a false reference: the words are found in Mal 2.7. “For the Priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.”
[←241]
Deducet. Like the propempw (propempoo) of the Greeks, expresses ‘the escorting’ of a person to his home.
[←242]
Via et semita. Via, the broad carriage-road; semita, the narrow foot-path.
[←243]
Gloriosè disputat. The Apostle institutes a comparison (in chap 3) between the glory of the Gospel ministry and that of Moses, showing the superiority of the former. The scope and effect of the comparison is to magnify his own office: but the clearness of both is assumed, as the very basis of the argument; a clearness indicated in Moses by the glory of his countenance.
[←244]
Our translation says “holding forth;” Luther says “tenetis:” the original word is epecontev ‘exhibeo,’ ‘prae me fero.’ But it must be possessed before it can be held forth; and if on this account they are called “lights,” then what must the word itself be?
[←245]
Defide sui. If these witnesses were doubtful, not clear; he would be justifying them in their unbelief, instead of establishing his claim to be received.
[←246]
Face: we might say ‘cheek’ – audacity, effrontery.
[←247]
Declarant. ‘Make clear,’ or ’cause to be seen;’ it refers to the matter of Scripture, as interpretantur refers to the meaning of the terms: an ‘avowing,’ ‘propounding,’ or distinctly setting forth to the world,’ of the testimony or truth of God which is contained and enclosed in the Scriptures.
[←248]
Tantas moras traho et copias perdo. His ‘copiae’ are his Scripture testimonies and reasonings.
[←249]
Lucidissimas et evidentissimas. Luc. ‘their testimony is unequivocal;’ evid. ‘the terms in which that testimony is conveyed, are unambiguous.’ — So that they may be compared to some of those beautiful orbs above us; which are not only luminous, but exposed to view.
[←250]
See above, Sect. 14. Stat ibi. ‘qui vigent,’ ‘in statu suo manent,’ ‘incolumes sunt,’ ‘dignitatem suam retinent;’ ‘nonnunquam stare dicuntur,’ as opposed to ‘concido;’ ‘loses none of its authority here.’
[←251]
Christianis rixantibus. Luther does not appear to refer to any single text explicitly, but to the many warnings of this kind, which are dispersed throughout the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. The nearest references seem to be, 1Tim 1.4, 6 . (“Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in faith.” ” From which some having swerved, have turned aside to vain jangling.”) 2Tim 2.23. (“But avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they gender strifes.”) And Tit 3.9. (“But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.”)
[←252]
Originally, “humour.” Lat. Sensu suo cedere. ‘Sensus’ is properly, ‘the frame of thought, or of feeling,’ whatever that may be; ‘the state of mind.’ ‘Communis sensus, which follows just below, is properly, ‘the common judgment, or feeling, of mankind;’ and it is thence transferred to express a certain imaginary standard of judgment, or court of appeal, the voice of unadulterated and unsophisticated nature, which we call ‘common sense.’
[←253]
This should be Act 6.10. There is a good deal of confusion in Luther’s reference to this history. He represents the violence with which they rushed upon him at the close of his defence (especially when he had testified ‘that he saw the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God’), as expressed before his apprehension and arraignment, and he refers the whole transaction to Acts 7, in which the first incidents are recorded in the preceding chapter.
[←254]
Reus agebatur. Re. ag. ‘He was arraigned;’ eá quaestione, ‘on this indictment;’ this was the law-crime charged: status causae, ‘the question of fact to be tried.’ — Luther intimates that his address to the council is resolvable into this main subject: ‘a defence against the charge of having blasphemed the Temple.’ Such being the charge preferred against him, he repelled it by maintaining that it was not at all criminal to speak against the Temple; for that was not God’s ordinance. Probably, he had been led by the Holy Ghost to aim at beating down the idolatrous attachment which the Jews showed to their Temple, in his reasonings with those who arose and disputed with him. But it is expressly said, “they suborned men who said, We have heard him Speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.” (Act 6.11) And afterwards; “And set up false witnesses who said, This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law.” (Act 6.13.) It should seem, therefore, that more was charged against him, with respect to this blasphemy, than he had really spoken. Perhaps his defence — or, as I would rather call it, his address — may be correctly said to have had a broader basis than that of merely repelling a charge of having blasphemed the Temple; viz. that of proving, that the great body of their nation had always been “resisters”of the Holy Ghost; and by inference, therefore, that they were such now, in what they had done to Jesus. From the Patriarchs downwards, their plans and efforts had always been in direct opposition to the counsel and purpose of God, as declared to them by those in whom the Holy Ghost spoke. (See Heb 1.1-2. Gr.) Whatever was the accusation, and however he might design to repel it, the clue to his discourse seems to be found in vv. 51-53. “you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Ghost” — (not as striving in their own souls, but as testifying in those whom God sent to be his instruments for drawing out the enmity of their carnal mind) — “as your fathers did, so do you.” — On this broader basis, however, he contrives to build an answer to his own peculiar charge respecting the Temple; by showing that this very Temple furnished one proof of their resistance to the Holy Ghost — their idolized Temple had not originated from God, but was man’s device. It was, in fact, David’s own suggestion, which he was forbidden to execute; and rather acquiesced in, than appointed by God (just as in the former case of appointing a king, 1Sam 8-12); when the honour of building it was appropriated to Solomon. (2Sam 7; 1Chr 17) God’s Temple (not only the spiritual one, but the material fabric also) was deferred till the latter times (Eze 40-48); and Solomon’s was but an abortive birth, arising from the precocity of man. The Lord gave way, as it were, to man’s device, that he might show him its instability and vanity. God instituted a tabernacle (“Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking to Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.” Acts 7.44, etc.) — a fabric more suited to the then state of his Church and nation — but the well-meaning vanity of his aspiring worshippers, would have a stately temple, as if walls and roofs could contain him! “However, the Most High, ” etc.
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Subsumit. I do not find any authority for this word; but taking the general principle of the preposition sub, when used in composition (secretly, diminutively); the amplification in the text seems most nearly to express the author’s meaning. ‘Tandem concedit… At ibi subsumit.’ subs. implies ‘a secret, or partial, retraction of his concession.’
[←256]
Unde et in eos. In contradistinction to their fathers.
[←257]
The Council of Constance, A. D. 1415. was Luther’s day, and even our day, as compared with that of Christ and his first Martyr. It was the dawn of the Reformation.
[←258]
Pertinaciter resistere,fortiier impugnare. The unsuspected case was the real case: notwithstanding all his ostentatious professions of humility, Erasmus was not only rejecting the clearest evidences of truth — which is bad enough — but even fighting against what he knew to be truth — which is far worse.
[←259]
Excrescence: an abnormal outgrowth or enlargement of some part of the body; here of the flesh.
[←260]
Mirabiliter suscitetur. Mir. would express either the nature or the degree of influence exerted; but here it must be the nature: the very least degree of the Holy Ghost’s regenerating energy, applied to the natural soul, produces this result; an energy which does not admit degrees. One soul is not more regenerated than another: and every such act of regeneration is a miracle; an exercise of super-creation grace, and of super natural power, effecting a supernatural constitution and state, in those that are the subjects of it. “Unless a man is begotten from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Unless a man is begotten of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” “Of his own will he begat us by the word of truth.” “Everyone who does righteousness has been begotten of him.”
[←261]
See especially John 12.37-41. It is remarkable that this passage of Isaiah is quoted more often than any other in the New Testament; being found in each of the Evangelists, in Acts 28, and in Rom 11.
[←262]
Apprehendunt . More proper than our version comprehend; which implies ‘compassing about,’ and so (translatively) ‘taking in the whole of a substance.’ ou katelaben auto, ‘did not lay hold of it, so as to possess it;’ ‘did not receive,’ or ‘admit’ the light; but (as Luther explains it) remained darkness still. See Sleusner in v. katalambanw (katalambano) ‘excipio,’ ‘admitto.’
[←263]
1Cor 1.23. Our authorized version, and most copies, read “Greeks:” by which St. Paul frequently denominates that part of the world which is not Jewish, such as Rom 1.16. It would seem