Matthew Poole (1624 - 1679) was an eminent English Puritan whose greatest literary contribution to Christianity is his outstanding Commentary On The Holy Bible, which displays an abundance of spiritual insight, commensurate with the rich times in which he lived.

Charles Spurgeon said of Poole's commentary - "If I must have only one commentary, and had read Matthew Henry as I have, I do not know but what I should choose Poole. He is a very prudent and judicious commentator... not so pithy and witty by far as Matthew Henry, but he is perhaps more accurate, less a commentator, and more an expositor."

Matthew Poole's Commentary On The Holy Bible may be obtained in hardcover from Hendrickson Publishers.

"We bless God when we preaise him for, and acknowledge him in, his excellencies or benefits." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"God blesseth us with all spiritual blessings according as he hath chosen us; election being the fountain from whence these blessings come, so that God doeth nothing for us in carrying on the work of our salvation, but what he had in his eternal counsel before determined." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"God hath chosen us, that we should be made holy and unblamable by Christ. Or rather, in Christ, as the foundation on which he would build us, his spiritual house, and by which both we might be united to God, and he communicate his influence and grace to us, as our Head, by which he might convey grace, and strength, and life to us as Christ's members." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"Holiness in us is declared here to be not the cause, but the effect of our election; we are chosen that we may be holy, not because we are -- or God foresees we will -- be holy." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"His sovereign grace and good will is the only spring from which predestination issued, God being moved to it by nothing out of himself." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"We are hateful in ourselves as sinners, but accepted in Christ as sons." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"Christ, God-man, is the immediate worker of redemption; for though the Father and the Spirit concurred to it, yet the redeeming work was peculiarly terminated in the Second Person. The other two Persons have a right of propriety to redeem us; Christ only a right of propinquity, as assuming our nature, and being of kin to us." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"Redemption is not formally forgiveness, but causally, forgiveness being the effect of it; and it is mentioned not as the only or adequate, but the prime and principal fruit of redemption, and upon which the other depend." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"The good pleasure of God is the fountain of all spiritual blessings which flow out to us, as well as it is of our being first chosen and appointed to be the subjects of them." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"Though it be true, that not only believers under the Old Testament were saved, but the elect angels confirmed before Christ's coming, yet both the one and the other was with a respect to Christ as their Head, and the foundation of their union with God; and out of whom, as the one, being lost, could not have been restored, so the fall of the other could not have been prevented, nor their happiness secured." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"The final salvation and complete redemption of God's people will be especially for the glory of God." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"The power God exerciseth toward believers is such as that was whereby he raised up Christ from the dead." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"If there be any name, any dignity, or excellency, not known in this life, and which shall be known in the other; yet, be what they may, Christ is above them all." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"Lest Christ should be thought to have any need of the church, because of her being said to be his fulness, it is added, that she herself is filled by Christ. Christ fills all his body, and all the members of it, with the gifts and graces of his Spirit." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter I

"God shows mercy to us miserable creatures in time, because he loves us from eternity, viz. [the elect] with a love of good will." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter II

"God, in quickening Christ, hath also quickened us; Christ's quickening, or receiving his life after death, being not only the type and exemplar of our spiritual enlivening or regeneration, but the cause of it, inasmuch as we are quickened, as meritoriously by his death, so effectively by his life." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter II

"As the first creation was by Christ as the Second Person in the Trinity, so the second creation is by the same Christ as Mediator, the Lord and Head of the new creation, in whom we live, and move, and have our being, and not in ourselves." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter II

"The ceremonies had their accomplishment in Christ, and so their abolishment by him." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter II

"All that God doeth in the work of our redemption, whereby he sets forth his manifold wisdom, he doeth according to what he had from eternity purposed to do, and therein likewise shows his wisdom, to which it belongs to order and determine things before the doing of them, and then to do them as they have been ordered." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter III

"Christ upon his ascension sent the Holy Ghost on the disciples, and continues ever since to furnish his church with gifts and graces." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter IV

"Christ descended without change of place as being God, but ascended by changing place as man, yet, by communication of properties, whole Christ is said to have ascended." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter IV

"Idleness is condemned as tending to theft." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter IV

"That which is done for the worst masters, and in the hardest things, is service done to Christ, when out of love to him servants bear their master's folly or cruelty." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter VI

"Though your own strength be but weakness, yet Christ's power is mighty, and he can communicate enough to you." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Ephesians, Chapter VI

"Being, or subsisting, in the form of God, imports not Christ's appearance in exerting of God's power, but his real and actual existence in the Divine essence." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Philippians, Chapter II

"So that subsisting in the form intimates in the nature and essence of God, not barely, but as it were clothed with properties and glory. For the apostle here treats of Christ's condescension, proceeding from his actual existence, as the term wherein he is co-eternal and co-equal to God the Father, before he abated himself with respect unto us. For he says not the form of God was in Christ, (however that might be truly said,) that the adversaries might not have occasion to say only there was somewhat in Christ like unto God; but he speaks of that wherein Christ was, viz. in the form of God, and so that form is predicated of God, as his essence and nature, and can be no other thing." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Philippians, Chapter II

"Subsistence implies some peculiarity relating to the substance of a certain thing, whence we may conclude the Son to be of the same (not only of like) substance with the Father... He thought it not, esteemed, counted, held it not robbery, it being his right by eternal generation; i.e. he did not judge it any wrong or usurpation, on that account of his being in the form of God, to be equal to his Father, being a subsistent in the same nature and essence with him." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Philippians, Chapter II

"He did not really forego (neither was it possible he should) any thing of his Divine glory, being the Son of God still, without any robbery or rapine, equal to his Father in power and glory. Paul doth not say, (as the Arians of old would pervert his sense,) he robbed not, or snatched not, held not fast equality with God... For when he had said he had subsisted in the form of God, he could (before he condescended) say also, he was equal to God, i.e. the Father, without any robbery, rapine, or usurpation." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Philippians, Chapter II

"And if Socinus urge that it is absurd and false in any sense to say, God thought he had robbed, or taken by robbery, the Divine essence; then this contradictory, God thought not he took by robbery the Divine essence, is rational and true.; as when it is said, God cannot lie, or God changeth not. What things are denied of God, do not imply the opposites are affirmed of him... For if Christ should know that by rapine and unjust usurpation he was equal to God, (as likely the attempt to be so was the sin of our first parents, which robbery of theirs Christ came to expiate,) he had not emptied himself, nor vouchsafed to abase himself." Commentary On The Holy Bible - Philippians, Chapter II