26. I therefore so 26. This is my Practice: I run sun, not as uncertain- the Course of my Apostleship with ly: so fight I, not as the same Caution and Earnestness one that beateth the

as your Racers keep their Line, air:

and stretch toward the Prize, Thus I fight against all Opposition, not in jeft, as your Combatants are wont to do before-hand for mere Trial and Exercise; but I am always in earnest.

27. But I keep un 27. Striving to master all Adder my body, and versaries, and get the entire Conbring it into subjec. quest over my self, that while I tion: left that by any teach others the way to true means when I have

Happiness, I may

be the more ab-
preached to others, I
my self should be a

solutely sure

my

self not to come

short of it. caft-away

• Ver. 27. A Caft-away adóxyuG, noi Proof, not agreeable to the Measure or Standard I am to be proved by.

CHAP. X.

The CONTENI S.
The Apostle returns to the Question of Chap. viii. about

the partaking of Idol Entertainments. Answers the
Plea of such as frequented them, showing the Danger of
it from the Example of divine Punishments upon the
Jewish Church for the like Practices; and the Inconfif-
tency of paying any Respect to Idols, with the Sacrament
and Worship of the Christian Religion. Meats conse-
crated to Idols were often feasted on at private Enter-
tainments, and even fold in the Markets. Some Jewish
Converts made great Scruples of eating such Meats.
The Apostle folves those Doubts, and gives them Rules of
Behaviour in such Cafes.

UT to return to the Quel- A. D. 57.
thren, I would
not that

should be or Fitness of Christians being preignorant, how that all fent at Idol Entertainments. I our

perceive

1.

"

ye

A. D. 57. our fathers were un- perceive some would persuade you, wder the cloud, and all that as you are Christians, and are passed thro' the sea;

now the true Church and peculiar People of God, God will dispense with you for it, and you need not fear his Displeasure. Whereas you ought to conclude the quite contrary, from the very Case of the antient Ifraelites, who were once the true Church, owned and declared by GOD to be fo, by their Deliverance from Egypt under the Cover of his Cloud of Glory, and their miraculous Passage thro' the Red Sea.

2. And were all 2. For that Miracle of the baptized unto Moses Cloud and the Sea, as it was a in the cloud, and in Token of God's receiving that the sea;

People into his peculiar Service and Protection, and an Occasion of their believing in, and professing him as their God and Saviour; was the same Thing then to them, as our Baptism now is to us.

3. And did all eat 3 & 4. In like Manner, the the same spiritual Water that came out of the Rock, meat ;

and the Manna that descended 4. And did all drink from Heaven, may be said to be the same spiritual * Figures of Christ; that is, they drink :

(For they faved the Israelites from the Pedrank of that spiritual rils of Hunger and Thirst, and Rock + that followed them : and that Rock miraculously confirmed and afwas Chrift.)

sured them of their being God's

chosen People : As, on the other Side, we Christians, by embracing the Doctrine and Religion of Christ, are said to partake of the true Manna, the Bread of Life, and to drink of the living IVater, John vi. 33, 35, 48, 51.

5. And notwithstanding they of them God was not were thus the covenanted People of well

God

5. But with many

See the Note on Ver. 11. + See John vi, where the Sense in which Christ calls himself the Bread of Life, &c. is most rightly paraphrased by Dr. Clark, according to the Explications of tie judicious Dr. Jackson, and the excellent Dr. Claget, who have sufficiently demonstrated, that these kind of Expreslions cannot be taken in a Sacramental Senle, but are intended to signify in general, the Religion of Christ, and Men's Faith in it.

well pleased:: for they God (and in some Degree of 4. D. 57;
were overthrown in Christ too;) yet had they no Dif-
the wilderness. pensation to Sin. For the very
Persons thus received into the divine Covenant, were,
for their Transgressions, destroyed in the Wilderness,
and never saw the Promised Land.

6. Now these things 6. A plain Warning to us Chrif-
were our examples, to tians, that if they were so severely
the intent we thould punished for their sinful and un-
not luft after evil

governed Inclinations, we can things, as they also

never expect to be indulged in a-
Tufted.

ny such Irregularities.
7. Neither be ye i. 7. Have a Care then of show-
dolaters, as were some ing the least religious Respect to
of them; as it is writ- Heathen Idols, or of drawing o-
ten, The people sat thers into it: Remember how the
down to eat and drink, Ifraelites were ferved for eating
and rose up to play. of the Feast of the Golden-Calf,
and then rising up * and dancing to the Honour of it,
(Exod. xxii.) and committing Fornication among one
another.
8. Neither let us

8. And take Heed, left by your
commit fornication, as forward and unwary Compliance,
some of them. com- you be not drawn into those un-
mitted, and fell in one clean Practices that accompany
day three and twenty these Heathen Feafts. Remember
thousand.

what befel the lsraelites for their Lewdness at the Sacrifices of Baal-Peor, (Numb. xxv. 3, 9, 18.) when a thousand of them were pain by the Judges t, and twenty-three thousand more by the revenging Hand of GOD.

9. Do

* Ver. 7. Tais And rose up to play, i. e. to dance to it; Feafting and Dancing being the antient Ulages in idolatrous Worship. But the Word also directly signifies Fornication, which was so much practised in idolatrous Worship.

+ Ver. 8. Note, The PARAPHRASE reconciles this Verse with that of Numb. xxv. 9. agreeably to the Opinion of all the most judicious Interpreters. See my PARAPHRASE upon that Place.

A. D. 57:

9. Neither let us 9. Do not therefore provoke tempt Christ as fome CHRIST, as they provoked the of them also tempted, Lord, and were abundance of and were destroyed of them destroyed

destroyed by Serpents. serpents.

(Numb. xxi. 5, 6.) 10. Neither mur 10. Nor murmur against the mur ye, as some of true Apostles of CHRIST, for them also murmured, debarring you from these needless and were destroyed of Gratifications, as they murmured the destroyer. against Mofes and Aaron, and were many of them cut off by the destroying Angel, (Numb. xiv.)

11. Now all these II. These are fufficient Examthings happened unto ples from God's Dealings with them for ensamples: his former Church of the Jews, and they are written to warn us his Church now under for Qur admonition, the last * and great Dispensation upon whom the ends of the Gospel from any the like of the world are come.

Miscarriages. 12. Wherefore let 12. Wherefore, let no Christian him that thinketh he presume, that his being of the ftandeth, take heed true Church, and in Covenant left he fall.

with God, will secure him from the Punishment of these Sins. He may fall into these Crimes without due Care, and then he is sure of the Punishment due to them, for all this Privilege. 13. There hath no

13 & 14. And though you may temptation taken you be hard prest, and ill treated, to but

make

* Ver. 11. Ta tean Tür diarwy, The Ends of the World, i. e. the End of the Ages, the last Age and Dispensation; or else the Completion of the Types and Figures of former Ages. The first seems the most natural Sense. For tho' the Things here spoken of, are said to be TÚTOI, Types, yet they are not so in the same Sense as the Ceremonials of the Law, or many other Transactions recorded in the Old Testament, are under. Atood to be. They are here meant only as bearing some Resemblance in some certain determinate Point, viz. “ That “ disobedient Christians, under the Gospel, will as surely “ be punished, as were the disobedient Ifraelites under the « Law.”

but such as is common make you comply with these Hea- A. D. 57;
to man: but God is then Customs, yet consider it is no
faithful who will not more than what is natural for you
suffer you to be tempt to expect from People bigotted to
ed above what ye are
able; but will with contrary Principles, and support-
the temptation also

ed by a powerful Majority. But
make a way to escape,

stand to your Profession, and keep that ye may be able to

a good Conscience, and God will
bear it.

enable you to go through all those
14.
Wherefore, my

Difficulties. Stand out then cou-
dearly beloved, flee ragiously against their Tempta-
from idolatry. tions to so vile a Sin.

15. I speak as to 15. Those new Teachers that wise men: judge ye encourage you to these dangerous what I say.

Practices, make great Pretences
to Wisdom and Reason. If then they be indeed good
Reasoners, let them weigh the following Argument
against them, viz.

16. The cup of 16. You all allow, that the
blefling, which we Reception of the Bread and Wine
bless, is it not the in the Christian Sacrament, is a
communion of the Token and Profession of our Faith
blood of Chrift? the in, and Communion with Jesus
bread which we break,
is it not the commu-

Christ, as our Lord and Saviour,
nion of the body of whose Body was broken, and his

Blood shed for our Redemption
Chrift?

and Salvation; and in Commemo-
ration of which we thus eat and drink.

17. For we being 17. And that by our eating all many are one bread, of one Loaf of Bread, and drinkand one body: for we ing all of the same sacred Cup, are all partakers of we own and acknowledge ourthat one bread.

selves Members of his Church,
united into one Christian Society, the Body whereof
he is the Head, in Memorial of whom, and to whose
Honour, we perform this Duty.

18. Behold Israel 18. In like Manner, under the
after the flesh: are Jewish Church, the Priests and
not they which eat of those people that eat of the Peace-
the facrifices partakers Offerings that were first conse-
of the altar?
crated to God at the Altar, did

thereby