siah, to give the facts and truths of Christianity a dignity and glory which might rival all the boasts of the followers of Moses. It was a tradition of the Jews derived, as is supposed, from a Rabbinic commentary on a passage in Isaiah; "My servant shall be exalted and be very high;" that the Messiah should be greater than Moses, greater than Abraham, and greater than the ministering angels; and it is supposed by some that it is with reference to this gradation that our Saviour says: "Of that day and hour knoweth no one, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." The author of this Epistle, a learned Hebrew scholar has well observed, seems to have planned his treatise so as precisely to cover the ground of this tradition, changing only the name of Abraham for that of Aaron, which made it more opportune for his purpose. The writer intends to show that these expectations were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, the person whom they had received as the Messiah. Such is the plan of the Epistle, and it is preserved with systematic precision. The establishment of each point he follows up with an appropriate exhortation founded upon it. If Jesus, the Messiah, the person through whom we have received the new dispensation, be greater than the angels by whom the Jews received the old, then "we ought to give the greater heed to the things which are spoken." If greater

than Moses, then there is a rest to which he is leading us, and we must not fall away through unbelief, as did some of the Israelites, and died in the wilderness. If he is a priest of a higher order than that of Aaron, then ought we to come with more confidence and constancy to the throne of grace.

The method of proof is not what would be esteemed in these days logical, but it was such as the Jews were accustomed to use, and more adapted to impress their minds than any train of philosophical reasoning. He begins by showing Christ's superiority to angels. This was necessary, as the Jews considered their law to have been given by the intervention of angels. The theology of the Jews was too pure, especially in the later ages, to suppose that the Divine appearances related in the Old Testament were actually God himself; they spoke of them, therefore, as angels of God. Stephen tells the Jews, that they "received the law by the disposition of angels, but had not kept it." Paul says, that it "was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator," that is, Moses. Stephen says, moreover, that it was an angel of God which appeared to Moses in the bush : "And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him an angel of God in a flame of fire in a bush." This idea of the law being given by the ministry of angels, seems to be alluded to in the sixtyeighth Psalm, or perhaps founded on it; "The

chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, the Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place."

The first two chapters are taken up in proving that Jesus the Messiah is greater than the angels, because a higher title is given him, and greater things are said of him than the angels, in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. He is called the "Son of God." For although the angels are called "sons of God," no particular one is thus addressed. It is not an empty title, for there is a species of heirship attached to it, the dominion of the world being promised to the Messiah. He resembles God more than the angels, in what he is employed by God to do. He possessed extensive control over physical nature by his word, and was used as the instrument in producing an entire change in the whole condition of the world, putting an end to the Mosaic, and introducing the Christian dispensation, a thing which God has not submitted to the ministration of angels. He is exalted above the angels in being placed at God's right hand. He is greater than the angels, inasmuch as God has promised to be to him a Father. He is superior to the angels in the permanence of his existence. The Scripture says with reference to the angels, that God makes winds and lightnings his angels, which exist but for a moment and then pass away. But with respect to the Messiah it says, God has estab

lished his throne forever, that God who has laid the foundations of the earth and made the heavens, and will one day sweep them away with all that they contain, angels among the rest.

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son;" that is, the Messiah, whom, as a Son," he hath appointed heir of all things," in allusion to the second Psalm, from which all the phraseology of the Sonship of the Messiah is derived: "Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession;" "by whom also he made the worlds." This phrase is ambiguous. The word rendered worlds has the same ambiguity as the English word by which it is translated. Sometimes it means the material world, but most generally periods of time, or dispensations of religion; just as we say, the ancient and the modern world. By some it is thought. to assert, that God made the material world by the instrumentality of the Logos, or Divine nature of Christ; others think that the authority of this very Epistle is against this interpretation, for in the eleventh chapter, where the creation of the material universe is referred to, God is said to have made it without any intervention. "Through faith we know that the worlds were framed by the word nuari of God;" that is, by his

immediate command. At any rate, there is no stress laid upon it in this argument, for if that had been the meaning, that Jesus the Messiah was the creator of the material universe, the whole thing would have been settled at once, without any further proof. "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person," making as a son the greatest display in his own person, that the world has ever seen, of God's wisdom, power, and love," and controlling all things by the word of his power," possessing supernatural control over the elements in the miracles which he wrought; "when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels, as he hath obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee?" The Psalm from which this is taken, whatever may have been the occasion on which it was composed, was universally interpreted by the Jews to relate to the Messiah. "And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son." This quotation is from second Samuel, seventh chapter, fourteenth verse, and was spoken by Nathan the prophet to David, concerning Solomon. "And when thy days be fulfilled, I will set up thy seed after thee, and I will establish his kingdom for ever, he shall build a house for my name. I will be to him a father,