be confidered as a peculiar objection. The primary and literal fenfe, of this as of other words, often gives place to a fecondary notion. It is frequently attributed to fubjects or to actions that in fome one respect are new or extraordinary; to fongs of praise for recent victories, or special bleffings. The whole world, which by the tranfgreffion of the first Adam was made subject to vanity, partook in the deliverance wrought by the second; and there was, as it were, a new creation. "Old things," fays St. Paul, are paffed away; behold all things are become new";" and this renovation he fpeaks of as effected by the reconciliation, that is, by the death, of Jefus Chrift. In this new state therefore, in this ftate of liberty, whatever related to the kingdom now given to the Son of man, or to its bleffed and fovereign Lord, might, agreeably to the fcriptural ufe of the word, be denominated new. So, at least, wine might be called, if our gracious Redeemer vouchfafed to partake of it, not now as the

a See Mr. Mede's expofition of Canticum novum, p. 513. 593. See also how the word is ufed, Mark xvi. 17. compared with Acts ii. 4.

2 Cor. v. 17, 18.

refreshment

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