1. It is possible that things may usefully represent, what it is impossible they themselves should effect. This is the fundamental rule of all institutions of the Old Testament. Wherefore,

2. There may be great and eminent uses of divine ordinances and institutions, although it be impossible that in themselves, in their most exact and diligent use, they should work out our acceptance with God; and it belongs to the wisdom of faith to use them to their proper end.

3. It was utterly impossible that sin should be taken away before God, and from the sinner's conscience, but by the blood of Christ; other ways, men are apt to betake themselves to for this end, but all in vain. It is the blood of Jesus Christ alone that cleanseth us from all our sins; for he alone was the propitiation for them.

4. The declaration of the insufficiency of all other ways for the expiation of sin, is an evidence of the holiness, righteousness, and severity of God against it, with the unavoidable ruin of all unbelievers.

5. Herein also consists the great demonstration of the love, grace, and mercy of God, with an encouragement to faith; in that, when the old sacrifices could not perfectly expiate sin, he would not suffer the work itself to fail, but provided a way that should be infallibly effective of it; as in the following verses:

VERSES 5-10.

Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me; in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then, said I, lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (which are offered by the law,) then, said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

$1 Introduction and connexion $2 (1.) Exposition of the words. (3. Christ's coming. 4. In what sense God rejects the legal sacrifices and offerings- $5. What he wils in their stead. 6-8. The Psalmist, Septuagint, and Apostle reconciled. 9-15. Exposition continued. §16--19. (11) Observations.

§1. HERE we have the provision God made to supply the defect of legal sacrifices, as to the expiation of sin, peace of conscience, &c. For the words contain the blessed undertaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, to perform and suffer all things required by the will, wisdom, holiness, righteousness, and authority of God, to the complete salvation of the church.

This is a blessed portion of divine writ, summarily representing to us the love, grace, and wisdom of the Father the love, obedience, and suffering of the Son; the federal agreement between the Father and the Son, about the work of redemption and salvation, with the blessed harmony between the Old and New Testament, in the declaration of these things. The divine authority and wisdom that here evidence themselves are ineffable.

§2. (I.) (An) wherefore, for which cause, for which end. It doth not intimate why the words following were spoken, but why the things themselves were so disposed; "wherefore," saith the apostle, because it was so with the law, things are thus ordered in the wisdom and counsel of God; (keys) he saith; the words may have a threefold respect; as they were given out by inspiration, and recorded in scripture; as they were used by David the penman of the Psalms, who speaks by inspiration, and as a type of Christ. But David did not, would not, ought not in his own name and person reject the worship of God, and present himself with his obedience in its room, especially as to the end of sacrifices in the expiation of sin. Wherefore, the words are properly the words of our Lord Jesus Christ;

"when he cometh into the world, he saith." The Holy Ghost useth these words at his, because they expres sively declare his mind and resolution in his coming into the world. On considering the insufficiency of legal sacrifices (the only appearing means) to make reconciliation with God, the Lord Christ, that all mankind might not eternally perish under the guilt of sin, represents his ready willingness to undertake that work.

§2. The season of his speaking these words was, "when he cometh into the world," (EIGEPXOμLevos, veniens or venturus) when the design of his future coming into the world was declared, see Matt. xi, 3.

But as the words were not verbally spoken by him, being only a real declaration of his intention; so this expression of his "coming into the world," is not to be confined to any one single act to the exclusion of others, but respects all the solemn acts of the susception and discharge of his mediatory office for the salvation of the church; but if any should rather judge that in this expression some single season and act of Christ is intended, it can do no other than his incarnation, by which he came into the world; for this was the foundation of all that he did afterwards, and that whereby he was fitted for his whole mediatorial work.

§4. (nii, Avola na sporoga) sacrifice and offering; in the next verse the one of them, (Auria) sacrifice, is distributed into (my rendered here ολοκαυλομαία και περι αμαρτίας) whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. It is evident that the Holy Ghost, in this variety of expressions, compriseth all the sacrifices of the law that had any respect to the expiation of sin.

Of these sacrifices it is affirmed, that God "would them not," ver. 5, and that he "had no pleasure in them,” ver. 6, (лn, ex ebesas) thou wouldest not;

thou didst not desire. The Hebrew word is (v) to will freely and with delight. But this sense the apostle transfers to the other word (y) which he renders by (8и Eudoxnoas ver.6.) thou hast had no pleasure; in the psalm it is, thou hadst not required," wherefore, if we grant that the words used by the apostle be not exact versions of those used by the psalmist, as they are applied the one to the other, yet it is evident that the full and exact meaning of both is declared, which is sufficient to his purpose.

The mind of the Holy Ghost is plain enough, both in the testimony itself, and in the improvement of it by the apostle; for the legal sacrifices are spoken of only with respect to that end which the Lord Christ undertook to accomplish by his mediation; and this was the perfect real expiation of sin, with the justification, sanctification, and eternal salvation of the church; with that perfect state of spiritual worship which was ordained for it in this world; all these things were these sacrifices appointed to prefigure; but the nature and design of this prefiguration being dark and obscure, and the things signified being utterly hidden as to their special nature and the manner of their efficacy, many in all ages of the church expected them from these sacrifices, and they had some appearance of being ordained to that end. Therefore this is that, and that alone, with respect to which they are here rejected; God never appointed them to this end, he never took pleasure in them in this view, they were insufficient in the wisdom, holiness, and righteousness of God to any such purpose: wherefore the sense of God concerning them, as to this end, is, that they were not appointed, not approved. not accepted. No new revelation, absolutely, is intimated in the words "thou wouldest not, thou tookest no pleasure," but a mere ex

press declaration of that will and counsel of God, which he had by various ways given intimation of before.

$5. The first part of ver. 5, declares the will of God, concerning the sacrifices of the law; the latter contains the supply that God in his wisdom and grace provided, answerable to the insufficiency of these sacrifices; and this is not somewhat that should help to make them effectual, but what should be introduced in opposition to them, and for their removal; "but a body hast thou prepared me." The adversative, (de) but, declares that the way designed of God for this end was of another nature than these sacrifices were, and yet must be such, as should not render those sacrifices utterly useless from the first institution, which would reflect on the divine Wisdom; for although the real way of expiating sin be in itself of another nature, yet were those sacrifices meet to prefigure and represent it to the faith of the church; and therefore, saith Christ, the first thing that God did, in preparing this new way, was the preparation of a body for me, which was to be offered in sacrifice.

And in the antithesis intimated in the adversative conjunction, respect is had to the will of God; as sacrifices were what he "would not" to this end: so this preparation of the body of Christ was what "he could," and was well pleased with, ver. 9, 10.

§6. We must, first, speak to the apostle's rendering these words out of the psalmist; they are in the original, ( ) my ears hast thou digged, bored, prepared. All sorts of critical writers and expositors have so labored to resolve this difficulty, that there is little to be added to the industry of some, and it were endless to confute the mistakes of others; I shall therefore only speak briefly to it,so as to manifest the oneness of the sense of both places; and some things must be premised: