_Lest perhaps we should let them slip away,[1] or run out, like water out of leaking vessels, which is lost, and cannot be take up again. According to the letter it is, lest we run out; the sense must be, lest we do not sufficiently attend to these truths. (Witham)_ [BIBLIOGRAPHY] Ne forte pereffl... [ Continue Reading ]
_For if the word spoken by the Angels, &c. That is, if the law delivered to Moses by Angels, became firm and was to be obeyed, and the transgressors punished, how much more is this true of the new law delivered by our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and preached by his disciples that heard him, and which... [ Continue Reading ]
The miraculous powers of the Almighty bestowed in the early ages [centuries] of the Church, for the establishment and propagation of the faith, became afterwards less frequent, as there was less need of them; but they have ever been totally withdrawn, as some pretend, nor has there passed a single a... [ Continue Reading ]
_God hath not put in subjection to the Angels the [2] world to come. By the world to come, is meant the Church of Christ to the end of the world, and succeeding to the state of those who served God under the old law. The former world, under the law of Moses, might be said to be subject to Angels, by... [ Continue Reading ]
_But one; to wit, the author of the 8th Psalm said, what is man, &c. that it, man, or mankind, considered in his own frail nature, corrupted by sin, guilty of eternal death, that thou shouldst be mindful of him, restore him to thy favour, and bestow such graces upon him? But the words of the psalm,... [ Continue Reading ]
_ Thou hast made him a little less than the Angels. Man's nature, even the human nature of Christ in itself, is inferior to the nature of Angels, though raised to a degree of dignity above other creatures. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
_He left nothing subject to him. He speaks here of Christ, to whom God hath made all creatures subject, whether in heaven, earth, or hell; whether they have been, or shall be hereafter, as to the judge and the head of all. --- But now we see not as yet all things subject to him. This will only be at... [ Continue Reading ]
_But we see (by faith) Jesus, who as man, by his sufferings and death, was made less than the Angels, nay, despised as the last of man; now, by his glorious resurrection and ascension, and by the submission all nations pay to him, who believe in him and worship him, crowned with glory and honour. An... [ Continue Reading ]
For it became him, &c. He gives the reasons for which the Son of God would become man and suffer death, not that this was absolutely necessary, but a convenient means to manifest the goodness, the wisdom, and the justice of God, by the incarnation and death of his Son; that having decreed to bring m... [ Continue Reading ]
_For both he who sanctified, (i.e. our Redeemer, who sanctifieth, or has obtained sanctification for all, by sacrificing himself on the cross) and they who are sanctified, are all of one; have the same human nature, and are from the same first parent Adam, whose Son, (Christ) as man, was; on which a... [ Continue Reading ]
Christians are the disciples and children of Jesus Christ, begotten upon the cross, and offered with him and through him to his Father. Happy they who ratify this offering and consummate this sacrifice, by works of mortification and penance!... [ Continue Reading ]
_That, through death, he might destroy the power of him who had the empire of death, who, by tempting men to sin, had made them slaves to him and to eternal death; so that they lived always slaves to the devil, under a miserable fear of death, and liable to eternal death. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]
The devil, by exciting men to sin, made them liable to the temporal and eternal death? he was, therefore, the prince of death, both as to soul and body. Jesus Christ, the life and source of life, has by his death destroyed sin and vanquished the devil; he has, at once, triumphed over the prince of d... [ Continue Reading ]
_For nowhere doth he take hold of the Angels. [4] Literally, that he apprehendeth, or layeth hold on the Angels; that is, according to the common interpretation, we nowhere find that he hath united their nature to his divine person to save them, though a great part of them had also sinned and fallen... [ Continue Reading ]
_To be made like to his brethren in all things; (sin always excepted) i.e. to be tempted, to suffer, to die, that having the true nature of a suffering man, he might become a merciful high priest, fit to compassionate us in our sins, in our temptations and sufferings. (Witham)_... [ Continue Reading ]