CRITICAL, EXPLANATORY, AND PRACTICAL, OF HEBREWS VI. 4-8: WITH REFERENCE LIKEWISE TO ISRAEL, AS A NATION, IN OF SCRIPTURE. BY ROBERT BROWN. LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., BERNERS STREET. 1857. 1-14-DAAN Gift 2-23-1932 PREFACE. THE following pages, (with the exception of the addresses at the end of the book), form a few isolated chapters of an unfinished work, which has engaged the writer's attention for some three or four years past. Being a professional man, and occupied in pursuits involving much mental labour, the prosecution of this work, after the fatigues of the day, obliging him, as it did, to search deeply into the blessed records of God's revealed will to man, has been to him a source of the sweetest pleasure and satisfaction. As it is possible, however, that the entire work may never be finished, and several portions of it are complete in themselves; being unwilling that the whole of his labour should be lost, he now publishes the first portion in a separate form. His grand object in writing the original work being, that it might, under God, be the means of leading souls to Christ, he trusts the Lord will accept this his offering, and bless it to this end; for he well knows that "children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hands of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate" (Psa. cxxvii. 3-5). : Should the Lord permit, other portions of the work will follow in due time. BARTON-UPON-HUMBER, 15th December 1856. AN EXPOSITION, &c. "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. For the earth, which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned."-HEB. vi. 4-8. THIS passage has been variously interpreted by expositors; some taking it in the very strictest sense, and thinking therein to see a proof that even a real child of God may ultimately fall away from God, 10 A |