admits no ingraffing, graffs will not prosper in any fat tree or stock, no olive graff prospers, unless it be in an hungry stock; secondly, no graff converts into the nature or quality of the stock, but still retains its own; and therefore, thirdly, men always graff a good fruit into a wild, an apple into a crab, &c., they never graff a wild fruit into a good one,) how much more shall the Jews, which are branches of this stock, and of the same kind, branches of that very tree into which you Gentiles are now ingraffed, be now, if they shall yet believe, graffed in also, according to that custom of graffing most ordinary among the Jews, to graff one tree upon another of the same kind!

25 For I would not, 25. For I shall declare this mystery to you, this brethren, that ye great secret of God's providence, (which may keep should be ignorant the Gentiles from being proud, vv. 18. 20,) viz., that of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in a great part of the people of the Jews are now at this your own conceits; present become blind, and that that is made use of that 15 blindness in by God, that, by occasion of that, the gospel may (by part is happened to departing a while from them) be preached to and reIsrael, 16 until the ceived by the generality of the Gentiles, and they compacted into Christian churches, (and this in very mercy to those Jews, that they by seeing the Gentiles believe might at length be provoked to do so too, by way of emulation, vv. 11. 31.)

fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

26 And so all Is

shall come out of

26. And so all the true children of Abraham, Jews rael shall 1 be saved: and heathens both, but particularly the remnant of as it is written, There the Jews, shall come in and repent, and believe in Sion the Deliverer, Christ: and this agreeably to that prophecy, Isaiah and shall [e] turn lix. 20: There shall come to Sion a redeemer-some away ungodliness powerful means shall be used to bring the Jews to from Jacob: repentance and reformation of their impieties-or a deliverer to them that turn from iniquities in Jacob, who shall rescue all the penitent believing Jews from the approaching evils.

27

18 For this is my 27. And so by this means God's covenant shall be covenant unto them, made good to them, in bringing them to reformation when I shall take and amendment, and then accepting and pardoning away their sins. as many as shall come in after all this.

28 As concerning 28. It is true indeed, and observable to you Genthe gospel, they are tiles, that in respect of the present preaching of the enemies for your sakes: but as touch- gospel, they are now laid aside as persons utterly reing the election, they jected, on purpose that ye may receive the benefit of

15 obduration is in part befallen, wapwσis and μépous véyovev. 16 so long till the fulness of the Gentiles do come in, ἄχρις οὗ εἰσέλθῃ. escape, σωθήσεται. 18 And, Kai.

17

fathers' sakes.

are beloved for the it. The apostles having preached throughout all their cities, and succeeded so ill among them, are now departed to you Gentiles, and have given them over; but yet, for as many of them as any means will bring in, in respect of the promises made to that people for Abraham's sake, (see note [b] 1 Pet. ii.,) and the special favour of God to them, they are still so far loved by God, that if they will come in, and be capable, they shall be received by him, and to that end this dispensation of mercy and providence, the calling and converting the Gentiles, is now made use of as the last and only probable means to work on the Jews,

ance.

have now obtained

VV. 11. 14.

20 For the gifts 29. For God's special favours allowed to this peoand calling of God ple, and his promises made to their fathers, are such, are without repent- as that he will never change or repent of them, ver. 1, and consequently will still make them good to them upon their repentance; and to that end doth in his providence use a most excellent way to bring the obdurate Jews to repentance, by shewing them the issue of the gospel among the Gentiles, that that may 30 For as ye 19 in provoke them by way of emulation not to fall short of times past have not such heathens whom they have so long despised. believed God, yet 30. For as ye Gentiles having gone on in a long mercy through their course of idolatry, have now, upon the Jews rejecting the gospel, had the gospel preached to you; 31 Even so have 31. So the Jews of this age having been contumathese also now not cious, and from whose disobedience it is that this believed, 20 that mercy hath come to the Gentiles, shall by this very through your mercy means (this mercy upon you in suffering the gospel they also may obtain mercy. to be preached to you) reap some considerable benefit also, viz., be stirred by emulation to look after the gospel thus believed on by the Gentiles, and count it a shame to them, a people so favoured by God, if they be not as wise or pious as the Gentiles, which from their idolatry they now behold to come in and believe on God.

unbelief:

32 For God hath 32. All this serves to illustrate the grace and concluded them all mercy of God both to Jews and Gentiles, that both in unbelief, that he might have mercy ther of them can be saved. may attain salvation by his grace, without which neiFor God hath permitted upon all. the Gentiles first, and now the Jews and all sorts of men, to wallow in disobedience and contumacy, that by that means he might reduce both. The Gentiles being idolaters had Christ preached to them, which was occasioned by the Jews rejecting of him, for

19 formerly were disobedient, TorÈ hreidhσATE. they also, τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει, ἵνα καὶ αὐτοί.

20 to the shewing mercy upon you, that

how unsearchable

thereupon the apostles left them, and preached to the Gentiles. The Jews thus contumacious see the Gentiles believe in Christ and receive the Holy Ghost, Acts x., and are in any reason by that means to be stirred up to emulation, not to be behind them in piety, that so, many of them may come in and believe on Christ; and so (by this means thus wisely disposed by God) God hath fulfilled his great counsel of goodness toward all, in shewing undeserved mercy upon each of them, Jews as well as Gentiles.

33 O the depth of 33. O the depth of the abundant goodness of God, the riches both of in bearing the contumacy of the Gentiles first, and the wisdom and then of the Jews; and of his wisdom, in making the knowledge of God! desertion of the Jews a means of calling the Gentiles; are his judgments, and of his knowledge, in knowing how (probably) to 21 ways past work upon the most obstinate Jews, viz., by envy and emulation toward the Gentiles, (as also by those heavy calamities that according to Christ's prediction fell upon them, see note [e]:) how unsearchable are his determinations, and how admirable his ways of bringing them to pass!

and his finding out!

34 For who hath known the mind of

the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor ?

35 Or who hath

and it shall be re

again?

34. According to that of Isaiah xl. 13, that his ways are in wisdom so much above ours, that no thoughts of ours are fit in any degree to be taken into counsel with him. It is impossible all the men upon the earth could have foreseen these methods, or ever have thought to have advised them.

35. And the justice is such also, that no man can first given to him, speak any thing against the equality of his proceedcompensed unto him ings herein; for, first, it is a matter of mere bounty and goodness, and every man may with his own do what he lists; no man can claim any thing that hath not been allowed him, and therefore there can be nothing of injustice objected to him if others have been more bountifully treated; and yet further, secondly, the Jews themselves thus deserted of God have their ways of mercy also if they do observe it.

36 For of him, and 36. For the whole dispensation of grace, calling through him, and to and salvation both of Jews and Gentiles, is to be imhim, are all things: to whom be glory puted to God's free undeserved mercy; the mercy of the call is from him, all good is received by him, and the honour of all belongs unto him; and therefore to him be ascribed all the glory of this and all other things for ever and ever. Amen.

for ever. Amen.

The sum then of this chapter being the setting forth the great mercy and wisdom of God toward Jews and Gentiles, but particularly toward the Jews, (who though for their crucifying of Christ,

21 not to be traced, åveğixvíaotoi.

and contumacy against the Spirit in the preaching of the apostles, they were so far forsaken, as that leaving them the apostles departed to the Gentiles, yet were by way of rebound benefited by this preaching to the Gentiles, provoked to emulation by the multitude of the converted Gentiles, and so themselves brought to believe also, great multitudes of them,) is said to be a great mystery, ver. 25, and so intimated again, ver. 33, &c., and seems to be the very doctrine to which St. Peter refers, 2 Pet. iii. 15, concerning God's longanimity, deferring and delaying his execution on his enemies (foretold Matt. xxiv.), on purpose that as many Jews as possibly might, should before that be brought in to believe, and so escape their parts in that judgment. This is the plain meaning of what St. Peter expresses by, Account the longsuffering of our Lord deliverance: to which he saith that Paul had written parallel in many places, and withal tells us that what he had written on that subject was much mistaken, and wrested to very distant doctrines in those first times, and so hath been ever since, as to that of the millenaries of both sorts, and some other matters.

CHAP. XII.

'I BESEECH 1. Seeing then the gospel, without any addition of you therefore, bre- legal performances, is the only way to salvation, thren, by the mer- (which is the thing on the proving of which all the cies of God, that ye former part of the epistle was spent,) and that the present your bodies a living sacrifice, gospel is the spiritualizing and perfecting of the law, holy, acceptable un- (which he shews by going ethically through the to God, which is several parts of it, the ritual or ceremonial in this your [a] reasonable chapter, the judicial, ch. xiii. 1, the moral, ver. 8, &c.)

service.

I do therefore exhort you, brethren, by the bowels or exceeding great mercies of God, that (instead of the impure Gnostic practices that are so rife among you, and which pretend to be grounded on their mystical understanding of the law and scriptures of the Old Testament,) you preserve yourselves in all purity and holiness, and so offer up unto God (as a kind of heave offering) your bodies (the workhouses and shops of action and practice) a living sacrifice, (in opposition to their dead ones under the law,) an holy, pure one, (in opposition to those external, carnal, legal ones, which had no kind of intrinsical goodness in them, but only as they were commanded them for a time by God,) acceptable to God, (whereas the other were not so whensoever they were not joined with holy life, nor are now any longer so, having been abolished by Christ,) your rational worship of him, (in opposition to that wherein the irrational creatures, the cattle, &c. were offered up to God in his worship.)

1 I exhort you-by the compassions, Παρακαλῶ ὑμᾶς δι'οἰκτιρμῶν.

2 And be not con

2. And suffer not yourselves to be ensnared with formed to this world: the filthy sensual practices of the Gnostics of this but be ye transform- age, that by joining with the Jews against the orthoed by the renewing dox Christians, avoid persecution themselves, and of your mind, that ye may prove what bring it upon others, and by that means seduce is that good, and many, but by undertaking the Christian faith, and acceptable, and per- that renovation of mind and actions, wherein repentfect, will of God. ance (required of you at your baptism) consists, let your Christianity appear in the new form and shape of your lives, that ye may be able to discern and approve and practise (see note [f] ch. ii.) what it is that God now commands us Christians, even those evangelical commands of his, which are good (as all the Judaical law cannot be said to be, there being many things permitted for the hardness of their hearts which must not be permitted now) and wellpleasing (as now their ceremonial performances, sacrifice, &c. are not, nor ever were, but when joined with good lives) and perfect (as even the moral part, as it was understood by the Jews, was not till it was enlarged, or at least interpreted by Christ, Matt. v., and as the practices of the Gnostics certainly are not, which yet pretend to the highest perfection.)

3 For I say, through

3. For I, in respect of that apostolical authority the grace given unto which by the favour and commission of Christ is me, to every man that is among you, given unto me, take upon me to admonish every not to think of him- person among you, that he do not exalt himself above self more highly than that which belongs to him, (as the Gnostics do, who he ought to think; pretend to such heights of knowledge and perfection, but to think soberly; as to despise the governors of the church, (see note according as God hath dealt to every [d] Jude 8,) and consequently run into such exman the measure of travagances,) but every man in sobriety to possess the graces which God hath given him, to the benefit of the church, and not the despising of others, especially those that are placed over him by Christ.

faith.

4 For as we have many members in

the same office :

4. For as in the body of man, where there are one body, and all many members, they have not all offices or places of members have not the same esteem or dignity which some have; 5. So all we Christians make up one body, of 5 So we, being which Christ is the head, and are fellow-members in many, are one body in Christ, and every respect of one another, but yet have several functions one members one of and offices in his church.

another.

6. And having such peculiar functions to which 6 Having then gifts differing according we are designed, differing one from another, accordto the grace that is ing to our several designations, let us exercise them given to us, whether to the edification of one another : if a man be designed