536 Many believe and are inclined to follow him. SECT. ever choose to continue in it, as the shelter and screen of wicked works! ciii. Ver. May we, with all candour and humility, regard and submit to 17, 18 the testimony, which the Father has borne to him in so express and incontestable a manner! Dreadful would be the consequence of 21, 24 our refusing to do it. The doom of these wretched Jews would be ours, to die in our sins. And oh, how insupportable will that guilty burden prove in a dying hour, and before the tribunal of God? How will it sink us into condemnation and despair! In vain shall those, who now despise him, then seek admittance to the world where he is: thither they cannot come; and if excluded from him, must be excluded from happiness. 25, 26 Justly might it long since have been our case: for surely he has many things to say of us, and to judge concerning us, should he lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, after his having been so long with us, yea, after we have, as it were, scen him lifted up and set forth as crucified among us. (Gal. iii. 1.) 28 May this faithful admonition prevail to our conviction and reformation; that our everlasting condemnation may not farther illustrate the reasonableness, yea, the necessity of it, and the madness of hardening our hearts against it! SECT. civ. John VIII. $0. SECT. CIV. Our Lord continues his discourse with the Jews in the treasury, the day after the feast of tabernacles; and labours to convince them how rain their pretences to liberty and to the privileges of the children of Abraham were, while they continued to reject and persecute him. John VIII. 30-47. JOHN VIII. 30. JOHN VIII. 30. words, many be THU a Many believed in him.] One can hardly think that the ambiguity of the expression of the Son of man's being lifted up. (ver. 28) engaged them to this, in hope that it might intimate some exaltation to a temporalkingdom. It is more reasonable to believe that they felt their hearts impressed with what they heard from him in the whole preceding discourse. Yet it is observable, that in the series of it he advances no new proof of his mission: so that probably these people were wrought upon by what they observed in the temper and conduct of Christ; bcar The truth would make them free who had been slaves to sin. 337 civ. Then Jesus, knowing the weakness and trea- SECT. But some that heard him were not a little dis- 33 Jesus, waving what he might easily have re- 34 Ac b The truth shall make you free.] cording to Sir Isaac Newton (on Proph. p. 149) these words were spoken in a sabbatical year, when at the feast of tabernacles, which was just about the beginning of the civil year, great numbers of servants were set at liberty: and he supposes that the answer of the Jews (ver. 33) is to be explained with a peculiar reference to this, and contains two distinct thoughts: "We "are Abraham's seed, and consequently, "had we ever been in bondage, we should "have been set at liberty at this season, "though Gentile slaves are still detained; "and, besides that, we never were in bond age to any man at all." But the arguments by which this is fixed to a sabbatical year are dubious; and the words will make a good sense, independent on this peculiar interpretation; which yet seemed remarkable enough to deserve a mention here. Who habitually practises sin.] Hy apa hay seems a phrase of the very same import with working iniquity: I have therefore rendered it practises sin, as that word generally signifies an habitual course of action. d The 538 If the Son made them free, they should be free indeed. abideth not in the SECT. dreadful than the yoke of an earthly tyrant. 35 And the servant civ. Now, as the servant does not always abide in the house for ever: but the family of his master, but is at his lord's pleasure son abideth ever. John vill.35. liable to be dismissed or transferred to another; much less can you, who are the servants, not of God, but of sin, promise yourselves that you shall still, on account of your descent from Abraham, continue in those privileges which, by undeserved mercy, you hitherto enjoy: [but] the eldest son and heir of the family continually abides in his father's house, and his power and 36 influence [there] are always increasing. Thus 36 If the Son therefore shall make you do I ever continue, and have power of receiving free, ye shall be free whom I will into the family: if therefore I, who indeed. am the Only-begotten Son of God, and the Heir of all things, make you free, you, claiming in virtue of my right and authority, will be free indeed, and will not only be delivered from the bondage of corruption and the tyranny of Satan, but be entitled to those immunities and blessings here, and to that future inheritance of eternal glory, to which at present you have no claim. 37 37 I know that ye are Abraham's sced; no place in you. And as to what you say, that you are Abraham's seed, I know that you indeed are, in a na- but ye seek to kill me, tural way, the posterity of Abraham, as Ishmael because my word hath also was; but what can that avail you, while you are so unlike Abraham in your temper, and are so far from being of a disposition suitable to your descent from him, that you not only deride, but seek to kill me, because my word has no place in your hearts, and has not any weight or influence upon you, but is of a tenor directly contrary to 38 your prejudices and lusts. And, on the whole, 38 I speak that there is so great a difference between us, that it which I have seen is really impossible to reconcile your practice with with my Father: and my doctrine: for I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and which I know to be agree The servant does not always abide in the family; but the son abides [there] always.] I think Dr. Guyse's ingenious and pious paraphrase and note on these words contain an excellent illustration of them. The main sense of what he says on this passage is much the same with what I have given above (much as I had writ it several years ago): the casting out Ishmael, though a son of Abraham by the bondwoman, beautifully illustrates the remark and the connection. It is strange that Dr. Claget should think that Moses was the servant here meant; and stranger yet that Dr. Clarke should adopt so unnatural an inter. able yc pretation. Secbis Sermons, Vol. III. p. 4, 5. e If the Son make you free, &c.] Archbishop Tillotson. (Vol. III. p. 578). thinks that this alludes to a custom in some of the cities of Greece, and elsewhere, whereby the son and heir had a liberty to adopt brethren, and give them the privileges of the family. f I know that you are the posterity of Abraham.] It seems probable that our Lord speaks this, not to those who believed in him, but to some others in the company; and that the phrase, They answered him, ver. 33. only signifies that some of those who were present made such a reply. 8 I pro They boast of being Abraham's sced, yet do not his works. 539 civ. ye do that which ye able to his mind and will; and you do that which SECT. have seen with your you have seen with your father, and shew a visible father. conformity in your works to him: by which he John intimated, that their works as much resembled VIII. 38 the nature of the devil, as his doctrine answered to that of God. But they replied with some warmth, and said 39 to him, Take heed on whom this reflection may fall; for Abraham is our father, and surely thou wouldest not insinuate any thing to the injury of that holy patriarch's memory, who was expressly called the friend of God. Jesus says to them, If you were indeed, and in the most important sense, the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham, and would make it the great business of your life to imitate so wise and so holy an example. But 40 now you seek and contrive to slay me, a blameless and innocent Man, for no other reason, but because I am one who has faithfully told you the truth, which I have heard and received in commission from God: Abraham, your boasted ancestor, did not any thing like this; but gave the readiest credit, and the most joyful welcome, to all the messages which God sent him. Never-41 theless, though you are so far from doing the works of Abraham, I may well say, as I have just now intimated (ver. 38.) that you do the works of him who is indeed your father. Then said they to him, We would have thee to know that we are not born of fornication; we are not bastard Jews, whose blood has been contaminated with idolatrous alliances; but, by virtue of our descent from his people, and our profession of his religion, we have all one great and common Father, [which is] God. take 42 Jesus said unto Jesus said to them, If God were indeed your 42 them, If God were Father, as you pretend, instead of attempting to away my life, you would honour and love me: for, to speak without any reserve on this important head, I renew the declaration, That I proceeded originally, and do come from Gods, and your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth, and came from God; neither came I proceeded originally, and do come from God.] This seems to be the proper distinction between 0 and w. The seventy (as several commentators have observed) use the first of these words to express the descent of children from their parents; (compare Gen. xv. 4. xxxv. 11. appear and Isa. xi. 1.) The form in which the 540 But imitate the devil, and he therefore is their father. SECT. appear among you as his Messenger; for I came came I of myself, but not of myself, but He has sent me, and I constant- he sent me. civ. John even because ye cannot ly keep his commission in view. And why do you 43 Why do ye not VIII. 43 not understand this my language, and acknow- understand my speech? ledge it, simple as it is, to be indeed divine? hear my word. [Is it] because you cannot hear my word? Can you pretend to say that I decline giving you the most public and frequent instructions, or that those instructions are unintelligible and obscure? Your consciences in general know the contrary as to the main series of them. 44 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father in the truth, because own: for he is a liar, The case indeed is sufficiently plain, nor do I fear to represent it in the most express terms: I tell you therefore, You are the genuine children ye will do: he was a of your father the devil'; and the malicious and murderer from the beabominable lusts of that accursed spirit, whom I ginning, and abode not justly call your father, you will resolutely and ob- there is no truth in him. stinately persist to do: and even now there is When he speaketh a the plainest evidence of your resemblance to him, lic, he speaketh of his in your design to murder me, and in your op- and the father of it. position to the truth that I deliver to you; for he has always acted as the enemy of mankind, and was a murderer from the beginning, in his attempt to bring destruction on the world by sin: (compare 1 John iii. 8.) And to accomplish his destructive purpose, as his original integrity was lost by his apostacy from God, he threw off all regard to what was right, and continued not in the truth, but, by an audacious and most pernicious lie, ruined the first parents of the human race, because there was and is no truth in him: and, indeed, when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, and indulges the bias of his own fraudulent and perfidious nature; for he is himself a liar, and was the father of it, or the first forger of that 45 detestable and pernicious crime. And, as you are of such a disposition, if I would flatter your tell you the truth, ye prejudices and vices, you would hear me with pleasure; but because I plainly and faithfully h Is it because you cannot hear my word?] I choose to place a mark of interrogation after this clause, Οτι η δύνασθε άκνειν τον Royo Toy you; and durade any may refer either to their opportunity of hearing, which is the most common sense of the word, or to their capacity of understanding: I have therefore included both.-The word ynwoxv, in the preceding clause, evidently signifies to understand, Acts viii, 30. and to distinguish, John x. 14. i You are of your father the devil.] The account Josephus gives of the wickedness speak 45 And because I believe me not. of the Jews about this time abundantly vindicates this assertion of our Lord from any appearance of undue severity. See Joseph. Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 10 (al. vi. 11), § 5. cap. 13 (al. 16), § 6. Edit. Havercamp. and Dr. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book i. chap. 6. Vol. I. p. 304310. k You will resolutely and obstinately persist to do.] This is plainly the sense of the words, Jade WOLELY. See note a on John i. 43. p. 126. |