《Coke’s Commentary on the Holy Bible – Matthew (Vol. 1)》(Thomas Coke)
Commentator
Thomas Coke (9 September 1747 - 2 May 1814) was the first Methodist Bishop and is known as the Father of Methodist Missions.
Born in Brecon, south Wales, his father was a well-to-do apothecary. Coke, who was only 5 foot and 1 inch tall and prone to being overweight, read Jurisprudence at Jesus College, Oxford, which has a strong Welsh tradition, graduating Bachelor of Arts, then Master of Arts in 1770, and Doctor of Civil Law in 1775. On returning to Brecon he served as Mayor in 1772.
A Commentary on the Holy Bible, six complete volumes (1801-1803), is an indepth look at the Old and New Testaments, with the following print volumes combined into the commentary here:
· Volume 1, Genesis to Deuteronomy, 1801.
· Volume 2, Joshua to Job, 1801.
· Volume 3, Psalms to Isaiah, 1802.
· Volume 4, Jeremiah to Malachi, 1803.
· Volume 5, Matthew to Acts, 1803.
· Volume 6, Romans to Revelation, 1803.
His numerous publications included Extracts of the Journals of the Rev. Dr. Coke's Five Visits to America (London, 1793); a life of John Wesley (1792), prepared in collaboration with Henry Mooro; A History of the West Indies (3 vols., Liverpool, 1808-11).
Introduction
A COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
THE first of all truths, and the foundation of all religion, is, That there is a God. This truth is manifest to us at all times and in all places, and seems to spring from the bottom of our hearts. It is almost as natural for us to believe that there is a God, as it is for us to be men; and there never has existed a nation (as was remarked by a celebrated heathen) but has acknowledged and worshipped a Divinity; insomuch that it appears as if the Gentiles had inclined to admit of several gods through the fear of not having any. Man, indeed, the slave of his own corruption, has been too often willing to shrink from the knowledge of a truth that thwarted him in his pursuits, and kept his mind in awe; but the impression is too strong and too deep ever to be entirely effaced. If, therefore, sometimes the tongue dares to utter that there is no God, it either absolutely contradicts the thoughts of the heart, or is led away by the irregular motions of the soul, exhibiting rather its desire, or its wish, than what it really
Can we indeed avoid feeling and acknowledging, that a world so beautiful and so perfect as that which we behold, and of which ourselves make so considerable a part, must be the work of a Supreme Intelligence? Again, can we at the same time observe in it so many imperfections, without being convinced that it subsists not of itself, either collectively, or in its parts? For, to exist of itself, and independent of a first principle, a primary cause, is to have within itself the chief of all perfections, in which all the rest are included: now, can the matter of which the universe consists have in itself this perfection, this excellence,—that matter which is as it were the centre of all imperfection?
It is evident, therefore, that there is a primary Being, existing of himself, existing before the world, and by whom the world was produced. Now this Being is neither body nor matter at all; since matter cannot exist of itself, having neither knowledge, wisdom, nor power; all which must necessarily have been united, and have acted in concert, for the production of an universe which manifests in all its parts such wonderful design. Neither is this first Being a limited or finite spirit; for, to produce any thing where nothing existed before, and to form without materials an entire world, cannot be the work of a finite being. This first Being must therefore be an infinite Spirit, who, with an existence from everlasting, possesses all imaginable perfections without any mixture of imperfection. 1. He possesses Unity; for he must be an imperfect being if not superior to all others. 2. Power, to do whatsoever he will. 3. Wisdom, to will nothing, and to do nothing, unworthy of infinite intelligence. 4. Goodness, to reveal himself to his creatures; and so of the rest. Now this infinitely perfect Being is GOD.
This first truth naturally leads us to a second; viz. That, "since there is a God, there ought to be a religion." The idea of a primary Being and a first Principle throws all others into a state of dependence, and absorbs all the ideas which a creature can have of his own existence, and ofhis own perfections, to such a degree, that when from the contemplation of God we descend to ourselves, we hardly perceive our own existence, and are compelled to acknowledge that we are nothing. The brightness of the divine perfections, collectively considered, raises us to admiration, and exhausts all our ideas. Each perfection in particular should incite a sentiment of religion in the soul: his power impresses respect, obedience, submission; his goodness excites our love; his justice leads us to observe his law, through fear of its threats; his mercy fills us with peace and joy; his truth engages us to be faithful to him; and, finding in him all the good of which we can form an idea, all our desires centre in him; and the possessing of him becomes our only happiness. This is the character of every regenerate soul, but of no other. For, although the nature of God and of his divine perfections should thus lead us to religion; and though we have various intellectual faculties, and a heart which, narrow and limited as it is, cannot be satisfied and filled without the possession of infinite and eternal good; yet our understanding is still so imperfect, our heart by nature so completely and constantly inclined to error in all spiritual matters, that we cannot of ourselves form the plan of a religion, a worship proper to be offered to God, which would not rather be an insult to his majesty than an acceptable service. Being born with vicious inclinations, accustomed to behold terrestrial objects alone, and by nature spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, we confound the divine perfections with the grossideas which occupy our own darkened understandings.*
* See this subject fully treated in the Introduction.
It is therefore evident, that man is not capable of forming a religion for himself: his views are too limited to reach so high; and he looks too much to himself in all his actions, to arrange a plan of worship, faith, and duty, which points him to God alone, and in the study andexercise of which he incessantly beholds himself with humility and self-abasement. Now, since God alone can perfectly know himself, and be acquainted with the extent of our ignorance and corruption, so he alone is capable of giving us the form of a religion worthy of his majesty, and suitable to our real interests; and the more so, as it is one of the most essential parts of religion, to make man forego his natural inclinations, to be willing to renounce his own sentiments and thoughts, and submit them entirely to God, and to make God's will the only rule of his own. The very heathen, vain as they were of their own knowledge, yet sometimes expressed a diffidence, and acknowledged the necessity of recurring to the Divinity to learn the true method of honouring and serving him; and on this account the wisest of their legislators, as Solon among the Greeks, Numa Pompillus among the Romans, and some others, to give greater authority to their laws, and make them more esteemed and respected by the people, pretended to have received them from some of their divinities, with whom they had a close connection and particular communications. But, if these fictions were founded on a general opinion, that religion is the work of God, and not of man, it originates also from another general idea, included in the idea of a God, that, goodness being an essential attribute of Deity, he loves to reveal himself to his creatures: and indeed it is for this reason that God reveals himself to men, and that he enters and teaches them himself, and gives them knowledge of the truths which he draws from his own inexhaustible treasures.
Now this is precisely what God has done. The lights which he had communicated to the soul of the first man being extinguished by sin, God takes pity upon him; and, instead of what may be called natural religion, which was suitable to man in a state of innocence, God reveals to him another religion, conformable to man in a state of sin, promising him a Saviour; which promise should be his consolation, and revive his hopes. Thus God continued afterwards to manifest himself, in a peculiar manner, to certain chosen persons, whom he preferred to all others as the depositaries of his divine truths. At length, having selected the family of Abraham, he collected into one code of laws and of religion all the mysteries of salvation, and all the worship that he demanded from mankind; and communicated these laws to the Jews, whom he made his chosen people for the purpose.
Moses was the first who reduced the laws of God to writing. He, however, was soon followed by other prophets, to whom God miraculously revealed himself in various ways: and thus, by little and little, from age to age, the Church has seen the whole canon of the Scripture completed by the gradual labours of divinely-inspired men, Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles.
We must either have never read the holy Scriptures with an ordinary degree of attention, or else have no taste for heavenly things, if we cannot discern and acknowledge, that God, and not man, speaks in these sacred writings, and is the primary and real author of them.
We find in them a majesty, a grandeur, which surprises, andgives such an elevation to the soul, as it experiences on the reading of no other book: and that majesty is at the same time so tempered with mildness, and so adapted to our weakness, that the enlightened mind can readily discern, that it is God who is speaking to man, and, without lessening his own greatness, perfectly adapting himself to our weak capacities.
There are three characteristics, among others, peculiar to the Scriptures; which establish the truths above delivered, and ought to convince the most stubborn mind that their origin is divine. The first is, the knowledge which the Scripture gives us of God; the second, whatit teaches man of himself, and the instructions that it gives him to lead him to perfect holiness; and the third, the predictions with which it abounds, all of which have been followed by the event predicted. Let us consider these leading points of the Scriptures, and insist upon each of them as far as may be consistent with the extent and design of our Preface.
1. The Scripture everywhere presents us with such a grand idea of God, that, were we to collect all that the most celebrated and admired sages and philosophers of antiquity have said upon the subject, and separate their purest meditations from the wretched load of fictions and reveries by which they are disgraced, we should find nothing to compare with the knowledge of God presented in the Scripture. What, indeed, can be conceived more noble, or can give a higher idea of the power of God, than the manner in which Moses relates the history of the creation, with which the Scripture opens? There we behold a God, who existed of himself before the world, and from all eternity, drawing from the bosom of his power a multitude of beings, which hitherto were absolutely a nonentity. It costs him but a word to bring anything into existence. Let there be light, said he, and there was light immediately. Let there be a firmament, or a heaven, whose immensity even our imagination cannot measure; and by that word the heaven is made. By the operation of four other words added to the two first, the stars are formed in the firmament, the earth and the sea receive their being, birds are produced in the air, and fishes in the sea; the earth is furnished with plants, trees, and animals; and from her own dust and clay, at the fiat of the same God, arises man, who is to rule over all, as being the last work and the master-piece of the Creator.
While the Scripture thus lays open to us the wonders of God's power in the creation of the universe, it also manifests, in a manner equally striking, the infinite wisdom of God in the government of the world. According to the Scripture, it is God who sustains every creature, and turns them as he thinks proper in the execution of his will; he is the absolute master of all events, directing them all for the advancement of his glory. Now this is so essential to God, that to suppose a god without a general and particular providence, as most of the heathens did, is either, with the Epicurean school, to conceive agod who is deficient either in wisdom or power, and who leaves the world to itself; or, with that of Zeno and most of the other sects, a god dependent on a kind of blind destiny or fate, and who, unable to break the chain of second causes, is led and carried away against his own will.
The other perfections of the Divine Nature, such as his holiness, his goodness, his mercy, his justice, his truth, are in the Scripture no less forcibly delineated than his power and his providence; but we need not enlarge upon these topics, as they are sufficiently known. We will therefore propose two or three questions to those who deny the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. Do they think that God has not the power of revealing himself secretly to those whom he thinks proper to honour with that high favour? If they doubt it, they might as well believe that there is no God; and, if they believe that God is able to do this, what difficulty can they find in believing that a God who is infinitely good, and infinitely communicative of good, (for this is a property of infinite goodness,) may not have really thus revealed himself? On this subject they have in their hands a book, which for near 4000 years has publicly passed in the world for Divine Revelation, wherein are contained those things which at different times and in various places have been revealed by God to sundry persons. This book speaks of Godas we might expect God himself would have spoken, on the supposition that he were pleased to make himself known by revelation, or by his word; this is an evident truth, and no candid person will dispute it: why then refuse to own the divinity of the Scriptures in the grand and sublime idea of God which they every where exhibit?