YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

SERMONS,

BT
SAMUEL HORSLEY, LL.D. F.R.S. F.A.S.
LAT£
LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH.

VOL. I.

Printed by A. Strahan,
Piinters-Street, London.

SERMONS,

BY

SAMUEL HORSLEY,
* » <
LL.D. F.'R.S. F.A.S.
•LATE
LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH.

VOL. I.

A NEW EDITION.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN ;
F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON;
AND BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY.
1816.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FUlST STOlLUME.

SERMON I.

PAGE

St. James, v. 8. — For the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh  1
SERMON II.
Matthew, xxiv. 3. — Tell us when shall these
things be ; and what shall be the signs of thy
coming, and ofthe end of the world?  22
SERMON III.
Matthew, xxiv. 3  Tell us when shall these
things be ; and what shall be the signs of thy
coming, and of the end ofthe world?....,  39

VI

SERMON IV. PAGE
Matthew, xvi. 28. — Verily, I say unto3Tou, there
be some standing here which shall not taste of
death till they see the Son of Man coming in
his kingdom  56

SERMON V.
Psalm xiv. 1 . — I speak of the things which I have
made touching the King, or, unto the King  82
SERMON VI.
Psalm xiv. I. — I speak ofthe things which I have
made touching the King, or, unto the King  98
SERMON VII.
Psalm xiv. 1 . — I speak of the things which I have
made touching the King, or, unto the King..... 121
SERMON VIII.
Psalm xiv. 1. — I speak ofthe things which I have
made touching the King, or, unto the King  145

SERMON IX. PAGE
1 John, v. 6. — This is he that came by water and
blood, even Jesus Christ ; — not by water only,
but by water and blood  175

SERMON X.
Luke, iv. 18, 19. — The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,
— to set at liberty them that are bruised, — to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord  203
Preached before the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, June I. 1793.

SERMON XI.
Mark, vii. 37. — And they were beyond measure
astonished, saying — He hath done all things
well - he maketh both the deaf to hear and the
dumb to speak  231
Preachedfor the Deaf and Dumb Asylum,
1796.

VIII

SERMON XIL PAGE
John, xiii. 34. ¦ — A new commandment I give
unto you, That ye love one another ; as I have
loved you, that ye also love one another  260
SERMON XIII.
Matthew, xvi. 18, 19. — I say also unto thee, that
thou art Peter ; and upon this rock I will build
my church, and the gates qf hell shall not pre
vail against it. And I will give unto thee the
keys of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven  280
Preached before the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, February
20. 1795. SERMON XIV.
1 Corinthians, ii. 2. — For I have determined
not to know any thing among you, save Jesus
Christ, and him crucified  307
Preached in the Cathedral Church qf Gloucester,
at a public ordination qf priests and deacons.
Appendix.........  .'.  329

SERMON I.

St. James, v. 8.
For the coming of the Lord draWeth nigh.
Time was, when I know not what mystical
meanings were drawn, by a certain caba
listic alchymy, from the simplest expressions
of holy writ— from expressions in which no
allusion could reasonably be supposed to
any thing beyond' the particular occasion
upon which they were introduced. While
this phrensy raged among the learned,
visionary lessons of divinity were often
derived, not only from detached texts of
Scripture, but from single words, — not from
words only, but from letters — from the place,
the shape, the posture of a letter ; and the
blunders of transcribers, as they have since
proved to be, have been the groundwork of
many a fine-spun meditation.
vol. i. b

It is the weakness of human nature, in
every instance of folly, to run from one
extreme to its opposite. In later ages, since
we have seen the futility of those mystic
expositions in which the school of Origen
so much delighted, we have been too apt to
fall into the contrary error; and the same
unwarrantable licence of figurative inter
pretation which they employed to elevate,
as they thought, the plainer parts of Scrip
ture, has been used, in modern times., in
effect to lower the divine.
Among the passages which have been
thus misrepresented by the refinements of a
false criticism, are all those which contain
the explicit promise of the coming of the
Son of Man in glory, or in his kingdom ;
which it is become so much the fashion to
understand of the destruction of Jerusalem
by. the Roman arms, within half a century
after our Lord's ascension, that, to those
who take the sense of Scripture from some
ofthe best modern expositors, it must seem
doubtful whether any clear prediction is to
be found in the New Testament, of an event
in v nich, of all others, the Christian world
is the most interested.

3
As I conceive the right understanding of
this phrase to be of no small importance,
seeing the hopes of the righteous and the
fears of the wicked rest chiefly on the
explicit promises of our Saviour's coming,
it is my present purpose to give the matter,
as far as my abilities may be equal to it, a
complete discussion : * i\nd although, from
the nature of the subject, the disquisition
must be chiefly critical, consisting in a
particular and minute examination of the
passages wherein the phrase in question
occurs, yet I trust, that by God's assist
ance, I shall be able so to state my argument,
that every one here, tvho is but as well
versed as every Christian ought to be in the
English Bible, may be a very good judge
of the evidence of my conclusion. If I
should sometimes have- occasion, which will
be but seldom, to appeal to the Scriptures
in the original language, it will not be to
impose a new sense upon the texts which I
may find it to my purpose to produce ; but
to open and ascertain the meaning, where
the original expressions may be more clear
and determinate than those of our transla
tion : And in these cases, the expositions
b 2

which grammatical considerations may have
suggested to me, will be evidenced to you,
by the force and perspicuity they may give
to the passages in question, considered
either in themselves or in the connexion
with their several contexts.
It is the glory of our church, that the
most illiterate of her sons are in possession
of the Scriptures in their mother longue.
It is their duty to make the most of so great
a blessing, by employing as much time as
they can spare from the necessary business
of their several callings, in the diligent
study of the written word. It is the duty of
their teachers to give them all 'possible
assistance and encouragement in this neces
sary work. I apprehend that we mistake
pur proper duty, when we avoid the public
discussion of difficult or ambiguous texts,
and either keep them entirely out of sight,
or, when that cannot easily be done, ob
trude our interpretations upon the laity, as
magisterial or oracular, without proof or
argument ; — a plan that may serve the pur-:
poses of indolence, and may be made to
serve worse purposes, but is not well adapted

to answer the true ends of the institution of
our holy order. The will of God is that all
men should be saved ; and to that end, it is
his will that all men, that is, all descrip
tions of men, great and small, rich and
poor, learned and ignorant, should come
to the knowledge of the truth. Of the
truth, — that is, ofthe truths brought to light
by the gospel: Not only of the . funda
mental truths of faith towards God, of
repentance from dead works, and of a
future judgment, — but of all the sublimet
truths concerning the scheme of man's
redemption. It is God's will that all men
should be brought to a just understanding
of the deliverance Christ hath wrought for
us, — to a just apprehension of the magni
tude of our hopes in him, and of the
certainty of the evidence on which these
hopes are founded. It is God's will that
all men should come to a knowledge of the
original dignity of our Saviour's person — of
the mystery of his i ncarnation — of the nature
of his eternal priesthood, the value of his
atonement, the efficacy of his intercession.
These things are never to be understood
without much more than a superficial
b 3

6
know4edge of the Scriptures, especially the
Seriptures ofthe New Testament ; and ;yet
that knowledge of the Scriptures which is
necessary to the understanding of these
things, is what few in this country (I would
hope) are too illiterate to attain. It is our
duty to facilitate the attainment by clearing
difficulties. It may be proper to state thosie
we cannot clear, — to present our hearers
with the interpretations that have been
attempted, and to show where they fail, — -
in a word, to make them masters of the
question, though neither they nor we may
be competent to tlie resolution of it. This
instruction would more effectually secure
them against the poison of modern corrup
tions, than the practice, dictated by a false
discretion, of avoiding the mention of every
doctrine that may be combated, and of
burying every text of doubtful meaning.
The corrupters of the Christian doctrine
have no such reserve. The doctrines of the
divinity of the Son — the incarnation — the
satisfaction of the cross as a sacrifice, in the
literal nieanihg of the word — the Mediato
rial intercession — the influences of the
Spirit— the eternity of future punishment—

are topics of popular discussion with those
who would deny or pervert these doctrines :
And we may judge by their success what
our own might be, if we would but meet our
antagonists on their own ground; The
common . people, we find, enter into the
force, though they do not perceive the
sophistry of their arguments. The same
people would much more enter into the
internal evidence of the genuine doctrine of
the gospel, if holden out to them, not in
parts, studiously divested of whatever may
seem mysterious, — not with accommod
ations to the prevailing fashion of opinions,
— but entire and undisguised. Nor are the
laity to shut their ears against these dispu
tations, as niceties in which they are not
concerned, or difficulties above the reach
of their abilities; and least of all are they
to neglect those disquisitions which imme
diately respect the interpretation of texts.
Every sentence of the Bible is from God,
and every man is interested in the meaning
of it. The teaeher, therefore, is to expound,
and the disciple to hear and read, with dili
gence: And much might be the fruit of
the blessinp- of God on their united exer-
b 4

tions. And this I infer, not only from a
general consideration of the nature of the
gospel doctrine, and the cast of the Scrip
ture language, which is admirably accom
modated to vulgar apprehensions, but from
a fact which has happened to fall much
within my own observation, — the profici
ency, I mean, that we often find, in some
single science, of men who have never had a
liberal education, and who, except in that
particular subject on which they have be
stowed pains and attention, remain ignorant
and illiterate to the end of their lives. The
sciences are said, and they are truly said,
to have that mutual connexion, that any
one of them may be the better understood
for an insight into the rest : And there is,
perhaps, no branch of knowledge which
receives more illustration from all the rest
than the science of religion ; — yet it hath,
like every other, its own internal principles,
on which it rests ; with the knowledge of
which, without any other, a great progress
may be made. * And these lie much more
open to the apprehension of an uncultivated
understanding than the principles of certain
abstruse sciences, such as geometry, for

instance, or astronomy ; in which I have
known plain men, who could set up no
pretensions to general learning, make dis
tinguished attainments.

'bl

Under these' persuasions, I shall not scru
ple to attempt a disquisition, which, on the
first view of it, might seem adapted only to
a learned auditory : And I trust that I
shal], speak to your understandings.
I propose to consider what may be the
most frequent import ofthe phrase of "Our
Lord's coining." And it will, if I mistake
not, appear, that the figurative use of it, to
denote the time of the destruction of Jeru
salem by the Romans, is very rare, if not
altogether unexampled, in the Scriptures
of the New Testament; except, perhaps,
in some passages of the book of Revela
tions : • That, on the other hand, the use of
it in the literal sense is frequent ; warning the
Christian world of an event to be wished by
the faithful and dreaded by the impeni
tent, — a visihle descent of our Lord from
heaven, as visible to all the world as his
ascension was to the apostles, — a coming

to
of our Lord in all the majesty of the God
head, to judge the quick and dead, to
receive his servants into glory, and send the
wicked into outer darkness.
In the epistles of St. Paul,' St. Peter, and
St. James, wc find frequent mention ofthe
coming of our Lord, in terms which, like
those of the text, may at first seem to imply
an expectation in those writers of his speedy
arrival. There can be no question that the
coming of our Lord literally signifies his
coming in person to the general judgment;
and that it was sometimes used in this
literal sense by our Lord himself, — as in
the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew's
Gospel, where the Son of Man is described
as coming in his glory — - as sitting on the
throne of his glory — as separating the just
and the wicked, and pronouncing the final
sentence. But, as it would be very- unrea
sonable to suppose that the inspired writers,
though ignorant of the limes and seasons,
which the Father hath put in his own
power, could be under so great a delusion
as to look for the end of the world in their
own days, — for this reason it has been

11
imagined, that wherever, in the epistles xf
the apostles, such assertions occur as those I
have mentioned, the coming of our Lord is
not to be taken in the literal meaning ofthe
phrase, but that we are to look for some
thing which was really at hand when these
epistles were written, and which, in some
figurative sense, might be called his coming.
And such an event the learned think they
find in the destruction of Jerusalem ; —
which may seem, indeed, no insignificant
type of the final destruction of the enemies
of God and Christ ; but if we recur to the
passages wherein the approach of Christ's
kingdom is mentioned, we shall find that in
most of them, I believe it might be said in
all, the mention of the final judgment might
be of much importance to the writer's argu
ment, while that of the destruction of Jeru
salem could be of none. The coming of our
Lord is a topic which the holy penmen
employ, when they find occasion to exhort
the brethren to a steady perseverance in the
profession of the gospel, and a patient
endurance of those trying afflictions with
which the providence of God, in the first
ages of the church, was pleased to exercise

12
his servants. Upon these occasions, to
confirm the persecuted Christian's wavering
faith — to revive his weary hope — to invi
gorate his drooping zeal — nothing could be
more effectual than to set before him the
prospect of that happy consummation, when
his Lord should come to take him to him
self, and change his short-lived sorrows
into endless joy. On the other hand,
nothing, upon these occasions, could be
more out of season, than to bring in view
an approaching period of increased afflic
tion, — for such was the . season of the
Jewish war to be. The believing Jews,
favoured as they were in many instances,
were still sharers in no small degree, in the
common calamity of their country. They
had been trained by our Lord himself to no
other expectation. He had spoken expli
citly of the siege of Jerusalem as a time of
distress and danger to the very elect of God.
Again, if the" careless and indifferent .were
at any time to be awakened to a sense of
danger, the last judgment was likely to
afford a more prevailing argument than the
prospect of the temporal ruin impending
over the Jewish nation, or indeed than any

13
thing else which the phrase of " our Lord's
coming," according to any figurative inter
pretation of it, can denote. It should seem,
therefore, that in all those passages of the
epistles in which the coming of our Lord is
holden out, either as a motive to patience
and perseverance, or lo keep alive that
spirit of vigilance, and caution which is
necessary to make our calling sure, — it
should seem, that in all these passages the
coming is to be taken literally for our Lord's
personal coming at the last day ; and that
the figure is rather to be sought in those
expressions which, in their literal meaning,
might seem to announce his immediate
arrival. And this St. Peter seems to suggest,
when he tells us, in his second epistle, that
the terms of " soon" and " late" are to be
very differently understood, when applied
to the great operations of Providence, and
to the ordinary occurrences of human life.
" The Lord," says he, " is not slack con
cerning his promise, as some men count
slackness. One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as
one day." " Soon" and "late," are words
whereby a comparison is rather intended of
10

14
the mutual proportion of different intervals
of time, than the magnitude of any one by
itself defined ; and the same thing may be
said to be coming either soon or late, ac
cording as the distance of it is compared
with a longer or a shorter period of duration.
Thus, although the day of judgment was
removed undoubtedly by. an interval of
many ages from the age of the apostles, yet
it might in their days be said Lo be at hand,
if its distance from them was but a small
part of its original distance from the crea
tion of the world, -*- that is, if its distance
then was but a small part of the whole
period ofthe world's existence, which is the
standard, in reference to which, so long as
the world shall last, all other portions of
lime may be by us most properly denomi
nated long or short. There is again another
use of the words " soon" and " late," where
by any one portion, of time, taken singly,
is understood lo be compared, not with any
other, but with the number of events that
are to come to pass in it in natural conse
quence and succession. If the events are
few in proportion to the time, the succes
sion must be slow, and the time may be
1

15
called long : If they are many, the succes
sion .must be quick, and the time may be
called short in respect of the number of
events, whatever be the absolute extent of
it. It seems to be in this sense that expres
sions denoting speediness of event are
applied by the sacred writers to our Lord's
coming. In the day of Messiah the Prince,
in the interval between our Lord's ascension
and his coming again to judgment, the
world was to be gradually prepared and
ripened for its end. The apostles were to
carry the tidings of salvation to the extremi
ties of the earth : They were lo be brought
before kings and rulers, and to water the
new-planted churches with their blood. —
Vengeance was to be executed on the unbe
lieving Jews, bjr the destruction of their
city,, and the dispersion of their nation.
The Pagan idolatry was to be extirpated, —
the Man of Sin to be revealed. Jerusalem
is yet to be trodden down : The remnant
of Israel is to be brought back, — the
elect of God to be gathered from the four
winds of heaven. And when .the apostles
speak of that event as at hand which is to
close this great scheme of Providence, — a

16
scheme in its parts so extensive and so
various, — they mean to intimate how busily
the great work is going on, and Avith what
confidence, from what they saw accom
plished in their own days, the first Christ
ians might expect in due time the promised
consummation. That they are to be thus understood, may
be collected from our Lord's own parable of
the fig-tree, and the application which he
teaches, us to make of it. After a minute
prediction of the distresses of the Jewish
war, and the destruction of Jerusalem, and
a very general mention of his second com
ing, as a thing lo follow in its appointed
season, he adds — " Now learn a parable of
the fiff-tree. When its branch becomes
tender and puts forth its leaves, ye know
that summer is nigh : So likewise ye, when
ye shall see all these things, know that it is
near, even at the doors." That it is near ; —
so we read in our English Bibles ; and expo
sitors render the word "it," by the ruin
foretold, or the desolation spoken of. But
what was the. ruin foretold, or desolation
spoken of? — The ruin of the Jewish nation

17
— the desolation of Jerusalem. What were
all these things, which, when they should
see, they might know it to be near ? — All
the particulars of our Saviour's detail ; that
is to say, the destruction of Jerusalem, with
all the circumstances of confusion and dis
tress with which it was to be accompanied.
This exposition, therefore, makes, as I con
ceive, the desolation of Jerusalem the
prognostic of itself, — the sign and the thing
signified the same. The true rendering of
the original I take to be — " So likewise ye,
when ye shall see all these things, know
that He is near at the doors." He, ¦ — that
is, the Son of Man, spoken of in the verses
immediately preceding, as coming in the
clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
The approach of summer, says our Lord,
is not more surely indicated by the first
appearances of spring, than the final de
struction of the wicked by the beginnings
of vengeance on this impenitent people.
The opening of the vernal blossom is the
first step in a natural process which neces
sarily terminates in the ripening of the
summer fruits; and the rejection of the
Jews, and the adoption of the believing
vol. i. c

IS
Gentiles, is the first step in the execution of
a settled plan of Providence which inevi
tably terminates in the general judgment.
The chain of physical causes, in the one
case, is noL more uninterrupted, or more cer
tainly productive of the ultimate effect, than
the chain of moral causes in the other.
" Verily, I say unto you, this generation
shall not pass till all these things be ful
filled." " All these things," in this sentence,
must unquestionably denote the same things
which are denoted by the same words just
before. Just before, the same words de
noted those particular circumstances of the
Jewish war which were included in our
Lord's prediction. Ail those signs which
answer to the fig-tree's budding leaves, the
apostles and their contemporaries, at least
some of that generation, were to- see. But
as the thing portended is not included
among the signs, it was not at all implied in
this declaration, that any of them were to
live to see the harvest, the coming of our
Lord in glory.
I persuade myself that I have shown, that
our Lord's coming, wherever it is menti-

19
oned by the apostles in their epistles as a
motive to a holy life, is always to be taken
literally for his personal coming at the
last day.
It may put the matter still farther out of
doubt, to observe, that the passage" where
of all others, in this part of Scripture, a
figurative interpretation of the phrase of
" our Lord's coming*" would be the most
necessary, if the figure did not lie in the
expressions that seem to intimate ils near
approach, happens to be one in which our
Lord's coming cannot but be literally taken.
The passage lo which I allude is in the
fourth chapter of St. Paul's first epistle to
the Thessalonians, from the thirteenth verse
to the end. The apostle, to comfort the
Thessalonian brethren concerning their
deceased friends, reminds them of the
resurrection ; and tells them, that those who
were already dead would as surely have
their part in a happy immortality as the
Christians that should be living at the time
of our Lord's coming. Upon this occa
sion, his expressions, taken literally, would
imply that he included himself, with many
c 2

20
of those to whom these consolations were
addressed, in the number of those who
should remain alive at the last day. This
turn of the expression naturally arose from
the strong hold that the expectation of the
thing in its due season had taken of the
writer's imagination, and from his full per
suasion of the truth of the doctrine he was
asserting, — namely, that those who should
die before our Lord's coming, and those
who should then be alive, would find them
selves quite upon an even footing. In the
confident expectation of his own reward,
his intermediate dissolution was a matter of
so much indifference to him, that he over
looks iL His expression, however, was so
strong, that his meaning was mistaken, or,
as I rather think, misrepresented. There
seems to have been a sect in the apostolic
age, — in which sect, however, the apostles
themselves were not, as some have absurdly
maintained, included, — but there seems to
have been a sect which looked for the resur
rection in their own time. Some of these
persons seem to have taken advantage
of St. Paul's expressions in this passage, to
represent him as favouring their opinion.

21

This occasioned the second epistle to the
Thessalonians, in which the apostle peremp
torily decides against lhat doctrine ; main
taining that the Man of Sin is to be revealed,
and a long consequence of events to run
out, before the day of judgment can come ;
and he desires that no expression of his may
be understood of its speedy arrival ; —
which proves, if the thing needed farther
proof than I have already given of it, that
the coming mentioned in his former epistle
is the coming to judgment, and that what
ever he had said of the day of coming as at
hand, was to be understood only of the
certainty of that coming.
The most difficult part of my subject yet
remains, — to consider the passages in the
gospel wherein the coming of our Lord is
mentioned.

c 3

SERMON II.

Matthew, xxiv. 3.
Tell us when shall these things be ; and what
shall be the signs qf thy Coming, and of the
end of the world?
I proceed in my inquiry into the gene
ral importance ofthe phrase of " the coming
of ihe Son of Man" in the Scriptures of fhe
New Testament.
I have shown, that in the epistles, where
ver our Lord's coming is mentioned, as an
expectation that should operate through
hope to patience and perseverance, or
through fear to vigilance and caution, it is
to be understood literally of his coming in
person to the general judgment. I have
yet to consider the usual import of the

23
same phrase in the gospels. I shall consi
der the passages wherein a figure hath. been
supposed, omitting those where lhe sense is
universally confessed to be literal.
When our Lord, after his resurrection,
was pleased to intimate to St. Peter the
death by which it was ordained that, he
should glorify God, St. Peter had the weak
curiosity to inquire what might be St.
John's destiny. " Lord, what shall this
man do ?" " Jesus saith unto him, if I will
that he tarry till I come, what is that to
thee? Follow thou me?" The disciples
understood this answer as a prediction that
St. John was not to die ; which seems to
prove, what is much to our purpose, that
in the enlightened period which immedi
ately followed our Lord's ascension, the
expression of his coming was taken in its
literal meaning. This interpretation of the
reply to St. Peter, was set aside by the
event. In extreme old age, the disciple
whom Jesus loved was taken for ever to the
bosom of his Lord. But the Christians of
that time being fixed in a habit of inter
preting the reply to St, Peter as a prediction
c 4

24
concerning the term of Si. John's life, began
to affix a figurative meaning to the expres
sion of " our Lord's coming," and persuaded
themselves that the prediction was veri
fied by St. John's having survived the
destruction of Jerusalem ; and this gave a
beginning to the practice which has since
prevailed, of seeking figurative senses of
this phrase wherever it occurs. But the
plain fact is, that St. John himself saw-
nothing of prediction in our Saviour's
words. He seems to have apprehended
nothing in them but an answer of signi
ficant though mild rebuke to an inquisitive
demand. If there be any passage in the New Tes
tament in which the epoch ofthe destruction
of Jerusalem is intended by the phrase of
" our Lord's coming," we might not unrea
sonably look for this figure in some parts of
those prophetical discourses in which he
replied to the question proposed to him in
the words of the text, and particularly in
the twenty-seventh verse of this twenty-
fourth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel;
where our Saviour, in the middle of that

part of his discourse in which he describes
the events of the Jewish war, says — " For
aa the lightning cometh out of the east and
shineth unto the west, so shall also the
coming of the Son of Man be." And he
adds, in the twenty-eighth verse — " For
wheresoever the carcass is, there will the
eagles be gathered together." The disci
ples, when ihey put the question " Tell us
when shall these things be; and what shall
be the signs of thy coming, and of the end
of lhe world ?" imagined, no doubt, that
the coming of our Lord was to be the epoch
of the demolition with which he had threat
ened the temple. They had not yet raised
their expeclations to any thing above a
temporal kingdom. They imagined, per
haps, that our Lord would come by
conquest, or by some display of his extra
ordinary powers which should be equivalent
to conquest, to seal himself upon David's
throne; and that the destruction of lhe
Jewish temple would be either the lasl step
in the acquisition of his royal power, or
perhaps the first exertion of it. The veil
was yet upon their understandings ; and
the season not being come for taking it

26
entirely away, it would have been nothing
strange if our Lord had framed his reply in
terms accommodated to their prejudices,
and had spoken of the ruin of Jerusalem as
they conceived of it, — as .an event that was
to be the consequence of his coirrmg, — to
be his own immediate act, in the course of
those conquests by which they might think
he was to gain his kingdom, or the begin
ning of the vengeance which, when esta
blished in it, he might be expected to
execute on his vanquished enemies. These
undoubtedly were the notions of the disci
ples, when ihey put the question concerning
the time of the destruction of the temple
and the signs of our Lord's coming ; and it
would have been nothing strange, if our
Lord had delivered his answer in expres
sions studiously accommodated to these
prejudices : For as the end of prophecy is
not to give curious men a knowledge of
futurity, but to be in its completion an evi
dence of God's all-ruling providence, who,
if he governed not the world, could not
possibly foretell the events of distant ages,
¦ — for this reason, the Spirit which was in
the prophets hath generally used a language

27
artfully contrived to be obscure 'and ambi
guous, in proportion as the events intended
might be distant, — gradually to clear up as
the events should approach, and acquire
from the events, when brought to pass, the
most entire perspicuity ; that thus men
might remain in that ignorance of futurity
which so suits with the whole of our present
condition that it seems essential to the wel
fare of the world, and yet be overwhelmed
at last wilh evident demonstrations of the
power of God. It might have been ex
pected that our Lord, in delivering a pre
diction, should assume the accustomed style
of prophecy, which derives much of its
useful ambiguity from this circumstance, —
from an artful accommodation to popular
mistakes, so far as they concern not the
interest of religion : And much of this
language indeed we find in our Lord's dis
course. But with respect to his own coming,
it seems to be one great object of his dis
course, to advertise the Christian world
that it is quite a distinct event from lhe
demolition of the Jewish temple. This
information is indeed conveyed in oblique
insinuations, of which it might not be

28
intended that the full meaning should
appear at the time when they were uttered.
But when Christians had once seen Jeru
salem with its temple and all its towers
destroyed, the nation of the Jews dispersed,
and our Lord, in a literal meaning, not yet
come, — it is strange that they did not then
discern, lhat if there be any thing explicit
and clear in the whole of this prophetical
discourse, it is this particular prediction,
that during the distresses of the Jewish war
the expectation of our Lord's immediate
coming would be the reigning delusion of
the times. The discourse is opened with
this caution — " Take heed that no man
deceive you : For many shall come in my
name, saying — I am Christ ; and shall
deceive many." And the same caution is
repeated in various parts of the prophecy,
till he comes at last to speak (as -I shall
hereafter show) of his real coming as a thing
to take place after the destined period
should be run out of the desolation of the
holy city. "If any man shall say unto
you — Lo here is Christ, or there, — believe
it not. If they shall say unto you — Be
hold he is in the desert, — go not forth ;

29

Behold he is in the secret chambers, — .
believe it not. For as the lightning cometh
out of the east and shineth unto the west, so
shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
" For," as it is added in St. Matthew,
" wheresoever the carcass is, there will the
eagles be gathered together." Give no
credit, says our Lord, to any reports that
may be spread that the Messiah is come, —
that he is in this place, or in that : My
coming will be attended with circumstances
which will make it public at once to all the
world ; and there will be no need that one
man should carry the tidings to another.
This sudden and universal notoriety lhat
there will be of our Saviour's last glorious
advent, is signified by the image of the
lightning, which, in the same instant,
flashes upon the eyes of spectators in remote
and opposite stations. And this is all that
this comparison seems intended or indeed
fitted to express. It hath been imagined
that it denotes the particular route of the
Roman armies, which entered Judea on the
eastern side, and extended their conquests
westward. But had this been intended, the
image should rather have been taken from

30
something \Vhich hath its natural and neces
sary course in lhat direction. The light
ning may break out indifferently in any
quarter of the sky ; and east and west seem
to be mentioned only as extremes and oppo
sites. And accordingly, ih the parallel
passage of St. Luke's Gospel, we read neither
of east nor west, but indefinitely of opposite
parts of the heavens : - " For as the light
ning that lighteneth out of the one part
under the heaven shineth unto the other
part under heaven, so shall also the Son of
Man be in his day." The expression '.' his
day" is remarkable. The original might be
more exactly rendered "his own day;'-'
intimating, as I conceive, that the day, i. e.
the time of the Son of Man, is to be exclu
sively his. own, — quite another from the
day of those deceivers whom he had men
tioned, and therefore quite another from the
day of the Jewish war, in which those de
ceivers were to arise.
Nevertheless, if it were certain that the
eagles, in the next verse, denote the Roman
armies, bearing the figure of an eagle on
their standards, — if the carcass, round
ia

31
which the eagles were to be gathered, be the
Jewish nation, which was morally and
judicially dead, and whose destruction was
pronounced in lhe decrees of heaven, — if
this were certain, it might then seem neces
sary to understand the coining of the Son
of Man, in the comparison of the lightning,
of his coming figuratively to. destroy Jeru
salem. But this interpretation of the eagles
and the carcass I take to be a very .uncer
tain though a specious conjecture.
As the sacred historians have recorded
the several occurrences of our Saviour's life
without a scrupulous attention to the exact
order of time in which they, happened, so
they seem to have registered his sayings
with wonderful fidelity, but not always in
the order in which they came from him.
Hence it has come to pass, that the heads
of a continued discourse have, perhaps, in
some instances, come down to us in the
form of unconnected apothegms. Hence,
also, we sometimes find the same discourse
differently represented, in some minute
circumstances, by different evangelists ;
and maxims the same in purport somewhat

32
differently expressed, or expressed in the
same words, but set down in a different
order; — circumstances in which the cap
tious infidel finds occasion of .perpetual
cavil, and from which the believer derives
a strong argument of the integrity and
veracity of the writers on whose testimony
his faith is founded. Now, wherever these
varieties appear, the rule should be to ex
pound each writer's narrative by a careful
comparison with the rest.
To apply this to the matter in question.
These prophecies of our Lord, Which St.
Matthew* and St. Mark relate as a continued
discourse, stand in St. Luke's narrative in
two different parts, as if they had been
delivered upon different though somewhat
similar occasions. The first of these parts
in order of time is made the latter part of
the whole discourse in St. Matthew's narra
tive. The first occasion of its delivery was
a question put by some of the Pharisees
concerning the time of the coming of the
kingdom of God. Our Lord having given
a very general answer to the Pharisees, ad
dresses a more particular discourse to his
5

33
disciples ; in which, after briefly mentioning
in highly figured language, the affliction of
the season of the Jewish war, and after
cautioning his disciples against the false
rumours of his advent which should then be
spread, he proceeds to describe the sudden
ness with which his real advent, the day of
judgment, will at last surprise the thought
less world. The particulars of this discourse
we have in the seventeenth chapter of St.
Luke's Gospel. The other part of these
prophecies St. Luke relates as delivered at
another time, upon the occasion which St.
Matthew and St. Mark mention. When
the disciples, .our Lord having mentioned
the demolition of the temple, inquired of
him, — " When shall these things be; and
what shall be the signs of thy coming, and
of the end of the world ?" our Lord answers
their question, as far as it was proper to
answer it. He gives a minute detail of
those circumstances of the war which to
that generation were to be the signs of the
last advent; — not the thing itself, but the
signs of it ; tor the beginning of the com
pletion of a long train of prophecy is the
natural sign and pledge of the completion
vol. i. n

34

of the whole. He foretells the total disper
sion of the Jews. He mentions briefly his
own coming ; of which, he says, the things
previously mentioned would be no less cer
tain signs than the first appearances of
spring are signs of the season of the
harvest. He affirms that the day and hour
of his coming are known to none but the
Father; and he closes the whole of this
discourse with general exhortations to con
stant watchfulness; founded on the consi
deration .of that suddenness of his coming
of which he had given such explicit warning
in his former discourse. The detail of this
last discourse, or rather of so much of this
discourse as was not a repetition of the
former, we have in the twenty-first chapter
of St. Luke's Gospel.
St. Matthew and St. Mark, the one in
the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, the
other in the thirteenth chapter of his Gospel,
give these prophecies in one entire dis
course, as- they were delivered to the apostles
upon the occasion which they mention ; but
they have neither distinguished the part
that was new from what had been delivered

35
before, nor have they preserved, as it should
seem, so exactly as St. Luke, the original
arrangement of the matter. In particular,
St. Matthew has brought close together the
comparison of the Son of Man's coming
with a flash of lightning, and the image of
the eagles gathered about the carcass. St.
Mark mentions neither the one nor the
other ; whereas St. Luke mentions both,
but sets them at the greatest distance one
from the other. Both, as appears from
St. Luke, belonged to the old part of the
discourse ; but the comparison of the light
ning was introduced near the beginning of
the discourse, — the image of the eagles and
the carcass at the very end of it. Indeed
this image did not belong to the prediction,
but was an answer to a particular question
proposed by the disciples respecting some
things our Lord had said in lhe latter part
of this prophecy. Our Saviour had com
pared the suddenness of the coming of* the
Son of Man to the sudden eruption of the
waters in Noah's flood, and to the sudden
fall of the lightning that consumed Sodom
and Gomorrah. It is evident, from St.
Matthew's relation, that the coming in-
d 2

36
tended in these similitudes is that coming of
the time and hour of which none knows, said
our Lord, " not' even the Son, but the
Father." But since the epoch of the de
struction of Jerusalem was known to the
Messiah by the prophetic spirit (for he said
that it should take place before the gene
ration with which he Avas living on
earth should be passed away), the coming
of which the time was not known to the
Messiah by the prophetic spirit, could be no
other than the last personal advent. This,
therefore, is the coming of which our Lord
speaks in the seventeenth chapter of St.
Luke's Gospel, and of which he describes
the suddenness ; and in the end -of his dis
course, he foretells some extraordinary
interpositions of a discriminating Provi
dence, which shall preserve the righteous,
in situations of the greatest danger, from
certain public calamities, which in the last
ages of the world will fall upon wicked
nations. " Of two men in one bed, one
shall be taken and the other left. Two
women grinding together, the one shall be
taken and the other left. Two men shall
be in the field, the one shall be taken and

ii

37

the other left. And they said unto him —
Where, Lord ? And he said unto them —
Wheresoever the body is, thither will the
eagles be gathered together." It is proba
ble that the eagle and the carcass was a
proverbial image among the people of the
East, expressing things inseparably con
nected by natural affinities and sympathies.
Her young ones suck up blood," says
Job, speaking of the eagle; "and where
the slain is, there is she." The disciples
ask — Where, iii what countries are these
calamities to happen, and these miraculous
deliverances to be wrought? Our divine
instructor held it unfit to give farther light
upon the subject. He frames a reply, as
was his custom when pressed with unsea
sonable questions, which, at the same time
that it evades the particular inquiry, might
more edify the disciples than the most
explicit resolution of the question proposed.
"Wheresoever the carcass is, thither will
the eagles be gathered together." Where
soever sinners shall dwell, there shall my
vengeance overtake' them, and there will I
interpose to protect my faithful servants.
Nothing, therefore, in the similitude of the
d 3

38
lightning, or the image of the eagles ga
thered round the carcass, limits the phrase
of " our Lord's coming," in the twenty-
seventh verse of this twenty-fourth chapter
of St. Matthew, to the figurative sense of
his coming to destroy Jerusalem.
His coming is announced again in the
thirtieth verse, and in subsequent parts of
these same prophecies ; where it is of great
importance to rescue the phrase from the
refinements of modern expositors, and to
clear some considerable difficulties, which,
it must be confessed, attend the literal inter
pretation. And to this purpose I shall
demote a separate discourse.

39

SERMON III.

Matthew, xxiv. 3.
Tell us when shall these things be ; and what
shall be the signs of thy coming, and of
the end of the world ?
It was upon the Wednesday in the Pas
sion-week, that our Lord, for the last time
retiring from the temple, where he had
closed his public teaching with a severe
invective against the hypocrisy of the
Scribes and Pharisees, uttered to the apos
tles, remarking with admiration as they
passed the strength and beauty of that
stately fabric, that prediction of its ap
proaching demolition which gave occasiorl
to the question which is related in my text.
When they reached the Mount of Olives,
and Jesus was seated on a part of the hill
d 4

40

where the city and the temple lay in pro
spect before him, four of the apostles took
advantage of that retirement to obtain, as
they hoped, from our Lord's mouth, full
satisfaction of the curiosity which his pre
diction of the temple's ruin had excited.
Peter, James, John, and Andrew, came to
him, and asked him privately — "Tell us
when shall these things be ; and what shall
be the signs of thy coming, and ofthe end
of the world ?" To this inquiry our Lord
was pleased to reply in a prophetical dis
course of some considerable length, which
takes up two entire chapters, the twenty-
fourth and the twenty-fifth, of St. Matthew's
Gospel ; and yet is brief, if the discourse
be measured by the subject, — if the length
of speech be compared with the period of
time which the prophecy embraces, com
mencing within a few years after our Lord's
ascension, and ending only with the general
judgment. This discourse consists of two
principal branches. The first is the answer
to the first part of the question, " When
shall these things be?" — that is, — When
shall this demolition of the temple be, which
thou hast now foretold? And the second

41
branch of the discourse is the answer to the
the second part of the question, " What
shall be the signs of thy coming, and of the
end of the world ?" You will find, indeed,
in some modern expositions,, such a turn
given to the expressions in which the apos
tles put their questions, as makes the two
branches of the sentence, not two distinct
questions, as they really are, but the same
question differently expressed. You are
told by these expositors, that by the end of
the world, the apostles meant the end of
that particular age during which the Jewish
church and state were destined to endure.
Such puerile refinements of verbal criticism
might better become those blind leaders of
the blind against whose bad teaching our
Saviour warned the Jewish people, than the
preachers of the gospel. Ask these expo
sitors by what means they were themselves
led to the .discovery of a meaning so little
obvious in the words, you will find that they
have nothing to allege but what they call
the idioms of the Jewish language ; which,
however, are no idioms of the language of
the inspired penmen, but the idioms of the
Rabbinical divines, — a set of despicable

42
writers, who strive to cover their poverty of
meaning by the affected obscurity of a.
mystic style. The apostles were no Rabbins ;
they were plain artless men, commissioned
to instruct men like themselves in the mys
teries of God's kingdom. It is not to be
believed that such men, writing for such a
purpose, and charged with the publication
of a general revelation, should employ
phrases intelligible to none but Jews>
and among the Jews themselves intelligible
only lo the learned. The word " end," by
itself, indeed, may be the end of any thing;
and may perhaps be used in this very part
of Scripture, with some ambiguity, either
for the end of all things, or the end of the
Jewish state, or the end of any period
which may be the immediate subject of
discourse. But it is not to be believed that
the end ofthe world, in the language ofthe
apostles, may signify the end of any thing
else, or carry any other meaning than what
the words must naturally convey to every
one who believes that the world shall have
an end, and has never bewildered his under
standing in the schools of the Rabbins. The
apostles, therefore, in the text clearly ask.

43
two questions : When will the temple be
demolished, as thou hast threatened? and
by what signs shall the world be apprized
of thy coming, and of its approaching end?
Our Lord's prophetical discourse contains
such an answer as was meet for both these
questions; and as the questions were dis
tinctly propounded, the answers are dis
tinctly given in the two distinct branches
of the entire discourse.
I observed, in my last sermon upon this
subject, that these prophecies of our Lord,
which St. Matthew and St. Mark relate as
a continued discourse, are related by St.
Luke as if they had been delivered in two
different parts, upon different though simi
lar occasions. The truth is, that it was
our Lord's custom, as appears from the
evangelical history, not only to inculcate
frequently the same maxims, and to apply
the same proverbs in various senses, but to
repeat discourses of a considerable length
upon different occasions ; as what is called
his sermon on the Mount was at least twice
delivered, and some of his parables were
uttered more than once. It is a rule, how-
6

44
ever, with the evangelists, that each relates
a discourse of any considerable length but
once, without noticing the various occasions
upon which it might be repeated; though
different evangelists often record different
deliveries of the same discourse. St. Luke
having related in its proper place our
Lord's answer to the inquiry of the Phari
sees about the signs ofthe kingdom, omits,
in his relation of our Lord's answer to the
like inquiry of the apostles, what seemed
little more than a repetition of what had
been said upon the former occasion. St.
Matthew and St. Mark have given the dis
course in reply to the apostles more at
length, without mentioning that our Lord
had at any time before touched upon the
same subject.
By comparing the parallel passages of
these prophetical discourses, as they are
related entire by St. Matthew, and in parts
by St. Luke, I have already shown, that in
the similitude of the lightning, by which
our Lord represents the suddenness of his
future coming, no allusion could be in
tended to the route of the Roman armies

45
when they invaded Palestine ; and that the
image of the* eagles gathered round the
carcass hath been expounded with more
refinement than truth of the Roman stand
ards planted round Jerusalem, when the
city was besieged by Vespasian. No argu
ment, therefore, can be drawn from these
poetical allusions, that the coming of the
Son of Man, which is compared to the flash
of lightning, was what has been called his
coming figuratively to destroy Jerusalem.
I now proceed to consider the remaining
part of these prophecies ; and to show that
the coming of the Son of Man, so often
mentioned in them, can be understood of
nothing but that future coming of our Lord
which was promised to the apostles by the
angels at the time of his ascension, — his
coming visibly to judge the quick "and dead.
Every one, I believe, admits that the
coming of the Son of Man, foretold in- the
thirtieth verse of this twenty-fourth chapter
of St. Matthew's Gospel, when the sign of
the Son of Man is to be displayed in the
heavens — when the tribes ofthe earth shall
be seized with consternation, seeing him

46

coming in the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory, — every one admits, that
the coming thus foretold in the thirtieth
verse is to succeed those disorders in the
sun, moon, and stars, mentioned in the
twenty-ninth. Darkness in the sun and
moon, and a falling of the stars, were
images in frequent and familiar use among
the Jewish prophets, to denote the over
throw of great empires or the fall of mighty
potentates ; and there is nothing in the
images themselves to connect them with one
event of this kind rather than another.
But if we recur to the parallel passage of
St. Luke's Gospel, we shall find, that before
these signs in the sun, moon, and stars, our
Lord had mentioned that Jerusalem is to be
trodden down of the Gentiles, until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled ; that is,
till the time shall come for that accession of
new converts from the Gentiles* which, as
St. Paul intimates, is to follow the restora
tion ofthe converted Jews. " If the fall of
them" (the Jews), says St. Paul, be the
riches of the world, and the diminishing of
them the riches of the Gentiles, how much
more their fulness ?" After he had men-

47
tioned this fulfilling of the times of the
Gentiles, then, according lo St. Luke, our
Lord introduced those signs in the sun and
the heavenly bodies. These signs, there
fore, are not to take place till the time come
for the fulfilling of the Gentiles, — not,
therefore, till the restoration of the Jews,
which is to be the beginning and the means of
that fulfilling. They cannot, therefore, be
intended to denote the beginnings of that
dispersion of the Jews from which they are
to be restored when these signs take place ;
nor can the coming of the Son of Man,
which is still to succeed these signs, be his
coming figuratively to effect that dispersion
by the arms of Vespasian. The dispersion,
I say, of the Jewish people, Avhich by a
considerable interval was to precede these
signs, cannot be the same thing with the
coming of the Son of Man, which is to
follow them.
Upon these grounds, I conclude that,
under the image of these celestial disorders,
the overthrow of some Wicked nations in
the last ages isepredicted ; probably of some
who shall pretend to oppose by force of

48
arms the return of the chosen race to the
holy land, and the re-establishment of their
kingdom. And if this be the probable
interpretation of the signs in the sun and
moon, the advent which is to succeed those
signs can hardly be any other than the real
advent at the last day.
In my first discourse upon this subject, I
had occasion to obviate an objection that
might be raised from the declaration which
our Lord subjoins to his parable of the fig-
tree : " This generation shall not pass away
till all these things be fulfilled," I showed
that the words " all these things" do not
denote all the particulars of the whole pre
ceding prophecy, but all the things denoted
by the same words in the application of that
parable, — namely, all the first signs which
answer to the budding ofthe fig-tree's leaves.
Great stress has been laid upon the ex
pressions with which, as St. Matthew reports
them, our Lord introduces the mention of
those signs in the sun and moon which are to
precede his advent : " Immediately after
the tribulation of those days, shall the sun

49
be darkened." The word " immediately"
may seem to direct us to look for this
darkness of sun and moon in something
immediately succeeding the cal ami ties which
the preceding part of the prophecy describes:
And as nothing could more immediately
succeed the distresses of the' Jewish war than
the demolition of the city and the disper
sion of the nation, hence, all that goes
before in St. Matthew's narrative of these
discourses, hath been understood of the
distresses of the war, and these celestial
disorders of the final dissolution of the
Jewish polity in church and state ; which
catastrophe, it hath been thought, our Lord
might choose to clothe in " figurative lan
guage, on purpose to perplex the unbelieving
persecuting Jews, if his discourses should
ever fall into their hands, that they might
not learn to avoid the impending evil."
But we learn from St. Luke, that before
our Lord spoke of these signs, he mentioned
the final dissolution of the Jewish polity,
in the plainest terms, without any figure.
He had said — " They" i. e. (as appears by
the preceding sentence) this people " shall
fall by the edge, of the sword, and shall be
VOL. i. e

50
led away captive into all nations; and
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles." And to what purpose should he
afterwards propound in a figure what he
had already described in plain words ?• or
how could the .figurative description, thus
accompanied with the interpretation, serve
the.purpose of confounding and perplexing?
I apprehend, that the whole difficulty which
the word." immediately" is supposed to
create, in that interpretation which refers
the signs in the sun and moon to the last
ages of the world, is founded on a mistake
concerning the extent of that period of
affliction which is intended by " the tribu
lation of those days." These words, I
believe, have been always understood of
those few years during which the Roman
armies harassed Judea and besieged the
holy city ; whereas it is more agreeable to
the general cast of the prophetic language,
to understand them of the whole period of
the tribulation ofthe Jewish nation, — that
whole period during which Jerusalem is to
be trodden down. This tribulation began
indeed in those days of the Jewish war;
but the period of it is at this, day in its

51
course, and will not end till the time shall
come, predetermined in the counsels of
God, for the restoration of that people to
their ancient seats. This whole period will
probably be a period of affliction, not to
the Jews only, but also in some degree to
the Christian church; for not before the
expiration of it will the true church be
secure jxom persecutions from without —
from corruption, schism, and heresy, within.
But when this period shall be run out, —
when the destined time shall come for the
conversion and restoration of the Jewish
people, — immediately shall the sun be
darkened, and the moon shall not give her
light; great commotions and revolutions
will take place among the kingdoms of the
earth. Indeed, the re-establishment of the
Jewish kingdom is, in the nature of the
thing, not likely to be effected without great
disturbances. By this interpretation, and
I think in no other way, the parallel pas
sages of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St.
Luke, may be brought exactly to one and
the same meaning.
I shall now venture to conclude, notwith*
E 2

52
standing the great authorities which incline
the other way, that the phrase of " our
Lord's coining," wherever it occurs in his
prediction of the Jewish war, as well as in
most other passages of the New Testament,
is to be taken in its literal meaning, as de
noting his coming in person, in visible
pomp, ahd glory, to the general judgment.
Nor is the belief of that coming, so expli
citly foretold, an article of little moment in
the Christian's creed, however some who
call themselves Christians may affect to
slight it. It is true, that the expectation of
a future retribution is what ought, in the
nature of the thing, to be a sufficient re
straint upon a wise man's conduct, though
we were uninformed of the manner in
which the thing will be brought about, and
were at liberty to suppose that every indi
vidual's lot would be silently determined,
without any public entry of the Almighty
Judge, and without the formality of a
public, trial.. But our merciful God, who
knows how feebly the allurements of the
present world are resisted by our reason,
unless imagination can be engaged on rea-

53
son's side, to paint the prospect of future
good, aftd display the terror of future suf
fering, hath been pleased to ordain that the
business shall be so conducted, and the
method of the business so clearly foretold,
as lo strike the profane with awe, and ani
mate the humble and the timid. He hath
warned us (and let them who dare to exte
nuate the warning ponder the dreadful curse
with which the book of prophecy is sealed — ¦_
" If any man shall take away from the words
of the book of this prophecy, God shall
take away his part out of the book of life,")
— God hath warned us that the inquiry into
every man's conduct will be public — Christ
himself the Judge — the whole race of man
and the whole angelic host spectators of the
awful scene.- Before that assembly, every
man's good deeds will be declared, and his
most secret sins disclosed. As no elevation
of rank will then give a title tp respect, no
obscurity of condition shaU exclude the just
from public honour, or screen the guilty
from public shame. Opulence wili find
itself no longer powerful, — poverty will be
no longer weak ; birth will no longer be
distinguished, — meanness will no longer
e 3

54
pass unnoticed. The rich afW poor will
indeed strangely meet together ; when all
the inequalities ofthe present life shall dis
appear, and the conqueror and his captive,
the monarch and his subject, the lord and
his vassal, the statesman and the peasant,
the philosopher and the unlettered hind,
shall find their distinctions to have been
mere illusions. The characters and actions
of the greatest and the meanest have in truth
been equally important, arid equally public;
while the eye. of the omniscient God hath
been equally upon them all, —r while all are
at last equally brought to answer to their
common Judge, and the angels stand
around spectators^ equally interested in the
dooms of all. The sentence of every man
will be pronounced by him who cannot be
merciful to those who shall have willingly
sold themselves to that abject bondage from
which he died to purchase their redemption,
—who, nevertheless, having felt the power of
temptation, knows to pity them that have
been tempted ; by him on whose mercy
contrite frailty may rely — whose anger
hardened impenitence must dread. To
heighten the solemnity and terror of the
13

55
business, the Judge will visibly descend
from heaven, — the shout of the archangels
and the trumpet of the Lord will thunder
through the deep, — the dead will awake,—
the glorified saints will be caught up to meet
the Lord in the air, while the wicked will
ih vain call upon the mountains and %he
rocks to cover them. Of the day and hour
when these things shall be, knoweth no
man ; but the day and hour for these things
are fixed in the eternal Father's counsels.
Our Lord will come, — he will come un-
looked for, and may come sooner than we
think. God grant, that the diligence we have
used in these meditations may so fix the
thought and expectation of that glorious
advent in our hearts, that by constant
watchfulness on our own part, and by the
powerful succour of God's Holy Spirit,
we may be found of our Lord, when he
cometh, without spot, and blameless !

s 4

56

SERMON IV.

Matthew, xvi. 28.
Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing
here which shall not taste of death till they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
These remarkable words stand in the
conclusion of a certain discourse, with the
subject of which, as they have been gene
rally understood* they seem to be but little
connected. It must therefore be my busi
ness to establish what I take to be their
true meaning, before I attempt to enlarge
upon the momentous doctrine which I con
ceive to be contained in them.
The marks of horror and aversion with
which our Lord's disciples received the first
intimations of his sufferings, gave occasion
to a seasonable lecture upon the necessity of

5?
self-denial, as the means appointed by
Providence for the attainment of future
happiness and glory. " If any one," says
our Lord, " would come after me," — if any
one pretends to be my disciple, " let him
take up his cross and follow me." To en
force this precept, as prescribing a conduct
which, afflictive as it may seem for the
present, is yet no other than it is every
man's truest interest to pursue, he reminds
his hearers of the infinite disproportion
between time and eternity ; he assuresthem
ofthe certainty of a day of retribution; and
to that assurance he subjoins the decla
ration of the text, as a weighty truth, in
which they were deeply interested, — for
so much the earnestness with .which it seems
to have been delivered speaks. " Verily, I
say unto you," — these are words bespeak
ing a most serious attention, — " Verily, I
say unto you, there be some standing here
which shall not taste of death till they see
the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
Here, then, is an assertion concerning
some persons who were present at this dis
course of our Lord's, that they " should

58

not taste of death" before a certain time ;
which time is described as that when " the
Son of Man should be seen coming in his
kingdom." Observe, it is not simply the
time when the Son of Man should come, but
the time when he should come in his king
dom, and when he should be seen so coining.
In order to ascertain the meaning of this
assertion, the first point must be, to deter
mine, if possible, what may be the particular
time which is thus described. From the
resolution of this question, it will probably
appear in what sense, figurative or literal,
it might be affirmed of any who were pre
sent at this discourse, that they should not
taste of death before that time ; also, who
they might be at whom the words " some
standing here," may be supposed to have
been pointed. And when we shall have
discovered who they were of whom our
Lord spake, and what it was he spake con
cerning them, it is likely we shall then
discern for what purpose of general edifi
cation the particular destiny of those persons
was thus publicly declared.
Many expositors* both ancient and mo-

59
dern, by. " the coming.of the Son of Man,"
in this text, have understood the transfigu
ration. This notion probably takes its rise
from the manner in which St. Peter mentions
that memorable transaction, in the first
chapter of his second catholic epistle; where,
speaking of himself as present upon that
occasion in the holy mountain, he says that
he was then an eye-witness of the Majesty
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, perhaps,
the hint Was taken, that the transfiguration
might -be considered as the first manifes
tation of our Lord in glory to the sons of
men ; and that the apostles, who were per
mitted to be present, might be said to have
seen the Son of Man at that time coming
in his kingdom. And it must be confessed,
that no violence is done lo the phrase of
" the coming of the Son of Man," consi
dered by itself, in this interpretation. But,
if it be admitted,—- if the time described as
that when the Son of Man should be seen
coming in his kingdom be understood to
have been the time of the transfiguration, —
• what will be the amount of the solemn
asseveration in the text ? — Nothing more
than this, — lhat in the numerous assembly

60
to which our Lord was speaking, composed
perhaps of persons of all ages, there were
some, — the expressions certainly intimate
no great number, — but some few of this
great multitude there were Avho were not to
die within a week ; for so much was the
utmost interval of time between this dis
course and the transfiguration. Our great
Lord and Master was not accustomed to
amuse his followers with any such nugatory
predictions. The like argument sets aside another
interpretation, in which our Lord's ascen
sion and the mission of the Holy Ghost are
considered as the " coming in his kingdom"
intended in the text. Of what importance
was it to tell a numerous assembly, (for it
was not to the disciples in particular, but to
the whole multitude, as we learn from St.
Mark, that this discourse was addressed,)—
to what purpose, I say, could it be, to tell
them that there were some among .them who
were destined to live half a year ?
Both these interpretations have given
Avay to a third, in which "the coming of
14

61
our Lord in his kingdom" is supposed to
denote the epoch of the destruction of Jeru
salem. This exposition is perhaps not so
well warranted as hath been generally ima
gined, by the usual import ofthe phrase of
" the coming of the Son of Man," in other
passages of holy Avrit. There is no question
but that " the coming of our Lord," taken
literally, signifies his coming in person lo
the general judgment; and, if the time
permitted me to enter upon a minute exa
mination of the several texts wherein the
phrase occurs, it might perhaps appear,
that, except in the book of Revelations, the
figurative sense is exceedingly rare in the
Scriptures of the New Testament, if not
altogether unexampled. Be that as it may,
there is no question but that the coming of
our Lord, taken literally, signifies his com
ing in person to the general judgment ; and
the close connexion of the words ofthe text
with What immediately precedes, in our
Lord's discourse, makes it unreasonable,
in my judgment, to look for any thing here
but the literal meaning. In the verse next
before the text, our Lord speaks of the
coming of the Son of Man in terras that

62

necessarily limit the notion of his coming
to that of his last coming tp the general
judgment. "For the Son of Man shall
come in the glory of his Father, with his
angels ; and thenhe shall reward every man
according to his works." And, then he
adds — "Verily, I say unto you, there be
some standing here, which shall not taste of
death till they see the Son of Man coming
in his kingdom." First, it is said the Son
of Man shall come ; — it is immediately
added, that some then present should see
him coming. To Avhat purpose is this
second declaration, but as a repetition of
the first, with the addition of a circum
stance which might interest the audience in
the event, and awaken their serious atten
tion to it ? " I will come ; and some of
you shall see me coming." Can it be sup
posed, that in such an asseveration, the
Avord "to come" may bear Iavo different
senses; and that the coming, of which it
Avas said that it should be seen, should not
be visible ? But what then did our Lord
actually aver? — that any of those Avho
upon this occasion Avere his hearers should
live to the day ofthe general judgment? —

63
It cannot be supposed : That were to as-
scribe to him a prediction which the event
of things hath falsified. Mark his words :
" There be some standing here Avho shall
not taste of death." He says not " who
shall not die," but " Avho shall not taste of
death." Not to taste of death, is not to feel
the pains of it — not to taste ils bitterness.
In tlus sense Avas the same expression used
by our Lord upon other occasions, as Avas
indeed the more simple expression of not
dying. " If a man keep my saying, he
shall never taste of death." The expression
is to be understood with reference to the
intermediate state between death and the
final judgment, iii which the souls both of
the righteous and the wicked exist in a con
scious state, — the one.comforted with the
hope and prospect of their future glory, the
other mortified with the expectation of tor
ment. The promise to the saints, that they
shall never taste of death, is without limi
tation of time ; — in the next, a time being
set, until which the persons intended shall
not taste of death, it is implied that then
they shall taste it. The departure of the
Wicked into everlasting torment is in Scrip-

64

ture called the second death. This is the
death from which Christ came to save peni
tent sinners ; and to this the impenitent
remain obnoxious. The pangs and horrors
of it will be- such, that the evil of natural
death, in comparison, may Avell be .over
looked ; and it may be said of the wicked,-
that they shall have no real taste of death
till they taste it in the burning lake, Avhence
the smoke of their torment shall ascend for
ever and ever. This is what our Lord
insinuates in the alarming menace of the
text : This, at least, is the most literal
exposition that the words will bear ; and it
connects them more than any other Avith
the scope and occasion of the whole dis
course. " Whosoever," says our Lord, " will
lose his life shall .find it," — shall find,
instead of the life. he loses here, a better in
the Avorld to come; "and Avhosoever will
save his^ life shall lose it," — shall lose that
life which alone is worth his care : " For
Avhat is a man profited, if he gain the Avhole
Avorld, and lose his ovyn soul ? or Avhat shall
a man give in exchange for his soul ?" For
there will come a day of judgment and
retribution : The Son of Man, he who

65
iioav converses with you in a human form,
" shall come in the glory of the Father,
Avith his angels ; and then he shall reward
every man according to his works :" on
them who, by patient continuance in Avell-
doing, have sought for life and immortality,
— on them he shall bestow glory and hap->
piness, honour and praise; but " shame
and rebuke, tribulation and anguish, upon
every soul of man that doeth evil." The
purport of the discourse was to enforce a
just contempt both of the enjoyments and
of the sufferings of the present life, from the
consideration of the better enjoyments and
of the heavier sufferings of the life to come :
and because the discourse was occasioned
by a fear which the disciples had betrayed
of the sufferings of this world, for which
another fear might seem the best antagonist
— for this reason, the point chiefly insisted
on is the magnitude of the loss to them who
should lose their souls. To give this con
sideration its full effect, the hearers are told
that there were those among themselves
who stood in this dangerous predicament.
" There be some standing here who shall
not taste of death till they see the Son of
VOL. I. F

66
Man coming in his kingdom ;" and then
will they be doomed to endless sufferings,
in comparison with which the previous
pangs of natural death are nothing.
" Flatter not yourselves that these threat-
enings Avill never be executed, — that none
Avill be so incorrigibly bad as to incur the
extremity of these punishments : verily, I
say unto you, there are present, in this very
assembly, — there are persons standing here,
who will be criminal in. that degree, that
they will inevitably feel the severity of
vindictive justice, — persons who noAV per
haps hear these warnings with incredulity
and contempt: but the time will come,
when they will see the Son of Man, whom
they despised — Avhom .they " rejected —
whom they persecuted, coming to execute
vengeance on them Avho have not known
God, nor obeyed the gospel ; and then will
they be doomed to endless* sufferings, in
comparison wj,th which the previous pangs
of natural death are nothing.
It Avill be proper, however, to consider,
whether, among the hearers of this dis
course, there might be any at whom it may

67
be probable that our Lord should point so
express a denunciation of final destruction.
" There are some standing here." — The
original Avords, according to the reading
which our English translators seem to have
followed, might be more exactly rendered —
" There are certain persons standing here;"
where the expression " certain persons" hath
just the same definite sense as " a certain
person," the force of the plural number
being- only that it is a more reserved, and,
for that reason, a more alarming Avay pf
pointing af an individual. Now, in the
assembly to which our Lord was speaking,
a certain person, it may well be supposed,
was present, whom charity herself may
hardly scruple to include among the mise
rable objects of God's final vengeance. The
son of perdition, Judas the traitor, was
standing there. Our Saviour's first pre
diction of his passion was that Avhich gave
occasion lo this whole discourse. It may
reasonably be supposed, that the tragical
conclusion of his life on earth was present
to his mind, with all its horrid circum
stances ; and, among these, none Avas likely
F 2

m
to make a more painful impression than the
treason of his base disciple. His mind pos
sessed with these objects, when the scene of
the general judgment comes in view — the
traitor standing in his sight — his crime
foreseen — the sordid motives of it under
stood, — the forethought of the fallen
apostle's punishment could not but present
itself;. and this drew from our divine in
structor that alarming menace, which must
have struck a chill of horror to the heart of
every one that heard it, and the more be
cause the particular appli cation of it was
not at the time understood. This was the
effect intended : our Lord meant to impress
his audience with a just and affecting sense
of the magnitude of those evils— the sharp
ness of those pains, which none but the
ungodly shall ever feek, and from which
none of the ungodly ever shall escape.
Nor in this passage only, but in every
page of holy writ, are these terrors dis
played, in expressions, studiously adapted
to lay hold of the imagination of mankind,
and awaken the most thoughtless to such
an habitual sense of danger as might be
IO

69
sufficient to overcome the most powerful
allurements of vice. " The wicked are to
go into outer darkness. There is to be
weeping and gnashing of teeth. They are
to depart into everlasting fire, prepared for
the Devil and his angels, where the Avorm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
There they shall drink of the wrath of God,
poured out without mixture into the cup of
his indignation." Whatever there may be
of figure in some of these expressions, as
much as this they certainly import, that the
future state ofthe Avicked will be a state of
exquisite torment both of body and mind,
— of torments, not only intense in degree^
but incapable of intermission, cure, or end,
— a condition of unmixed and perfect evil,
not less deprived of future hope than of
present enjoyment.
It is amazing that a danger so strongly
set forth should be disregarded ; and this is
the more amazing, when we take a view of
the particular casts and complexions of
character among which this disregard is
chiefly found. They may be reduced to
three different classes, according to the
f 3

70
three different passions by Avhich they are
severally overcome,* — ambition, avarice,
and sensuality. Personal consequence is
the object of the first class, Avealth of the
second, pleasure of lhe third. Personal
consequence is not to be acquired but by
great undertakings, bold in the first con
ception, difficult in execution, extensive in
consequence. Such undertakings demand
great abilities. Accordingly, Ave commonly
find in the ambitious man a superiority of
parts, in some measure proportioned lo the
magnitude of his designs : it is his particular
talent to Aveigh distant consequences, to
provide against them, and to turn every
thing, by a deep policy and forecast, to
his own advantage. It might be expected,
that this sagacity of understanding would
restrain him from the desperate folly of
sacrificing an unfading crown for that
glory that must shortly pass aAvay. Again,
your avaricious money-getting man is
generally a character of Avonderful dis
cretion. It might be expected that he
would be exact to count his gains, and
Avould be the last to barter possessions
which he might hold for ever, for a Avealth

71
that shall be taken from him, and shall
not profit him in the day of wrath. Then,
for those servants of sin the effeminate sons
of sensual pleasure, these are a feeble
timid race. It might be expected that
these, of all men, Avould want firmness to
brave the danger. Yet so it is, — the
ambitious pursues a conduct which must
end in shame ; the miser, to be rich now,
makes himself poor for ever ; and the ten
der delicate voluptuary shrinks not at the
thought of endless burnings !
These things could not be, but for one of
these two reasons, — either that there is
some lurking incredulity in men, an evil
heart of unbelief, that admits not the
gospel doctrine of punishment in its full
extent; or that their imaginations set the
danger at a prodigious distance.
The Scriptures are not more explicit in
the threaten! ngs of wrath upon the im
penitent than in general assertions of God's
forbearance and mercy. These assertions
are confirmed by the voice of Nature,
Avhich loudly proclaims the goodness as
F 4

72
well as the power of the universal Lord.
Man is frail and imperfect in his original
constitution. This, too, is the doctrine of
the Scriptures ; and every man's experience
unhappily confirms it. Human life, by
the appointment of Providence, is short :
" He hath made our days as it were a
span long." " Is it, then, to be supposed,
that this good, this merciful, this long-
suffering God, should doom his frail im
perfect creature man to endless punishment,
for the follies — call them, if you please,
the crimes, of a short life ? Is He injured
by our crimes, lhat he should seek this vast
revenge? or does his nature delight in
groans and lamentations ? — It cannot be
supposed. What revelation declares of
the future condition of the wicked is pro
phecy ; and prophecy, we knoAv, deals in
poetical and exaggerated expressions."
Such, perhaps, is the language which the
sinner holds Avithin himself, when he is
warned of the wrath to come ; and such
language he is taught to hold, in the writ
ings and the sermons of our modern
sectaries. He is taught, that the punishr
ment threatened is far more heavy than

73
will be executed : he is told, that the words
which, in their literal meaning, denote end
less duration, are, upon many occasions, in
Scripture, as in common speech, used
figuratively or abusively, to denote very
long but yet definite periods of time. These
notions' are inculcated in the Avritings, not
of infidels, but of men who, Avith all their
errors, must be numbered among the friends
and advocates of virtue and religion : but,
while we willingly bear witness to their
worth, we must not the less strenuously re
sist their dangerous innovations.
The question concerning the eternity of
punishment (like some others, which, con
sidered merely as • questions of philosophy,
may be of long and difficult discussion,)
might be brought to a speedy determination,
if men, before they heat themselves Avith
argument, Avould impartially consider how
far reason in her natural strength may be
competent to the inquiry. I do not mean
to affirm generally that reason is not a
judge in matters of religion ; but I do
maintain, that there are certain points con
cerning the nature of the Deity, and the

74
schemes of Providence, upon which reason
is dumb and revelation is explicit; and
that, in these points, there is no certain
guide but the plain obvious meaning of the
written word. The question concerning
the eternal duration of the torments of the
Avicked is one of these.
From any natural knowledge that we
have of the Divine character, it never can
be proved that the scheme of eternal punish
ment is unAvorlhy of him. It cannot be
proved that this scheme is inconsistent
with- his natural perfections — his essential
goodness. What is essential goodness ? —
It is usually defined by a single property,
— the love of virtue for its own sake. The
definition is good, as far as itrgoes ; but is
it complete? does it comprehend the Avhole
of the thing intended ? — Perhaps not.
Virtue and vice are opposites ; love and
hate are opposites : a consistent character
must bear opposite affections towards op
posite things : to love virtue, therefore, for
its own sake, and to hate vice for its own
sake, may equally belong to the character
of essential goodness ; and thus, as virtue,

75
in itself, and for its own sake, must be the
object of God's love and favour, so, incurable
vice, in itself, and for its oavu sake, may be
the object of his hatred and persecution.
Again, it cannot be proved that the
scheme of eternal punishment is incon
sistent Avith the relative perfections of the
Deity — Avith those attributes which are
displayed in his dealings with the rational
part of his creation : for who is he that
shall determine in what proportions the at
tributes of justice and mercy, forbearance
and severity, ought, to be mixed up in the
character of the Supreme Governor of the
universe? Nor can it be proved that
eternal punishment is inconsistent Avith the
schemes of God's moral government : for
who can define the extent of that govern
ment ? who among the sons of men hath
an exact understanding of its ends — a
knoAvledge of its various parts, and of their
mutual relations and dependencies ? Who
is he that shall explain by what motives the
righteous are to be preserved from falling
from their future state of glory ? That they
shall noi fall, Ave have the comfortable.

76
assurance of God's Avord ; but by what
means is the security of their state to be
effected ? — Unquestionably by the in
fluence of moral motives upon the minds
of free and rational agents. But Avho is
so enlightened as to foresee what particular
motives may be the fittest for the purpose ?
Who can say — These might be sufficient ;
— these are superfluous ? Is it impossible,
that, among other motives, the sufferings
of the wicked may have a salutary effect ?
And shall God spare the Avicked, if the
preservation of the righteous should call
for the perpetual example of their punish
ment?  Since, then, no proof can be
deduced, from any natural knowledge that
we have of God, that the scheme of eternal
punishment is unAvorthy of the Divine
character, — since there is no proof that
it is inconsistent either with the natural
perfections of God or Avith his relative
attributes, — • since it may be necessary
to the ends of his government, — upon
what grounds do we proceed, when we pre
tend to interpret, to qualify, and to exte
nuate the threatenings of holy writ ?

77
The original frailty of human nature and
the providential shortness of human life,
are alleged to no purpose in this argument.
Eternal, punishment is not denounced
against the frail, but against the hardened
and perverse; and life is to be esteemed
long or short, not from any proportion it
may bear to eternity, (which Avould be
equally none at all, though it were pro
tracted to ten thousand times its ordinary
length,) but according as the space of it
may be more or less than may be just suf
ficient for the purposes of such a state as
our present life is of discipline and pro
bation. There must be a certain length of
time, the precise measure of which can be
known to none but God, within which, the
promises and the threatenings of the gospel,
joined with the experience Avhich every
man's life affords of God's power and pro
vidence — of the instability and vanity of
all worldly enjoyments, — there must, in
the nature of things, be a certain measure
of time, within which, if at all, this stale of
experience, joined Avith future hopes and
fears, must produce certain degrees of im-
provementin moral wisdom and in virtuous

78
habit. If, in all that time, no effect is
wrought, the impediment can only have
arisen from incurable self-will and obsti
nacy. If the ordinary period of life be
more than is precisely sufficient for this
trial and cultivation of the character, those
characters which shall show themselves in
corrigibly bad will have no claim upon the
justice or the goodness of God, to abridge
the time of their existence in misery, so
that it may bear some certain proportion
to the short period of their wicked lives.
Qualities are not to be measured by du
ration : They bear no more relation to it
than they do to space. The hatefulness of
sin is seated in itself — in its own internal
quality of evil : by that its ill -deservings are
to be measured, — not by the narroAvness of
the limits, either of time or place, Avithin
which the good providence of God hath
confined its power of doing mischief.
If, on any ground, it were safe to indulge
a hope that the suffering of the wicked may
have an end, it would be upon the prin
ciple adopted by the great Origen, and by
other eminent examples of learning and
5

79
piety which our own times have seen, — .
that the actual endurance of punishment in
the next life will produce effects to Avhich
the apprehension of it in this had been in
sufficient ; and end; after a long course of
ages, in the reformation of the worst cha
racters. But the principle that this effect
is possible — that the heart may be re
claimed by force, is at best precarious;
and the only safe principle of human con
duct is the belief that unrepented sin will
suffer endless punishment hereafter
Perhaps, the distance at which imagin
ation sets the prospect of future punishment
may have a more general influence in
diminishing the effect of God's merciful
warnings than any sceptical doubts about
the intensity or the duration of the suffer
ings of the wicked. The Spirit of God
means to awaken us from this delusion,
when he tells us, by the apostles and holy
men of old, that " the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh." He means, by these de
clarations, to remind every man that his
particular doom is near: for, Avhatever
may be the season appointed in the secret

80
Counsels of God for " that great and terri
ble day, when the heavens and the earth
shall flee from the face of him who shall be
seated on the throne, and their place shall
be no more found," — whatever may be the
destined time of this public catastrophe,
the end of the world, with respect to every
individual, takes place at the conclusion of
his own life. In the grave there will be no
repentance; no virtues can be acquired —
no evil habits thrown off: with that cha
racter, whether of virtue or of vice, with
which a man leaves the world, Avith that he
must appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ : in that moment, therefore, in Avhich
his present life ends, every man's future
condition becomes irreversibly determined.
In this sense, to every one that standeth
here, " the coming of the Lord draweth
nigh, — the Judge is at the door. Let us
watch, therefore, and pray," — Avatch over
ourselves, and pray for the succours of
God's grace, that we may be able to stand
before the Son of Man. Nor shall vigi
lance and prayer be ineffectual. On the
incorrigible and perverse', — on those who
mock at God's threatenings, and reject his

81
promises,— i- on these only the severity of
wrath will fall. But, for those who lay
these warnings seriously to heart — who
dread the pollutions of the world, and flee
from sin as from a serpent — Avho fear God's
displeasure more than death, and. seek his
favour more than life, — though 'much of
frailty will to the last adhere to them, yet
these are the objects of the Father's mercy
—of the Redeemer's love. For these he
died, — for these he pleads ; these he sup
ports and strengthens Avith his Spirit ; these
he shall lead with him triumphant to the
mansions of glory, when Sin and Death
shall be cast into the lake of fire.

VOL. I. G

82

SERMON V.

PSALM Xiv. 1.

I speak of the things which I have made
touching the King, or, unto the King.
This forty-fifth psalm has 'for many ages
made a stated part of the public service
of the church on this anniversary festival
of our blessed Lord's nativity*. With
God's assistance, I purpose to explain to
you ils application,' both in the general
subject and in each particular part, to this
great occasion ; which will afford both
seasonable and edifying matier of dis
course. It is "a poetical composition, in the form
of an epithalamium or song of congratula
tion, upon the marriage of a great king, to
be sung to niusic al the Avedding-feast. The

* Preached on Christmas-day.

83
topics are such as Avere the usual ground
work of such gratulatory odes with the
poets of antiquity : they all fall under two
general heads — the praises of the bride
groom, and the praises of the bride. The
bridegroom is praised for the comeliness of
his person and the urbanity of his address
— -for his military exploits- — for the extent
of his conquests — :for the upright adminis
tration of his government — for the magni
ficence ".of his court. The bride is cele
brated for her high birth— for the beauty
of her. person, the richness of her dress, and
her numerous train of blooming bridemaids.
It is foretold that the marriage will be fruit
ful, and that the sons of the great king will
be sovereigns of the whole earth. In this
general structure of the poem, we find
nothing but the common topics and the
common arrangement of every wedding-
sPng: and AVere it not that it is come doAvn
to us in the authentic collection of the
sacred hymns of the Hebrew church, and
that some particular expressions are foiind
in it, which, with all the allowance that can
be made for the hyperbolisms ofthe oriental
style; (of \vhieh, of late years, wchave been
c 2

84
accustomed to hear more than is true, as
applied to the sacred writers,) are not easily
applicable to the parties, even in a royal
marriage, — 'Avere it not for such expressions
Avhich occur, and for the notorious, circum
stance that it had a distinguished place in
the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, we
should not be led to divine, from any thing
in the general structure of the poem, that
this psalm had reference to any religious
subject. But when we connect these cir
cumstances with another, which cannot
have, escaped the observation of any reader
ofthe Bible, that the relation between the
Saviour and his church is represented in
the writings both of the Old and New
Testament under the image of the relation
of a husband to his wife, — that it is a fa
vourite image with all the ancient prophets,
when they would set forth the loving kind
ness of God for the church, or the church's
dutiful return of love to him ; while, on the
contrary, the idolatry of the church, in her
apostacies, is represented as the adultery of
a married woman, — that this image has
been consecrated to this signification by
our Lordes own use of it, who describes

85
God in the act of settling the church in her
final state of peace and perfection, as a
king making a marriage for his son ; — the
conjecture that will naturally arise upon
the recollection of these circumstances Avill
be, that this epithalamium, preserved
among the sacred Avritings of the ancient
Jewish church, celebrates no common mar
riage, but the great mystical wedding, —
that Christ is the bridegroom, and the
spouse his church. And this Avas the
unanimous opinion of all antiquity, with
out exception even of the Jewish expo
sitors : for although, Avith the veil of
ignorance and prejudice upon their under
standings and their hearts, they discern
not the completion of this or of any of their
prophesies in the Son of Mary, yet they all
alloAV, that this is one of the prophesies
which relate to the Messiah and Messiah's
people ; and none of them ever dreamed of
an application of it to the marriage of any
earthly prince.
It is the more extraordinary, that there
should have arisen in the Christian church,
in later ages, expositors of great name and
g 3

86
authority, and indeed of great learning,
Avho have maintained that the immediate
subject of the psalm is the marriage of
Solomon Avith Pharaoh's daughter ; and
can discover only a distant reference to
Christ and the church, as typified by the
Jewish king and his Egyptian bride. This
exposition, too absurd and gross for Jewish
blindness, contrary to the unanimous sense
of the fathers of the earliest ages, unfortu
nately gained credit, in a late age, in -the
reformed churches, upon the authority of
Calvin ; insomuch, that in an English
translation of the Bible, which goes under
the - name of Queen Elizabeth's Bible,
because it was in common use in private
families in her reign, we have this argu
ment prefixed to the psalm : " The majestie
of Solomon, his honour, slrength, beauty,
riches, and power, are praised.; and also
his marriage with the Egyptian, being an
jieathen woman, is blessed." It is added
indeed, " Under this figure, the wonderful!
majestie and increase of. the kingdom of
Christ, and his church noAV taken of the
Gentiles, is described."— Now the account
pf thjis matter is this. This English trans-

87
lation of the Bible, Avhich is, indeed, upon
the Avhole, a very gopd one, and furnished
Avith ver}r edifying notes and illustrations
(except that in many points they savour
too much of Calvinism), was made and
first published at Geneva, by the English
Protestants who fled thither from Mary's
persecution. During their residence there,
they contracted a veneration for the cha
racter of Calvin,-— Avhich Avas no more than
was due to his great piety and his great
learning ; but they unfortunately con
tracted also a veneration for hjs opinions)
' — a veneration more than was due to the
opinions of any uninspired teacher. The
bad effects of this unreasonable partiality
the church of England feels, in some points,
tp the present day ; and this false notion,
which they who were led, aAvay with it
circulated among the people of this coun
try, of the true subject of this psalm, in
the argument which they presumed to pre
fix to it, is one instance of this calamitous
consequence. Calvin was undoubtedly si good man, and
a great divine ; but, Avithall fyis,grq*at talents
g 4

and his great learning, he was, by his want
of taste, and by the poverty of his imagin
ation, a most wretched expositor of the pro
phesies, — just as he would have been a
wretched expositor of any secular poet. He
had no sense of the beauties and no under-
Standing of the imagery of poetry ; — and
the far greater part of the prophetical writ
ings, and all the psalms without exception,
are poetical. And there is no stronger in
stance of his inability in this branch of sacred
criticism than his notion of this psalm. " It
is certain," he has the arrogance to say, with
all antiquity, Jewish and Christian, in op
position to him, " it is certain, that this
psalm was composed concerning Solomon.
Yet the subject is not dalliance ; but, under
the figure of Solomon, the holy conjunction
of Christ Avith his church is propounded to

us."

It is most certain, that, in the prophetical
book ofthe Song of Solomon, the union of
Christ and his church is described in images
taken entirely from the mutual passion and
early loves of Solomon and his Egyptian
bride. And this perhaps might be the
14

89
ground of Calvin's error : He might imagine,
that this psalm Avas another shorter poem
upon the same subject, and of the same cast.
But no Iavo compositions can be more unlike
than the Song of Solomon and this forty-
fifth psalm. Read the Song of Solomon,
you will find the Hebrew king, if you knoAv
any thing of his history, produced indeed
as the emblem of a greater personage, but
you will find him in every page. Read the
forty -fifth psalm, and tell me if you can
anywhere find King Solomon ? We find, in
deed, passages which may be applicable to
Solomon, but not more applicable to him
than to many other earthly kings, — such
as comeliness of person and urbanity of ad
dress, mentioned in the second verse. These
might be qualities, for anything that we know
to the contrary, belonging to Solomon ; — I
say, for any thing that we knoAv.tO the con
trary ; for in these particulars the sacred
history, gives no information : We read of
Solomon's learning, and of his wisdom, and
of the admirable sagacity and integrity of
his judicial decisions ; but we read not at
all, as far as I recollect, of the extra
ordinary comeliness of his person, or the

affability of his speech: And if he possessed
these qualities, they are no more than other
rnonarchs have possessed in a degree not to
be surpassed by Solomon. Splendour and
stateliness of dress, twice mentioned in this
psalm, Avere not peculiar to Solomon, but
belong to every great and opulent monarch.
Other circumstances might be mentioned,
applicable indeed to Solomon, but nootber-
Avise than as generally applicable to every
king. But the circumstances Avhich are
characteristic of the king who is the herc»of
this poem are every one of them utterly in
applicable to Solomon ; insomuch that not
one of them can be ascribed to him, without
contradicting the history of his reign. The
hero of. this poem is a warrior, who- girds his
SAvord upon his thigh, rides in pursuit of
flying foes, makes havoc among them Avith
his sharp arrows, and reigns at last by con
quest over his vanquished enemies. Now
Splornon was no warrior ; he enjoyed a
long reign of forty years of uninterrupted
ppacp. He retained,, indeed, the sovereignty
of the countries which hjs father had con
quered ; but he made no new conquests of
his o*wn- " tie had dominion over all the
15

91
region Avest of the Euphrates ; over all the
kings on this side of the river (they Avere his
vassals) ; and he had peace on all sides
round about him. And Judah and Israel
dAvelt safely, every man under his vine and
under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beer-
sheba, all the days of Solomon." If Solo
mon ever girded a SAvord upon his thigh, it
must have been merely for state ; if he had
a quiver of sharp arrows, he could have had
no use for them but in hunting. We read,
indeed, that Jehovah, offended at the idol
atries of Solomon in his old age, stirred up
an adversary untp Solomon in Hadad the
Edomite, and another in Rezon the Sy
rian, and a third in Jeroboam the son of
Nebat. But though Hadad and Rezon bore
Solomon and his people a grudge, there is
no reason to suppose that the enmity of
either broke out into acts of open hostility,
during Solomon's life at least, — certainly
into none of such importance as to engage
the old monarch in a war with either. The
contrary is evident from Iavo circumstances.
The first, th^t. the return of Hadad into his
country from Egypt was early in the reign
of Solomon ; for he returned as soon as he

92
heard that David and Joab Avere both dead.
And if this Edomite had provoked a Avar in
so early a period of Solomon's reign, the sa
cred history could not have spoken in the
terms in which it speaks ofthe uninterrupted
peace Avhich Israel enjoyed all the days of
Solomon. The second circumstance is this.
In that portion of the history which men
tions these adversaries, it is said ofthe third
adversary, Jeroboam, " that he lifted up
his hand against the king ;" and yet it is
certain, that Jeroboam never lifted up his
hand till Solomon himself was in his grave.
Solomon Avas jealous of Jeroboam, as the
person marked by the prophet Ahijah as the
future king of one branch of the divided
kingdom, "and sought to kill him." Jero
boam thereupon fled into Egypt, and re
mained there till the death of Solomon.
And this makes it probable of the tAvo fo
reign adversaries, that whatever hatred
might be rankling in their hearts, they
awaited for Solomon's death* before they
proceeded to open hostilities. But, how
ever that might be, it is most certain that
the character of a warrior arid a conqueror

93
never less belonged to any monarch than to
Solomon. Another circumstance of distinction in
the great personage celebrated in this psalm
is his love of righteousness and hatred of
wickedness. The original expresses that he
had set his heart upon righteousness, and
bore an antipathy to wickedness. His love
of righteousness and hatred of Avickedness
had been, so much the ruling principles of
his whole conduct, that for this he Avas ad
vanced to a condition of the highest bliss,
and endless perpetuity was promised to his
kingdom. The Avord we render " righte
ousness" in its strict and proper meaning
signifies " justice," or the constant and
perpetual observance of the natural distinc
tions of right and wrong in civil society ;
and principally with respect to property"
in private persons, and, in a magistrate or
sovereign, in the impartial exercise of judi
cial authority. But the word Ave render
" wickedness" denotes not only " injustice,"
but whatever is contrary to moral purity in
the indulgence of the appetites of the indi
vidual, and whatever is contrary to a

94
principle of true piety towards God.
Noav the word " righteousness" being here
opposed to this wickedness, must certainly
be taken as generally as the Avord to which
it is opposed in a contrary signification. It
must signify, therefore, not merely " jus-
lice," in the sense we have explained, but
purity of private manners, and piety to-
Avards God. Now Solomon was certainly
upon the whole a good king, nor Avas he
Avithout piety ; but his love of righteousness,
in the large sense in Avhich we have shown
the word is td be taken, and his antipathy
to the contrary, fell very far short of what
the psalmist ascribes to his great king, and
procured for him no such stability of his
monarchy. Solomon, whatever might be
the general Avorth and virtue of his cha
racter, had no such predominant attach
ment to righteousness nor antipathy to
wickedness, in the large sense in which the
Avords are taken by lhe psalmist, but that
his love for the one and his hatred of the
other Avere overpowered by his doating fond
ness for many of his seven hundred wives,
who had so much influence with him in his
later years, that they turned aAvay his heart

95
to other gods, and prevailed upon the aged
king to erect temples to their idols.
Another circurristance wholly inapplica
ble to Solomon is the numerous progeny of
sons, the issue of the marriage, all of whom
Avere to be made princes over all the earth.
Solomon had but one son, that Ave read of,
that ever came to be a king — his son and
successor Rehoboam ; arid so far was he
from being a prince over all the earth, that
he Was no sooner seated on the throne than
he lost the greater part of his father's
kingdom. Upon the whole, therefore, it appears,
that in the character which the psalmist
draws of the king Avhose marriage is the oc
casion arid the subject of this* song, some
things are so general as in a certain sense to
be applicable to any great king, of fable of
of history, of ancient or of modern times:
And these things are indeed applicable ib
Soidniori, because he was a great king ; but
for no other reason : They are rio otherWistJ
applicable to him than to King Pfiarii 6r
Agamemnon, to King Tafquiii of King

96
Herod, to a king of Persia or a king of
Egypt, a king of JeAvry or a king of Eng
land. But those circumstances of the de
scription which are properly characteristic
are evidently appropriate to some particular
king, — not common to any and to all.
Every one of ihese circumstances, in the
psalmist's description of his king, positively
exclude King Solomon ; being manifestly
contradictory to the history of his reign, in
consistent Avith the tenor of his private life,
and not verified in the fortunes of his family.
There are, again, other circumstances,
which clearly exclude every earthly king, —
such as the salutation of the king by the
title of God, in a manner in which that title
never is applied to any created being; and
the promise of the endless perpetuity of his
kingdom.. At the same time, every parti
cular of the description, interpreted accord
ing to the usual and established significance
of the figured style of prophecy, is appli
cable to and expressive of some circum
stance in the mystical union betwixt Christ
and his church. A greater, therefore, than
Solomon is here; and this I shall shoAv more
particularly in the sequel. Itis certain, there-

97
fore, that this mystical wedding is the sole
subject of this psalm, without any reference
to the marriage of Solomon, or any other
earthly monarch, as a type. And it was
wilh great good judgment, that upon the
revision of our English Bible, in the reign
of James the First, the Calvinistic argu
ment of ibis psalm, as it stood in Queen
Elizabeth's Bible, was expunged, and that
other substituted which Ave now read in our
Bible of the larger size, in these words :
"The majesty and grace of Christ's king
dom ;. the duty of the church, and the be
nefits thereof ;" - — Avhich indeed contain a
most. exact summary of the whole doctrine
of the psalm. And the particulars of this it
is my intention in future discourses to ex
pound.

vol. i. H

98

SERMON VI.

Psalm, xiv. 1.

I speak of the things which I have made touch
ing the King, or, unto the King.
In my last discourse in this place, I* un
dertook to show, that the subject of this
psalm (which, in its composition, is evi
dently in the form of an epithalamium
or a marriage-rsong,) is the connexion be
tween Christ and his church, represented
here, as in other parts of Scripture, under
the emblem of a marriage. I undertook to
show, that this is the immediate and single
subject of the psalm, in the first intention of
the author, without any reference to the
marriage of Solomon or any earthly mo
narch as a type. But as this, which was
s

99
the unanimous opinion of all antiquity, has
been brought into some degree of doubt, by
the credit which a contrary opinion ob
tained among* Protestants at the beginning;
of the Reformation, upon the authority of
so great a man as Calvin, I thought proper
to argue the matter in some detail ; and lo
show, by the particulars of the character of
the psalmist's king, that Solomon more
especially, but in trulh every earthly mo
narch, is excluded. I might otherwise have
draAvn my conclusion at once, from that
portion of the first verse Avhich I chose for
my text : " I speak of the things Avhich I
have made touching the King," or " unto
the King ;" or, as the original might be still
more exactly rendered, " I address my per
formance to the King." It is a remark, and
a very just remark, ofthe Jewish expositors,
— and it carries the more weight because it
comes from Jews, who, by their prejudices
against fhe Christian name, might have
thought themselves interested to keep out of
sight a principle so serviceable to the Chris
tian scheme of interpretation,— but it is
their remark, and their principle, that the
appellation of " the King," in the book of
h 2

100
Psalms, is an appropriate title of the Mes
siah ; insomuch, that* wherever it occurs,
except the context directs it to some special
meaning, you are to think of no earthly king,
but of the King Messiah. By the admis
sion, therefore, of these Jewish commen
tators, the Messiah is the immediate sub
ject of this psalm.
My anxiety to settle the question of the
immediate subject of this psalm was for the
sake of the greater evidence and perspicuity
of the exposition of the whole, verse by
verse, which I am noAV about to deliver: For
Avithout a right comprehension of the gene
ral subject, it will be impossible that the
parts should be understood ; and yet this
psalm is perhaps one ofthe most important
tobe well understood, in all its parts, of any
in the whole collection. Farther to settle
this point ofthe general subject ofthe psalm,
I must observe, and desire you to bear it in
remembrance, that in the prophecies of the
old Testament which set forth the union be
tween the Redeemer and his church, under
the. figure of the state of wedlock, Ave read
of two celebrations of that mystical Avedding,

10.1
at very different and distant seasons ; or, to
be. more distinct and particular, we read of
a marriage — a separation, on account of
the Avoman's incontinence, i. e. on account
of her idolatry — and, in the end, of a re
marriage with the woman reclaimed and
pardoried. The original marriage was con
tracted Avith the Hebrew church, by the in
stitution ofthe Mosaic covenant, at the time
of the Exodus ; as we are taught expressly
by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
The separation Avas the dispersion of the
Jewish nation by the Romans, when they
were red need to that miserable state in Avhich
to this day they remain, — their city laid in
ruins, their temple demolished and burnt, and
the forms of the Mosaic worship abolished.
Then it Avas that the sceptre or* ecclesiastical
sway (for that is the sceptre meant in Ja
cob's famous prophecy) departed from Ju
dah. The Jews were nolonger thedepositaries
ofthe laAvs and oracles of God; they were no
longer to take the lead in matters of religion
and worship; and the government even ofthe
Christian church of Jerusalem remained but
for a veryshort time after this in the hands of
a bishop of the circumcision: So strictly was
h 3

102
the prophecy fulfilled ofthe departure of the
ecclesiastical sceptre from Judah, the only
remnant then visibly extant in the Avorld of
the Jewish nation. It is the same eventAvh.ich
is predicted in many other prophecies as
the expulsion of the incontinent Avife from
the husband's house. Her expulsion, Iioav-
ever, was lo be but temporary, though of
long duration : It Avas a separation, as Ave
should say in modern language, from bed
and board, not an absolute divorce, such
as, by the principles of the Mosaic law,
(Avhich in this point, however, Avas riot per
fectly consistent with the original divine
laAV of marriage,) set the Avoman at liberty
to unite herself to another man, and, in
that event, piohibked her return to her
first husband... On the contrary, the same
prophecies that threatened the expulsion
maintayi the continuance of the husband's
property in the separated Avoman, and
promise a reconciliation and final rein
statement of her in her husband's favour.
" Where is this.bill of your mother's divorce
ment ?" saith the prophet Isaiah. The
question implies a denial that any such
instrument existed. And in a subsequent

103
part of his prophecies, he expressly an
nounces the reconciliation. " Blush not,"
saith the Redeemer to the pardoned wife ;
" for thou shalt not be brought to reproach;
for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth,
and the reproach of thy deserted state thou
shalt no more remember. * For thy Maker
is thy husband ; Jehovah of Hosts is his
name; and he who claims thee is the Holy
One of Israel. As a woman forsaken and
deeply afflicted, Jehovah hath recalled thee;
and as a wife Avedded in youth, but after-
Avards rejected, saith thy God. For a small
moment haA^e I forsaken thee; but with
great mercies will I receive thee again."
The reconciliation is to be made publicly,
by a repetition of the nuptial ceremonies.
So we learn from the latter part of the
Apocalypse. After Christ's final victory
over the apostate faction, proclamation is
made, by a voice issuing from the throne, —
." The marriage of the Lamb is come, and
his wife hath made herself ready," i. e. hath
prepared herself, by penitence and refor
mation, to be reunited to him. And one
of the seven angels calls to St. John —
" Come hither, and I will show thee the
h 4

104
Lamb's wife." Then he shows him " the
holy Jerusalem," i. e. the church of the
converted Jews. These nuptials therefore
of the Lamb are not, as some have ima
gined, a marriage with a second wife, a'
Gentile church, taken into the place ofthe
Jewish, irrevocably discarded : No such
idea of ari absolute divorce is to be found in
prophecy. But it is a public reconciliation
with the original Avife, the Hebrew church,
become the mother church of Christendom,
notified by the ceremony of a remarriage ;
for to no other than the reconciled HebreAv
church belongs in prophecy the august
character of the Queen Consort. The sea
son of this renewed marriage is the second
advent, Avhen the new covenant will be
established with the natural Israel ; and it
is this remarriage Avhich is the proper sub
ject of this psalm.
And this again I might have concluded,
according to the principles of the Jewish
expositors, from my text ; which, by the
single word " the King," directs the appli
cation of this psalm to Christ in his kingly
character. Christ, indeed, already exercises

105
his regal office, in his care and government
of his church ; but the second advent is the
season Avhen his glory and majesty will be
openly manifested to lhe whole world, and
the Jews visibly reinstated in his favour.
The marriage, therefore, Avhich is the pecu
liar subject of this psalm, must be that
reunion of the Saviour Avith the Jewish
church Avhich is to take place at that season.
•
Never losing sight of this as his proper
subject, the divine poet takes, however, an
ample range : For he opens with our Lord's
first appearance in the flesh, when, by the
promulgation ofthe gospel, the guests were
summoned lo the wedding-supper; and
running rapidly, but in order, through all
the different periods of Christianity, from
its first beginning to its consummation in
this spiritual wedding, he makes the general
outline of its divine history the groundAvork
of this highly mystic and important song; —
to the exposition of Avhich, without farther
preface, I shall now proceed.
The psalm takes its beginning in a plain
unaffected manner, with a verse briefly

106
declarative of the importance of the sub
ject, the author's extraordinary knoAvledge
of it, and the manner in Avhich it will be
treated. " My heart is inditing a good matter ;"
or rather,
" My heart labours Avith a goodly
theme;" for the Avord " inditing" answers
but poorly, as our •translators themselves
appear from their margin lo have been
well aware, lo the emphasis ofthe original,
which expresses, that the mind of the pro
phet was excited and heated, boiling over,
as it Avere, with his subject, and eager to
give utterance to its great conceptions.
" A good matter," or " a goodly theme,"
denotes a subject of the highest interest and
importance. " My heart labours Avith a goodly
theme. " I address my performance to the
King ;" that is, as hath been abundantly
explained, to the great King Messiah.
" My tongue is lhe pen of a ready
writer;" that is, of a av ell-instructed Avriter,

107
— a writer prepared and ready, by a per
fect know ledge of the subject he undertakes
to treat.
But Avith Avhiat sense and meaning is it
that the psalmist compares his tongue to the
pen of such a writer?; — It is to intimate,
as I apprehend, lhat Avhat he is about to
deliver is no written composition, but an
extemporaneous effusion, Avithout any pre
meditation of his own, upon the immediate
impulse and suggestion of the Holy Spirit:
That what will fall, however, in that manner
from his tongue, for the coherence and
importance of the matter, for the correct
propriety of the expression, and for the
orderly arrangement of the parts, will in
no degree fall short of the most, laboured
production of the pen of any writer, the
best prepared by previous study of his
subject ; inasmuch as the Spirit of God
inspires his thoughts and prompts his ut
terance. After this brief preface, declaring that
his subject is Messiah, chiefly in his kingly
character, — that he cannot contain the

108
thoughts which are rising in his mind,— ¦
that he speaks not from himself, or from
previous study, but from inspiration at tbe
moment, — he plunges at once into the sub
ject he had propounded; addressing the
King Messiah as if he Avere actually stand
ing in the royal presence. And in this
same strain, indeed, the whole song pro
ceeds ; as referring to a scene present to
the prophet's eye, or to things Avhich he
saw doing. •
This scene consists of three principal
parts, relating to three grand divisions of
the Avhole interval of time from our Lord's
first appearance in the flesh to the final
triumph of the church, upon his second
advent. And the psalm may be divided
into as many sections, in which the events
of these periods are described in their
proper order.
The first section, consisting only of the
second verse, describes our Lord on earth
in the days of his humiliation. The five
following verses make the second section,
and describe the successful propagation of

109
the gospel, and our Lord's victory over all
his enemies. This comprehends the Avhole
period from Qur Lord's ascension lo the
time not yet arrived of the fulfilling of the
Gentiles. The sequel of the psalm, from
the end of the seventh verse, exhibits the
remarriage, -7- that is, the restoration of the
converted Jews to the religious prerogative
of their nation.
The second .verse, describing our Lord
in the days of his humiliation, may seem
perhaps to relate merely to his person, and
the manner of his address.
" Thou art fairer than the children of
men ;" rather,
" Thou art adorned Avith beauty beyond
the sons of men ; .
" Grace is poured upon thy lips ;
" Therefore God hath blessed thee for
ever." We have no account in the gospels of
our Saviour's person. Some writers of an
early age (but none so early as to have
seen him) speak of it as wanting dignity,

110
and of his physiognomy as unpleasing. It
Avould be difficult, I believe, to find any
better foundation for this strange notion
than an injudicious interpretation of cer
tain prophecies, in a literal meaning, which
represent the humiliation which the Son of
God Avas to undergo, by clothing his
divinity with flesh, in images taken from
personal deformity. But, from what is
recorded in the gospels, of the ease with
with which our Saviour mixed in what in
the modern style we should call good com-
pany, — of the respectful attention shown
to him, beyond any thing his reputed birth
or fortune might demand, — and the man
ner in which his discourses, either of severe
reproof or gentle admonition, Avere received,
— Ave may reasonably conclude, that he
had a dignity of exterior appearance re
markably corresponding with that authority
of speech which upon some occasions im
pressed even his enemies with awe, and
with that dignified 'mildness which seems
to have been his more natural and usual
tone, and drew the applause and admir
ation of all who heard him. " Never man
spake like this man," was the confession of

Ill
his enemies ; and, upon his first appear
ance in the synagogue at Nazareth, when
he had finished his exposition of a certain
text of Isaiah, Avhich he applied to himself,
" All bare him Avitness, and wondered at
the gracious Avords Avhich proceeded out of
his mouth." Thus, Avithout knowing it,
the congregation attested the completion of
this prophecy of the psalmist, in one
branch of it, — in the *' grace" Avhich
literally, it seems, " Avas poured upon his
lips." But certainly it must have been
something externally striking — something
answering to the text of the psalmist in the
former branch, " Adorned with beauty
beyond the sons of men," which, upon the
same occasion, before, his discourse began,
— it must have been something, I say, pre
possessing in his features, and something
of dignity in person, Avhich, Avhile he was yet
silent, " fastened the eyes of all that Were
in the synagogue upon him," — that is,
upon the village carpenter's reputed son ;
for in no higher character he yet was
known. We may conclude, therefore, that
this prophetic text had a completion, in the
literal and superficial sense of the words, in

112
both its branches, — in the beauty of our
Saviour's person, no less than in the gra-
ciousness of his speech.
External feature, hoAvever, is generally
the impression of the mind upon the body,
and words are but lhe echo of the thoughts;
and, in prophecy, more is usually meant
than meets the ear in the first sound and
most obvious sense of the terms employed.
Beauty and grace of speech are certainly
used in this text as figures of much higher
qualities, which Ayere conspicuous in our
Lord, and in him alone of all the sons of
men. That image of God in which Adam
was created in our Lord appeared perfect
and entire, — in the unspotted innocency of
his life, the sanctity of his manners, and his
perfect obedience to the law of God, — in
the vast poAvers of his mind, intellectual
and moral ; intellectual, in his comprehen
sion of all knowledge ; moral, in his poAver
of resisting all the allurements of vice, and
of encountering all the difficulties of virtue
and religion, despising hardship and shame,
enduring pain and death. This was the
beauty with which he was adorned beyond

113
the sons -of men. In him, the beauty of
the Divine image Avas refulgeftt in its
original perfection ; in all the sons of
Adam, obscured and marred, in a degree
to be scarce discernible, — the Avill de
praved, the imagination debauched, the
reason weak, the passions rampant. This
deformity is not externally visible, nor the
spiritual beauty which is its opposite; but,
could. the eye be turned upon . the internal
man, we should see the hideous shape of a
Avill at enmity with God— a heart disre
garding his laAV, insensible Pf his goodness,
fearless of his wrath, swelling Avith the pas-
sioris of ambition, avarice, vain-glory, lust.
Yet this is the picture of the unregenerated
man, by the depravity consequent upon
the fall, born in iniquity and conceived, in
sin. Christ, on the contrary, by the mys
terious manner of his conception, was born
Avithout spot of sin ; he greAV up and lived
full of grace and truth, perfectly sancti
fied in flesh and spirit. With this beauty
he Avas " adorned beyorid the sons of
men." Again,* the graceful»ess of his speech is
VOL. i. i

114
put figuiatively for the perfection, • sub^
limily, excellence, and sweetness, of the
doctrine he delivered; — a doctrine, in
truth, intrinsically perfect ; sublime, as
being far above the discovery of human
Avisdom ;; excellent, by its salutary effects
and operation upon men, raising their
minds to the knowledge of. the true God,
— to a knowledge of his nature, as far as a
nature so distinct from matter, so remote
from sense, so transcending reason, can be
made intelligible to man, united to matter,
perceiving hy sense what immediately
surrounds him, but contemplating only at
a distance the objects of pure intellect; —
a doctrine sweeter to the regenerate soul
than • honey and the honey-comb lo the
palate, by the disclosure of the great
scheme of redemption in all its branches
* — the incarnation of the Son of Man —
the atonement for sin by. his death — the
efficacy of his intercession — the constant
supply of succour from the Holy Spirit.
This doctrine, cherishing the contrite, con
soling the afflicted, banishing despair,
raising the fallen, justifying sinners, giving
life to the dead, -rin a word, .. the glad

115
tidings of salvation, — this is the grace
Avhich is poured over the lips of the Son
of God.
It is to be observed, that the happiness
and glory, to Avhich* the human nature is
advanced in the person of Jesus, the man
united to the Godhead, and now seated
with the Father on his throne, is always
represented in holy writ as the reward of
that man's obedience. In conformity with
this notion, the psalmist says — " There
fore," — for this reason, in reward of the
holiness perfected in thy own life, and thy
gracious instruction of sinners in the Avays
of righteousness, " God hath blessed thee
for ever," — hath raised thee from the dead,
and advanced thee to endless bliss and glory.
Thus the psalmist closes his brief descrip
tion of our Lord on earth,, in the days of
his humiliation, with the mention, equally
brief, but equally comprehensive, of the
exaltation in which it terminated.
He proceeds to the second great period
in the divine history of JpJ^risti^ty, the
i 2

116
successful propagation of the gospel, and
our Lord's final victory over- all his adver
saries, — a work gradually accomplished,
and occupying the Avhole interval of time
from his ascension, to the epoch, not yet
arrived, of the fulness of the Gentiles
coming in.
From the commendation of the comeli
ness of the King's person, and the graci-
ousness of his speech, the psalmist, in the
same figurative style, passes to the topic of
his prowess as a warrior, under which cha
racter our Lord is perpetually described in
the prophecies. The enemies he had to
engage are the wicked passions of men, the
Devil in his wiles and machinations, and
the persecuting powers of the world. The
warfare is continued through the whole of
the period I have mentioned ; commencing
upon our Lord's ascension, at. which, time
he is represented, in the Revelations, as
going forth upon a " Avhite horse, with a
crown upon his head and a doav in his hand,
conquering and to conquer." The psalmist,
in imagery almost the same, accosts him as
a warlike prince preparing to take the field,

117
— describes his weapons, and the magni
ficence of his armour, and promises him
victory and universal dominion.
3. ", Gird tlry sword upon thy thigh,
" O Most Mighty ! with thy glory and
thy majesty."
This verse, I fear, must be but ill under
stood by the English reader. The Avords
" O Most Mighty !" very weakly render the
original, which is a single word, one ofthe
titles* of Christ, in its literal sense expressive
of might and valour. But the great diffi
culty Avhich, in my apprehension, must
perplex the English reader, lies in the ex
hortation to gird on glory and majesty
together with the sword. The things have
no obvious connexion ; and how are majesty
and glory, in any sense which the words
may bear in our. language, to be girt on
upon the person ? — The truth is, that in
the Hebrew language these Avords have a
great variety and latitude of meaning; and
either these very words, or their synonymes,
are used in other places for splendid dress
and for robes of state ; and being things to
be girt on, they must here denote some part
i 3

118
of*. the warrior's dress. They signify such
sort of armour, of -Costly materials and
exquisite workmanship, as was Avorn by the
greatest generals, and by kings when they
led their armies in person ; and was con
trived for ornament as well as safety. The
whole verse might be intelligibly and yet
faithfully rendered in these words :
"Warrior! gird thy- sword upon thy thigh ;
" Buckle on thy refulgent dazzling
armour."
The psalmist goes on :
4, " Take aim, be prosperous, pursue, --
" In the cause of truth, humility, and
righteousness ;"
that is, take aim Avilh thy bow and arrow
at the enemy ; be prosperous or successful
in the aim taken ; ride on in pursuit of the
flying foe, in the cause of religious truth,
evangelical humility, and* righteousness.
" And thy right hand shall teach thee
terrible things;"
rather, " And thy own right hand shall show
thee Avonderful things."

119
In these last words, the Saviour, effecting
every thing* by his OAvn power, is repre
sented under the image of a great champion
in the field, who is prompted by his own
courage, and a reliance on his own strength
and skill, lo attempt what might seem* im
practicable; singly to attack wdiole squa
drons of the enemy, — to cut his way
through their embattled troops, — to scale
their ramparts and their Avails, — and at
last achieves what seems a Avonder to him
self, when the fray is over, Avhen he is at
leisure to survey the bulwarks he has de
molished, and the. many carcasses his
¦ single arm has stretched upon the plain.
Such great things he will be able to effect ;
for 5. " Thine arroAvs," saith the psalmist,
. " are very sharp
'•*• In the heart of lhe King's enemies ;
" Insomuch that peoples fall under
thee."
To open the true spiritual meaning of all
this high-wrought imagery, will be ample
matter for another discourse. I shall close,
therefore, for the present, with this prelimi-
i 4

120
nary observation, as the fundamental prin
ciple of the interpretation. which by God's
assistance I shall give, that the. Avar in
Avhich the Saviour is engaged is very dif
ferent from the wars which the princes of
this, world wage upon one another: it is
not for the destruction of the lives of men,
but for the preservation of their souk.

121

SE-RMON VII.

Psalm xiv. 1.

I speak of the things which I have made
'¦ touching the King, or, unto the King.
l-N my last discourse, I proceeded so far in
my exposition of this mystic marriage-song
as to enter upon what I reckon the second
section of the whole psalm ; consisting of
five verses, from the third to the seventh,
both inclusive ; in which, under images
taken from military exploits, the successful
propagation of the gospel is described,
through the whole of that period which
commenced at our Lord's ascension, and
will terminate with the triumphs of the
church at his second advent. .
Erom the commendation of the comeli
ness of the King's person, and the gracious-

122
ness of his speech, (which in the second
verse are put figuratively, for the perfect
innocence and sanctity of our Lord's life on
earth, and the sweetness of his gracious
doctrine 'of pardon,, peace, and justifica
tion,) the psalmist, persevering in' the same
figurative strain, passes to lhe topic of his
royal bridegroom's military prowess. He
accosts the King as a warlike prince, pre
paring to take the field, — describes his
Aveapons, arid the magnificence of his
armour, — and- promises him victory and
universal Sominiori.
I shall no\V endeavour to open and ex
plain to you, with God's assistance, the trtie
spiritual meaning of all this high-wrought
imagery. But first I must repeat, with
some enlargement and explanation, as the
fundamental principle of the interpretation
I am about to give, the observatiori with
which I closed my last discourse, —
namely, that the war in which the psalmist
represents the Saviour as engaged is very
different from the wars Avhich the princes
of this Avorld wage with one another : it is
not for the destruction of the lives of men,

123
but for the preservation of their souls. It
may happen, indeed, — it has happened
heretofore, — in our own times it has hap
pened, and it Avill inevitably happen again,
that the struggles of Christianity Avilh the
adverse faction may kindle actual war
between the secular powers; takkig part on
one side or on the other. This our*"Lord
himself foretold. " Suppose ye,", he said,
" that I am come fo give peace on earth ?
I came not to send peace, but a sword."
Such wars are, on the one side, no less
holy, just, and good, than on the other they
are wicked and impious'; for when the
antichristian powers attack religious esta
blishments by the sword, by the sword "they
may and must be defended. It is the
mere cant of puritanism to allege the pre
cept of mutual forgiveness, the prohibitions
of returning evil for evil, and of resisting
persecution, as reprobating such wars. All
those injunctions relate to the conduct of
individuals with respect to one another; or
with respect to the government of Which
they are subjects. The individual is to be
ready at all "times to forgive his personal
enemies ; he is not to indulge a spirit of

124
revenge in the retaliation of private in
juries; and least of all is he to resist by
force even the injustice, as affecting him
self, of his lawful sovereign. But when
Antichrist arms his poVers for the persecu
tion ofthe faithful and the extinction ofthe
faith, if Christian princes arm their powers
to opjfose him, their war is godly, and their
cause is blessed. These wars, however, are
not within the purview of this prophecy;
as the sequel "of my discourse will show.
This prophetic text of the psalmist relates
only to that spiritual war which Christ
wages with the enemies of man, for man's
deliverance, • — to the war arising from that
enmity which was originally put between
the seed of the serpent and the woman's
seed. >
The offensive weapons in this war of
charity, according to the psalmist, are of
two sorts, — a sword, and arrows.
The common military sword is a heavy
massive weapon, for close engagement:
wielded by a strong and skilful arm, it
stabs and cuts', opens dreadful gashes

125
Avhere it falls, severs limbs, lops the head,
or cleaves the body.
The arrow is a light missile Aveapon,
which in ancient times was used to annoy
the enemy at a distance, and particularly
when put to flight, It comes whizzing
through the air unseen ; and, Avhen it hits,
so small is the Avound, and so swift the
passage of the weapon, that it is scarcely
felt till it. fixes its sharp point in lhe very
heart. Now both these weapons, the SAvord and
the arrow, are emblems of one and the
same thing ; which is no other than the
word of God, in its different effects and
different manners of operation on the minds
of men, represented under these Iavo dif
ferent images.
The word of God may be divided, indeed,
into tvyo parts, — the. word of reproof, com-
mination, and terror ; and the word of per-
.suasion, promise, and hope. The former
holds up to the sinner the picture of him
self, -r sets forth the. turpitude of sin — the

126
holiness of God — God's hatred of unright
eousness, — and alarms the conscience Avith
the danger of a state of enmity Avith God,
and with denunciations of implacable wrath
and -endless punishment. The se.Cond,the
word of persuasion, promise, and hope,
sets before the penitent the riches of God's
mercy, displayed in the scheme of man's
redemption, — points to the cross where
man's guilt was expiated, — bids the con
trite sinner rely on the Redeemer's inter
cession, — offers the daily supply of grace
to confirm him in his resolutions, and assist
him in his efforts to Conform himself to the
precepts and example of the Saviour, —
and promises victory , and glory to them
that persevere ; .thus turning despondency
into hope, and fear into love. The first;
the word of terror, is the sword girt upon
Messiah's thigh; the second j the word of
persuasion, is the arrow shot from his bow.
For the sense of the first metaphpr, we
have the authority of the* sacred writers
themselves. " The sword of the Spirit,"
says St. Paul to the Ephesians, " is the
word of God." And in the epistle to the
5

127
Hebrews, the full signification of the figure
is opened, and the propriety of the appli
cation shown. " For the Avord of God,"
says the inspired author, " is quick and
ppAverful (rather, lively and energetic), and
sharper than any tAvp-edged sword, and
piercing to the parting of soul and spirit,
and. to the joints and marrow ;" — that is,
as the, soldier's SAvord of steel cuts through
all the exterior integuments of skin and
muscle, to the bone, :. and even through the
hard substance of the bone itself, to the very
marrow, and divides the ligaments 'which
keep the joints ofthe body together, so this
spiritual sword of God's awful word pene
trates the inmost recesses of the human
mind — pierces to the. very line of sepa
ration, as it were, of the sensitive and the
intelligent principle — lops off the animal
part — divides the joints, where reason, and
passion are united — sets the intellect free
to exert its powers — kills sin in our mem
bers — opens passages for grace to enter
and enrich, the marrow of the soul ; and
thus delivers the man from his body of
death. — Such are the effects for which the

128
powerful word of terror is compared to a
two-edged sword.
The comparison of the word of promise
to the arrow is more easily understood ;
being more familiar, and analogous to*those
figures of speech which run through all lan
guages, by Avhich, Avhatever makes a quick
and smart impression on the moral feelings
is represented under the image of a pointed
missile AveapoU, — as when we speak of " the
thrilling darts of harmony," or " the shafts
of eloquence." The psalmist speaks ofthese
arrows of God's word as sticking in " the
hearts of the King's enemies," — that is, of
the enemies of the King Messiah ; for he,
you Avill remember, is the only king in ques
tion. His enemies, in the highest sense of
the Avord, are those Avho are avoAvedly
leagued with the apostate faction, — atheists,
deists, idolaters, heretics, perverse disputers,
— those Avho in any manner of set design
oppose the gospel — who resist the truth by
argument, or encounter it with ridicule —
Who explain it away by sophisticated inter
pretations, or endeavour to crush it by the .
force of persecution. Of such hardened

129
enemies there is no hope, till they have
been hacked and hewed, belaboured, and
all but slain rin the strong language of one
of . the ancient prophets), by the heavy
sword of the word of terror. But, in a
lower sense, all are enemies till they hear
of Christ, and the terms of his peace are
offered to them. Many such are Avrought
upon by mild admonition, and receive in
their hearts the arrows of the word of per
suasion. Such, no doubt, were many of
those Jews who were pricked to the heart by
St. Peter's first sermon on the day of Pen
tecost : And even those worse enemies, if
they can be brought to their feeling by the
ghastly Wounds and gashes of the terrific
sword of the word of threatening, may
afterwards be pierced by the arrow, arid
carry about in their hearts its barbed point.
And by the joint effect of these two wea
pons, the sword and the arrow, the word of
terror and the word of persuasion, " peo
ples," says the psalmist, — that is, whole
kingdoms and nations in a mass, " shall fall
under thee," — shall forsake their ancient
superstitions^ renounce their idols, arid sub
mit themselves, to Christ.
VOL. I. K

130
So much for the offensive weapons, the
sword and the arrows. But the defensive
armour demands our attention ; for it has
its use, no doubt, in the Messiah's war.
His person, you will remember, is clad,
in the third verse, "with refulgent dazzling
armour." This may be understood of what
ever is admirable and amiable in the exter
nal form arid appearance of the Christian
religion. .First, the character of Jesus him
self; his piety rewards God. — his philan
thropy tOAvards man — his meekness, hu
mility, ready forgiveness of injuries, patient
endurance pf pain and death. Secondly,
the same light of good works shining, in a
less degree, in the lives of his disciples, par
ticularly the apostles and blessed martyrs.
Thirdly, whatever is decent and seemly in
the government, the discipline, and the
rites of the church. All these things, as
they tend to draw the admiration and con
ciliate the good-will pf men, and mitigate
the malice of the persecutor, are aptly re
presented under the image of the Messiah's
defensive armour, and had a principal share
ih the effect of making peoples " fall under
him."

131
It yet remains to be explained what is
meant, in the psalmist's detail of the Mes--
siah's Avar, by those " Avonders" Avhich
" his own right hand was to. show him."
***¦ Thy own right hand shall show, thee
Avonders'."
Our public .translation has it " terrible
things." But the notion of" terror is not of
necessity included in the sense of the origi
nal word, as it is used- by the sacred writers:
It is sometimes, indeed, applied by them to
frightful things ; but it is also applied, with
great latitude, to things extraordinary in
their kind, — grand, admirable, amazing,
aAvful, — although they should not be fright
ful. We have no right, therefore, to take
it in the strict sense: of. "frightful," unless
something in the -context points to that
meaning; .Avhich is not the'ease in this pas
sage. . And accordingly; instead of ¦'.' terri
ble," we fi-tid, in "some of the oldest Eng
lish Bibles the better-chosen Avord " Avori-
derful." - -•.;.
**;'"'
' *. ->*'„;¦ ' '
Noav the ."wonderful things" Avhich
Messiah's "own right hand" showed him,
I take to-be the overthrow of the Pagan
K 2

132
superstition, in the Roman empire and
other great kingdoms of the Avorld, by the
mere preaching of the gospel, seconded by
the exemplary lives and the miracles ofthe
first preachers, and by their. patient endu
rance of imprisonment, torture, and death,
for the sake of Christ. It Avas, indeed, a
wonderful thing, Avrought by Christ's sin
gle arm," when his religion prevailed over
the whole system of idolatry, supported as
it was by the authority .of -sovereigns, by
the learning of philosophers, and most of
all, by lhe inveterate prejudices of the
vulgar, attached to their false gods, by the
gratification which their very worship af
forded to the sensual passions, and by the
natural partiality of mankind in favour of
any system, however absurd and corrupt,
sanctioned by a long antiquity. It was a
vvonderful thing, when the'Devil's kingdom,
with much of its invisible power, lost at
once the whole of its external pomp, and
splendour, — when silence being imposed
on his oracles, and spells arid enchantments
divested of their power, the idolatrous Wor
ship which by those engines of deceit had
been universally estabUshed, and for ages

138
supported, notwithstanding the antiquity of
its institutions, and the bewitching gayety
and magnificence of its festivals, fell into
neglect, — when- its cruel and lascivious
rites, so long holden in superstitious vene
ration, on a sudden became the objects of a
just and general abhorrence, — when the
unfrequented temples, spoiled of their im
mense treasures, sunk in ruins, and the
images, stript of their gorgeous robes and
cosily jewels, were thrown into* the Tyber,
or into the common receptacles of filth and
ordure. It Avas a Avonderful thing, when
the minds of all men took a sudden turn, —
kings became the nursing fathers, of the
church, statesmen courted her alliance, phi
losophy embraced her faith, and even the
sword was justly drawn in her defence.
These were the "wonderful things" ef
fected by Christ's right hand ; and in these
this part of the psalmist's prophecy has
received its accomplishment. Less than
this his words cannot mean ; and to more
than this they canriot Avith any certainty be
extended, — since these things satisfy all
that is of necessity involved in his expressions.
k 3

134
If his expressions Avent of necessity to
"terrible things," or Avere determined to
that meaning by the context, insomuch that
the inspired author could be understood to
speak, not of things simply Avonderful, but
Avonderful in the particular way of being
frightful, an allusion, in that • case, might
easily be supposed to what is indeed the
explicit subject of many other prophecies,
— the terrible things to be achieved by the
Messiah's OAvn right hand, in the destruction
of Antichrist and the slaughter of his armies,
in the latter ages. The Avord of prophecy
forewarns us, and we have lived to see the
season of the accomplishment set in, that
the apostate faction will proceed to that
extreme of malice and impiety as to levy
actual Avar against the nations professing
Christianity : And after much suffering of
the faithful, and bloody struggles, of the
contending parties, our Lord. 'himself will
come from heaven, visibly and in person,
to effect the deliverance of his servants, and
with his own arm cut off the airtichristian
armies with tremendous slaughter. This is
represented in the prophecies under images
that can be understood of nothing but the
**5

135
havoc of actual battle. "The indignation
of Jehovah is upon all the heathen," saith
Isaiah, " and his fury upon all their armies.
He hath utterly destroyed them ; he hath
delivered them to the slaughter; and the
mountains shall be melted down in their
blood." The prophet. Ezekiel summons all
ravenous birds, and all beasts of prey, " to
assemble and come to lhe slaughter which
Jehovah should make for them, — a great
slaughter on the mountains of Israel (the
stage, as it should seem, of Antichrist's last
exploits, and of his excision). And ye shall
eat flesh and drink blood: The flesh of
warriors ye shall eat, and the blood of the
priinces of the earth ye shall drink: Ye
shall eat fat till ye be cloyed, and drink
blood till ye be drunken (the fat. and the
blood) of the slaughter Avhich I have made
for you." In the Apocalypse, when the
Son of God cOmes forth to make an end of
the Beast and the False Prophet, and of the
armies of kings their confederates, an angel
standing in the sun " cries Avith a loud voice
to all the. fowls that fly in the midst of
heaven, Come and gather yourselves toge
ther to the supper of the great God ; that
k. 4

136
ye may eat the flesh of captains, and the
flesh of mighty, men, arid the flesh of horses,
and of them that sit on them,, and the flesh
of all, freemen and slaves, both small and
great." Men of all conditions, it seems,
will be united in the impious coalition, to
make war against the irresistible conqueror
on the white horse, and his army ; and will
be involved in the great destruction. In a
former vision, relating to the same subject,
St. John had seen the " great wine-press of
God's wrath trodden ; and the blood came
out of the wine-press even unto the horses'
bridles." Such terrible things will be; and if the
psalmist had spoken explicitly of terrible
things, I should think an allusion was in
deed intended to those scenes of terror, yet
future, which however in the appointed
season must overtake the wicked world.
But as terrible things are not of necessity
included in the import of his words, which
goes not necessarily farther than " Avon
derful," — and as he mentions those won
derful things before the thread of his
prophecy is brought down .to the second

137
advent, the season of those exploits of
terror,— it becomes us to be cautious how
we force a sense upon the psalmist's words
which might not be intended by him, or
rather by the inspiring Spirit. ;Il will be
safer to rest in those wonderful things which
actually came to. pass Avithin the period he
is. yet upon, and Avere undoubtedly brought
abput by Messiah's power, as the true ac
complishment of this, part of the prophecy.
The suppression- of idolatry in the Roman
empire, and the establishment of the Chris
tian church upon its ruins, was an event the
most Wonderful in the history of the Gentile
world, to which nothing but the power of
God was adequate ; and comes up to the
whole necessary import of the psalmist's
expressions. The war of this period of the prophecy
is finished: The battles have been fought,
and the victory is gained. The psalmist in
the two next verses, the sixth and seventh,
exhibits the King seated en the throne of
his Mediatorial kingdom, and governing
with perfect justice. He addresses him as
God, whose throne is everlasting, and

138
sceptre straight; as a monarch whoseheart
is set upon righteousness, whose antipathy
is wickedness.6. " Thy throne, O God! is for ever and
ever ;
"A straight sceptre is the sceptre of
thy royally.
7. " Thou hast loved righteousness, and
hated wickedness ;
• " Therefore God hath anointed thee,
thy own. God,
" With the oil of gladness above thy
fellows."
ItAyas shoAvn,inmy first discourse upon this
psalm, hoAv inapplicable this address is to .
Solomon ; and it is obvious that it is equally
inapplicable to any earthly monarch : For
of no throne but God's can it be affirmed with
truth that it is for ever and ever; of no
king but of God and of his Christ can it be
said that he loves righteousness with a per
fect love, and hates wickedness with a per
fect hate ; of no sceptre but the sceptre of
God and of his Christ, that it isa straight
sceptre. The sceptre has been from the
earliest ages a badge of royalty. It was

139
originally nothing, more than a straight
slender rod, studded sometiriies for orna
ment with little nails of gold. It was an em
blem of the perfect integrity of the monarch
in the exercise of his power, both by him
self and by his ministers inflexibly adhering
to the straight line of right and justice' as a
mason or carpenter to his rule. The per
fection of the emblem consisted in the
straightness of the stick ; for every thing
else was ornament. The straightness, there
fore, ascribed by the psalmist to. Messiah's
sceptre, is to be understood of the invaria^
ble justice of the administration of his go-'"
vernment. Now, certainly there have been
many "kings, both in ancient and'in modern
times, to whom the praise^ is due of a. cor
dial .regard in general to righteousness and
of a settled principle of dislike to wicked
ness, — many who in the exercise of their
authority and the measures of their, go vern
ment have been generally directed by that
just sense of right and Wrong: But yet
kings are not exempt from the frailties of
human nature; — the very best of them are,
at least in an equal degree with other good
men, liable to the surprises of the passions

141)
and the seductions of temptation ; inso
much that that predominant love of righte
ousness and hatred of iniquity, maintain
ing an absolute ascendancy in the mind, in
all times and upon all occasions, which the
psalmist attributes to his heavenly king,
has belonged to none that ever wore an
earthly crown ; much less is the perfect
straightness of the sceptre, a perfect con
formity to the rule of right, to be found in
the practice and execution of the govern-
rnentsof the Avorldl It will happen in num
berless instances, and from an infinite com
plication of causes, all reducible to lhe
general head ofthe infirmity of human na
ture and the depraved state of fallen man, —
from an endless multiplicity of causes it will
happen, that the government of the very
best king will in execution fall far short of
the purity of the king's intentions ; and this
in governments that are ever so well admi
nistered : For if we suppose every one of
those who are put in authority under him
to be as upright in their intentions as we
have supposed the king himself to be, —
which must appear a very large and liberal
supposition, if we consider the variety of

141
departments into which the administration
of any great government must necessarily
be divided, and the great nuriiber of per
sons that must be, employed in the affairs
of each separate department, — but if
we make the supposition that all the
officers, from the highest to the lowest, in
all the departments.,, are as good as men
can be, still they will be men, and, as men,
liable every one of them to error and decep
tion ; and for this reason, they will often
fail in the execution in what they mean to
do the best. This gives no colour to the
detestable principle propagated from de
mocratic France over - the Continent "of
Europe, of what is profanely called " the
sacred right of insurrection ;" nor to similar
doctrines broached by sectarian teachers in
our own country. It is merely the want of
perfection in human nature, of Avhich go
vernment and governors, with all things
arid with all'perspns human, 'must partake.
Still, with all these imperfections, govern
ment is the source of the highest blessings
to mankind ;' insomuch, that the very worst
government is preferable to a state of anar
chy : And fpr this reason, the peaceable

142
submission of the subject lo the very worst
of kings is one ofthe most peremptory pre
cepts of Christianity, But I contend, that
the perfed undeviating rectitude of inten
tion, and the perfect justice of administra
tion, of which the psalmist speaks, -cannot
be ascribed, Avithout impiety, to any earthly
monarch. The throne of God,. Avhether we under
stand it of God's natural dominion over the
whole creation, or more particularly of his
providential government of the moral
world, or, in a still more restricted sense,
of Christ's Mediatorial kingdom, -is ever
lasting; and the government, both in the
will of the governor and in the execution,
is invariably good and just. But the king
dom of the God-Man is in this place in
tended. This evident from what is said
in the seventh verse: " God, even thine
own God, hath anointed thee with the oil
of gladness above thy fellows ;" i. e. God
hath advanced thee to a state of bliss and
glory above all those whom thou hast vouch
safed to call thy felloAvs; . It is said too,
that the love of righteousness- and hatred of

143
Avickedness is the cause that God hath so
anointed him, Avho- yet, in lhe sixth verse,
is himself addressed as God. It is mani
fest that these things can be said only of
that person in Avhom the Godhead and the
manhood are United, • — in whom the human
nature is the subject of the unction, and the
elevation to the Mediatorial kingdom is the
reward of the Man Jesus : For Christ being
in his divine nature equal Avith the Father,
is incapable of any exaltation. Thus, the
unction with the oil of gladness, and the
elevation above his fellows, characterize
the manhood ; and the perpetual stability
of the throne, .and the unsullied justice of
the government, declare the Godhead. It
is therefore with the greatest propriety that
this text is applied to Christ, in the epistle
to the Hebrews, and made an. argument of
his divinity ; not by any for ced. accommo
dation of words which in the mind of the
author related to another subject, but ac
cording to the true intent and purpose of
the psalmist, and the literal sense and only
consistent exposition of his words.
The psalmist is now come down, by a

144

regular and complete though a summary
review ofthe principal occurrences of what
may be called the history of the Mediator
and his kingdom, the Redeemer's life on
earth, his exaltation to his throne in heaven,
the successful propagation ofthe gospel after
his ascension, the suppression of idolatry,
and the establishment of the Christian reli
gion in the principal empires and kingdoms
of the world, —-the psalmist, through this
detail, is come down to the epoch of the
second advent, which immediately intro
duces the great eventwhich has given occa
sion to the whole song — the consummation
of the church's happiness *and Messiah's
glory here on earth, in the public marriage
of the great King with the wife of his love.
This occupies the whole sequel of the
psalm ; and will be the subject of my next
discourse.

145

SERMON till.

Psalm xiv. 1.

I speak of the things which I have made touch
ing the King, or, unto the King.
We have followed the holy psalmist step
by step through his' accurate though sum
mary prospective view of the principal oc
currences in the history of the Mediator and
his kingdom upon earth, from our Lord's first
appearance in the flesh to the epoch of his
second advent. I have explained lo you the
several images under which the psalmist re
presents the.events of this interval. I have
shown how easily they apply to Christ and
his gospel — how inapplicable they are to
any other subject. I showed you, that un
der the figures of comeliness of person and
urbanity of speech the psalmist describes the
vol. i. L

146
unexampled sanctity of the life of Jesus, and
the high consolations of his doctrine : That
under the figure of a Avarrior clad in daz
zling armour, with his sword girt upon his
thigh, and shooting his arrows after a flying
enemy, Christ is described as waging his
spiritual war against sin and Satan by his
powerful word, — represented as a sword,
when itis employed to terrify the conscience
of the sinner, and rouse him by denuncia
tions of wrath and punishment to a sense of
his danger ; as an arrow, in its milder ef
fects, when it pricks the heart Avith that
godly remorse Avhich brings on the sorrow
that works true repentance, and "terminates
in hope and love. The splendid defensive
armour is an emblem of. whatever is exter
nally venerable and lovely in Christianity,
and conduces to conciliate the good-will of
men, and mitigate the malice of the perse
cutor. The subjugation of nations, by the
prosecution of this war, is the triumph of
the church over idolatry, which first took
place in the reign of Constantine the Great,
when the Christian religion was established
in the Roman empire, and idolatry put
down by that emperor's authority. A few

147
years after, the idolatrous temples Avere
finally closed by his successors.
The .battles being fought and the victory
gained, the conqueror is saluted by the holy
psalmist as the God-Man, seated upon the
everlasting throne of his Mediatorial king
dom. The psalmist then proceeds to that
great event which is to take place upon the
secPnd advent of our Lord, the prospect of
which has been the occasion of the whole
song, — the consummation of the church's
happiness and Messiah's glory here on
earth, in the public marriage of the great
King with the wife of his love. And upon
this subject the inspired poet dwells through
out the whole sequel of the psalm ; which
makes, indeed, the greater part of the entire
composition. Before I enter upon the explanation of
particulars iri this part of the song, it may
be proper to offer a few words upon the ge
neral propriety and significance ofthe image
of a marriage, as it is applied here, and in
other parts of Scripture, to Messiah and hi»
church. l %

148
Our Lord said of himself that he came to
" preach the gospel to the poor ;" and the
same thing may be said of the word of re
velation in general, — that it was giyen for
the instruction of all mankind, the lowest
as Avell as the highest, the most illiterate as
well as the Avise and learned ; and if with
any difference, with a special regard to the
benefit of those Avho from their condition
were the most deficient in the means of na
tural improvement. It may be reckoned,
therefore, a necessary characteristic of di
vine revelation, that it shall be delivered in
a manner the most adapted' to what are vul
garly called the meanest capacities. ..And
by this perspicuity, both of precept and of
doctrine, the whole Bible is remarkably dis
tinguished : For although St. Peter speaks
of things in it hard to be understood, he
speaks of such things only as. could never
have been understood at all had they not
been revealed ; and, being revealed, are
yet not capable of proof or explanation up
on scientific principles, but rest solely on
the authority of the revelation. Not that
the terms in which these discoveries are
made are obscure and ambiguous in their

149
meaning, or that the things themselves, how
ever hard* for the pride of philosophy, are
not of easy digestion to an humble faith,
Obscurities undoubtedly have arisen, from
the great antiquity of the sacred writings,
from the changes which time makes in lan
guage, and from some points of ancient
history become dark or doubtful : But these
affect only particular passages, and bring
no difficulty at all upon the general doctrine
of revelation, which is the only thing *of
universal and perpetual importance. Now,
the method of teaching which the Holy
Spirit hath employed to adsfpt the pro
foundest mysteries of religion to the. most
ordinary capacities, has been, in all ages,
to propound them by his inspired messen
gers, the prophets under the law, and the
apostles in the first ages of Christianity, in
figurative expressions — in images and al
lusions, taken either from the most striking
objects of the senses in the works of nature,
or from human life. The relation between
Christ and his church, it is eA'ident, must
be of a nature not to be adequately typified
by any thing in the material world ; and
nothing could be found in human life which
l 3

150
might so aptly represent it as the relation
of husband and wife in the holy state of
wedlock : And in this the analogy is so
perfect, that the notion of the ancient JeAvs
has received the express sanction of St, Paul,
that the relation of the Saviour and lhe
church Avas typified in the union of our first
parents, and in the particular manner of
Eve's formation out of the substance' of
Adam. The most striking particulars of the
resemblance are these. The union, in both
cases, in the natural case of man and wife,
and the spiritual case of Messiah and the
church, is a«union ofthe most entire affec-
tioi-l and the warmest mutual love between
unequals ; contrary, to the admired maxim
of the heathen moralist, that friendship was
not to be found but betAveen equals. ' The
maxim may be true in all human friendship
except the conjugal, but fails completely in
the love between Christ and the church, in
which the affection on both sides is the most
cordial, though the rank of the parties be
the most disparate. Secondly, The union
is indissoluble, except by a violation ofthe
nuptial vow. But the great resemblance of
all lies in this -~- the never-failing protection

151
and support afforded by the husband to the
wife ; and the abstraction of the affections
from all other objects -on the part of the
wife, and the surrender of her whole heart
and mind to the husband. In these cir
cumstances principally, but in many others
also, Avhich the time will not permit me lo
recount, the propriety and significance of
the type consists. It is applied with some
variety, and Avith more or Jess accuracy, in
different parts of hcily writ* according to the
purpose of the writer. Where the church
catholic is considered simply in its totality,
Avithout distinction of the parts of which it
is composed, the whole church is taken as
the wife ; but when it is considered as con
sisting of two great branches, the church of
the natural Israel and the church of the
Gentiles, of which two branches the- whole
Avas composed in the primitive ages, and will
be composed again, then the former is con
sidered as the wife, or queen-consort, and
the Gentile congregations as her daughters,
or ladies of honour of her court. And in
this manner the type is used in many parts
ofthe prophet Isaiah, and very remarkably
in this#psalm. l 4

152
In the part of it which Ave are now about
to expound, the holy psalmist having seated
the King Messiah on his everlasting throne,
proceeds to the magnificence of his court,
as it appeared on the wedding-day. In
which, the thing Avhich first strikes him and
fixes his attention, is lhe majesty and splen
dour of the King's own dress ; which indeed
is described by the single circumstance of
the profusion of rich perfumes with which it
was scented : But this by inference im
plies every thing else of elegance and costly
ornament ; for among the nations of the
East, in ancient times, perfume was consi
dered as the finishing of the dress of persons
of condition when they appeared in public;
and modern manners give us no conception
of the costliness of the materials employed
in the composition of their odours, their care
and nicety in the preparation of them, and
the quantity in which they were used. The
high-priest of the Jews was not sprinkled
with a few scanty drops of the perfume of
the sanctuary; but his person was so be
dewed with it that it literally ran down from
his beard to the skirts of his garment. The
high-priest of the Jews in his robes of office

153
was in this, as I shall presently explain,
and in every circumstance, the living type
of our Great High-Priest. The psalmist
describes the fragrance of Messiah's gar
ments to be such as if the aromatic woPds
had been the very substance out of which
the robes Avere made.
" Thy garments are all myrrh, aloes, and
cassia."
The sequel of this verse is somewhat ob
scure in the -original, by reason of the
ambiguity of one little word, which diffe
rent interpreters have taken differently. I
shall give you what in my judgment is the
literal rendering of. the passage ; and trust I
shall not find it difficult to make the mean
ing of it very clear.
" Thy garments are all myrrh, aloes, and
cassia,
" Excelling the palaces of i\rory,
" Excelling those which delight thee."
Ivory was highly valued and admired
among the Jews and other Eastern- nations
of antiquity, for the purity of its white, the
delicate smoothness of the surface, and the
durability of the substance ; being not liable
to tarnish or rust like metals, or, hke wood,

154
to rot or to be worm-eaten. Hence it was
a favourite ornament in the furniture ot lhe
houses and palaces of great men ; and all
such ornamental furniture avhs pleniituiiy
perfumed. The psalmist then fore says,
that the fragrance of the King's. garments
far exceeded any thing that met the nostrils
ofthe visitors in the stateliest and best fur
nished palaces. But this is not all : He
says, besides, that these prfu tries of the
royal garments " excel those which delight
thee." To understand this, you must recol
lect that there were two very exquisite
perfumes used in the symbolical service of
the temple, both made of the richest spices,
mixed in certain proportions, and by a pro
cess directed by the law. The one was used
to anoint every article of lhe furniture of the
sanctuary, and the robes and persons of the
priests. The composition of it was not to
be imitated, nor was it to be applied to the
person of any butS. consecrated priest, upon
pain of death. Some, indeed, of the kings
of David's line were anointed with it ; but
when this*was done, it was by the special
direction of a prophet ; and it Avas to inti
mate, as I apprehend, the relation of that

155
royal house tp the eternal priesthood, to be
instituted in due season in that family. The
other was a compound of other ingredients,
which made the incense that was burnt upon
the golden altar as a grateful odour to the
Lord. This too was most holy ; and to
attempt to make the like for private use was
a capital offence.
Now the perfumed garments ofthe psalm
ist's King denote the very same thing which
was typified under the laAV by the perfumed
garments of the high-priest ; the psalmist's
King being indeed the real person of whom
the high-priest, in every particular of his
office, his services, and his dress, Avas the
type. The perfumed garments were typi
cal, first, of the graces and virtues of the
Redeemer himself in his human character ;
secondly, of whatever is refreshing, encou
raging, consoling, and cheering, in the
external ministration of the word ; and
thirdly, of the internal comforts of the Holy
Spirit. But the incense fumed upon the
golden altar was typical of a far inferior,
though of a precious and holy thing,—
namely, of whatever is pleasing to God, in

156
the faith, the devotions, and the good works
of the saints. Now the psalmist says that
the fragrance breathing from the garments
of the King far excels not only the sweetest
odours of any earthly monarch's palace, but
that it surpasses those spiritual odours of
sanctity in which the King himself delights.
The consolations which the faithful under
all tlieir sufferings receive from him, in the
example of his holy life, the ministration of
the word and sacraments, and the succours
of the Spirit, are far beyond the proportion
of any thing they have to offer iri return to
him, in their praises, their prayers, and
their good lives; notwithstanding in these
their services he condescends to take delight.
This is the doctrine of this' highly mystic
text, that the value of all our best works of
faith and obedience, even in pur own eyes,
must sink into nothing when they are con
trasted with the exuberant mercy of God
extended to us through Christ.
Such is the fragrance breathing from the
great King's wedding-garments. We pro
ceed to other particulars in the magnificent
appearance of his court on the wedding-

157
day, figurative of the glory of the church in
its final condition of purity and peace, and
ofthe rank and order of particular churches.
" Kings' daughters are among thy ho
nourable Avomen."
You will observe that the. Avord " wo
men," in the Bibles of the larger size, is
printed in that character which is used to
distinguish the words which have been
inserted by the translators, to make the
sense perspicuous to the English reader,
without any thing expressly corresponding
in the original. Omitting the word " wo
men," our* translators might have given
the verse, according to their conceptions
of the preceding Avord which describes the
Avomen, thus :
" Kings' daughters are ariiong thy ho-
nourables ;"
i. e. among the persons appointed to ser
vices of honour. But the original word
thus expressed by " honourable women,"
or by " honourables," is indeed applied to
whatever is rare and valued in its kind,
and, for that reason, to illustrious persons,
ennobled and distinguished by marks of

158
royal favour : and in this Sense it certainly
is figuratively applicable to the persons
whom I shall show to be intended here.
But the primary meaning of the word is
" bright, sparkling ;" and it is particularly
applied to brilliant gems, or precious
stones. Sparkling is in all languages figu
ratively applied to female beauty ; and the
imagery of the original would be. better
preserved, though the sense would be
much the same, if the passage were thus
rendered :
" Kings' daughters are among the bright
beauties of thy court."
The beauty certainly is mystic, — the
beauty of evangelical sanctity and inno
cence. But Avho and what are these kings*
daughters, . the lustre of whose beauty
adorns the great monarch's court ? " Kings'
daughters," in the general language of holy
writ, are the kingdoms and peoples which
they govern, of Avhich, in common speech,
they are called fathers.. The expression
may be so taken here; and then the sense
will be, that the greatest kingdoms and
empires of the world, converted to the
faith of Christ, and shining in the beauty
5

-159
of the good works of true holiness, will be
united, at the season of the Avedding, to
Messiah's kingdom. But, inasmuch as
Messiah's kingdom is not one of the king-
doms of the world, and that secular king
doms- will never be immediately and in
their secular capacity vassals of his king
dom, I rather think that the kings'
daughters mentioned here are the various
national churches fostered for many ages
by the piety of Christian princes, and hoav
brought to the perfection of beauty, by the
judgments which shall have purged eArery
one of them of all things that offend : for
they may well be called " kings' daughters,"
of whom kings and queens are called, in
the prophetic language, the fathers and the
mothers. From these the psalmist turns our atten
tion to another lady, distinguished above
them all by her title, her place, and the
superlative richness of her robes.
" Kings' daughters are among the bright
beauties of thy court.
" At thy right hand the consort has her
station,

160.
" In standard gold of Ophir."
Some expositors have imagined that the
.consort is an emblem of the church catholic
in her totality, — the kings' daughters,
typical of the several particular churches
of Avhich that one universal is composed.
But lhe queen-consort here is unquestion
ably the Hebrew church, — the church of
the natural Israel, reunited, by her conver
sion, to her husband, and advanced to the
high prerogative of the mother church of
Christendom : And the kings' daughters
are the churches Avhich had been gathered
oul of the Gentiles, in the interval betAveen
the expulsion of this wife and the taking of
her home again, — that is, between the dis-"*
persion of the JeAvs by the Romans, and
their restoration. The restoration of lhe.
Hebrew church to the rights of a Avife —
to the situation of the queen-consort in
Messiah's kingdom upon earth — is the
constant strain of prophecy. To prove
this, by citing all the passages to that
purpose, would be to transcribe \vhole
chapters of some of the prophets, and in
numerable detached passages from almost
all. In addition to those Avhich I have,
u

161
already cited, in my former discourses
upon this subject, I shall produce only the
latter part of the second chapter of Hosea.
In that chapter, Jehovah, after discarding
the incontinent Avife, and threatening
terrible severity of punishment, adds, that
nevertheless the time should come when
she should again address her offended lord
by the endearing name of husband. " And
I will betroth thee to myself for ever. Yes ;
I will betroth thee to myself, with justice,
and with righteousness, and Avith exuberant
kindness, and*- with tender love. Yes ;
with faithfulness, tb myself I will betroth
thee." These promises are made to the
woman that had been discarded, and can
not be understood of mercies to be ex
tended to» any other. The prophet Isaiah
speaks to the same effect, and describes
the Gentile converts as becoming, upon
the reunion, children of the pardoned wife.
And I must not omit to mention, that
St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, to
clea¥ up the mystery of God's1 dealing with
the Jews, tells* us* that " blindness is in
part . only happened unto Israel, till the
time shall arrive for the fulness- of the
VOL. i. m

162

Gentiles to come in ; and then all Israel
shall be saved ; for the gifts' and calling of
God are without repentance," To expound
these predictions of the ancient prophets,
and this declaration of the apostle, of any
thing but the restoration of the natural
Israel, is lo introduce ambiguity and
equivocation into the plainest oracles of
God. The standard gold upon the queen's
robe denotes the treasures of Avhich the
church is the depositary, — the written
word, and the dispensation of grace and
forgiveness of sins by the due administration
of the sacraments.
The psalmist, beholding the queen in her
costly robes, on the King's right hand, in
terrupts the progress of his description with
a word of momentous advice addressed to
her. " Hearken, O daughter ! and consider;
" Incline thine ear ; and forget
" Thine own people, and, thy father's
house >:

163
" So shall the King set his heart upon
thy beauty.
" Truly he is thy Lord ; therefore wor
ship thou him."
If a princess from a distant land, taken in
marriage by a great king, Were admonished
to forget her own people and her father's
house, the purport of the advice would
easily be Understood to be, that she should
divest herself of all attachment to the cus
toms of her native country and to the style
of her father's court; and learn to speak.
the language, and assume the dress, the
manners, and the taste of her husband's
people. The " father's house" and ^ o\vn
people," Which the psalmist advises the
queen-consort to forget, is the ancient
Jewish religion in its external form,— the
ceremonies of the temple service, — the
sacrifices and the typical purgations of the
Levitical priesthood. Not that she is to
forget God's gracious promises toAbraham,
nor the covenant* Avith her forefathers (the
benefit of which she will enjoy to the very
end of time), nor the many wonderful
deliverances that were wrought for them:
Nor is she to forget the history of her na-
M 2

164.
tion, preserved in the Scriptures of the Old
Testament; nor the predictions of Moses
arid her prophets, the full accomplishment
of Avhich she will at this time experience :
And historically, she is never to forget even
the ceremonial law; for the Levitical rites
Avere nothing less than the gospel itself in
hieroglyphics ; and, rightly understood,
they afford the most complete demonstra
tion of the coherence of revelation Avith
itself, in all its different stages, and the
best evidence of its truth; showing that it
has been the same in substance in all ages>
differing only in external form, in the rites
of worship, and in the manner of teaching.
But, practically, the rites of their ancient
worship are to be forgotten,— that is, laid
aside; for they never Avere of any other
importance than in reference to the gospel,
as the shadow is of no value but as it
resembles the substance. Practically,
therefore, the restored Hebrew churcb is
to: abandon her ancient Jewish rites, and
become* mere and pure Christian ; and
thus she will secure the conjugal affections
of her- husband, and render the beauty of
her person perfect in. his eyes. And this
11

1 65
she is bound to do ; for her royal husband
is indeed her Lord : Moses was no more
than his servant, — the prophets after
Moses, servants in a ioAver rank than he.
But the authority of Christ the husband is
paramount over all ; he is entitled to her
unreserved obedience; he is indeed her God,
entitled to her adoration.
This submission of the consort to her
wedded Lord will set her high in the
esteem of the churches ofthe Gentiles.
" See the daughter of Tyre, with a gift ;
" The wealthiest of the people shall en*
treat thy favour."
The " daughter of Tyre," according to the
principles of interpretation we have. laid
down, must be a church established either
literally at Tyre, Or in some country held
forth under the image of Tyre. Ancient
Tyre was famous for her commerce,, her
wealth, her excellence in the fine arts, her
luxury, the profligate debauched manners
of her people, and the grossness of her
idolatry. The " daughter of Tyre" appear
ing before the queen-consort " with a gift/*
u 3

166
is a figurative prediction that churches will
be established, under the protection of the
government, in countries which had been
distinguished for profligacy, dissipated man
ners, and irreligion. It is intimated in the
next line, that some of these churches will
be rich ; that is, rich in spiritual riches,
which are the only riches of a church, in
the mystic language of prophecy, — rich
in the holy lives of their members, in the
truth of their creeds, and the purity Pf
their external forms of worship, and in
God's favour. But notwithstanding this
wealth of their OAvn, these churches will
pay willing homage to the royal consort,
their eldest sister, the metropoli ticai church
of Jerusalem.
From this address to the queen, the
psalmist, in the thirteenth verse, returns to
the description of the great scene lying in
vision before him.
" The King's daughter is all-glorious
within." In this line, the same personage
that nas hitherto been represented as the
King's wife seems to be called his daughter.

167
This, hoAvever, is a matter upon which com
mentators have been much divided. Some
have imagined that a new personage is
introduced : that the King's wife is, as I
have all along maintained, the figure ofthe
Hebrew church ; but 'that this " daughter
of the King"1 is the Christian church in
general, composed of Jews and Gentiles in
discriminately, considered as lhe daughter of
the King Messiah by hisHebrew queen. This
was Martin Luther's notion. Others have
thought that the wife is the Hebrew church
by itself, and the daughter the church of
the Gentiles by itself. But neither ofthese
explanations are perfectly consistent with
the imagery of this psalm. Far to be pre
ferred is the exposition of, the late learned
and pious Bishop Home ; who rejects the
notion of the introduction of a new per
sonage, and observes, " that the connexion
between Christ and his spouse unites in
itself every relation and every affection."
She is therefore daughter, Avife, and sister,
all in one. The same seems to have been
the notion of a learned Dominican of the
seventeenth Century ; who remarks, that the
Empress Julia, in the legends of some
m 4

168
ancient coins, is called the daughter of
Augustus, whose wife she Avas.
But, with much general reverence for the
opinions of these learned commentators, I
am persuaded that the stops have been mis
placed in the Hebrew manuscripts, by the
Jewish critics, upon the last reyision of the
text; — that translators have been misled
"by their false division of the text, and ex
positors misled by .translators. The stops
being rightly placed, the Hebrew words
give this sense :
" She is all-glorious," —
She, the consort of whom we have been
speaking, is glorious in every respect, —
" Daughter of a king."
That is, she is a princess born (by which
title she is saluted in the Canticles) : she is
glorious, therefore, for her high birth. She
is, indeed, of high and heavenly extraction :
she may say' of herself, collectively, Avhat
the apostle has taught her sons to- say
individually : " Of his own will begat he
us with the word of his truth." Ac
cordingly, in the Apocalypse, the bride,

Ity
the Lamb's wife, is " the holy Jerusalem
descending out of heaven from God."
The psalmist goes on.
" Her inner garment is bespangled with
gold ; .
" Her upper garment is embroidered
Avith the needle."
These two lines require little comment.
The spangles of gold upon the consort's
inner garment are the same thing with the,
standard gold of Ophir of the ninth verse,
— the invaluable treasure with which the
church is endowed, with the custody and
distribution of which she is intrusted. The.
embroidery of her upper garment is, AvhatT
ever there is of beauty in her external form,
her discipline, and her rites.
The psalmist adds —
" She is conducted in procession to the
King." Our public translation has simply
— " She is brought;" but the*original Avord
implies the pomp* and conduct of a public
procession. The greatest caution is re
quisite in attempting to interpret, in the
detail of circumstances, the predictions of

170
things yet remote. We may venture, hoAV-
ever, to apply this conducting of the queen
to the palace of her lord, to some remark
able assistance which the Israelites will
receive from the Christian nations of the
Gentile race, in their resettlement in the
Holy Land ; which seems to be mentioned
under the very same image by the prophet
Isaiah, at the end of the eighteenth chapter,
and by the prophet Zephaniah, chapter
third, verse tenth ; and is clearly the subject
of more explicit prophecies. " Thus saith
Jehovah," speaking to Zion, in the prophet
Isaiah, " Behold I will lift up my hand to
the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the
peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in
their arms, and thy daughters shall be
carried upon their shoulders." And in
another place, " They (the Gentiles, men
tioned in the preceding verse) shall "bring
all your brethren, for an offering unto
Jehovah, out of all nations, upon horses,
and in chariots, and in litters, and upon
mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy
mountain Jerusalem."
But the psalmist is struck with the appear-

171
ance of a very remarkable band Avhich
makes a part in this procession.
u She is conducted in procession to the
King.
" Virgins follow her, her companions,'
" Coming unto thee :
" They are conducted in procession, with
festivity and rejoicing :
" They enter the palace of the King."
These virgins seem to be different persons
from the kings' daughters of the ninth verse.
Those " kings' daughters" were already
distinguished ladies of the monarch's own
court : these virgins are introduced to it by
the queen ; they folloAV her as part of her
retinue, and are introduced as her com
panions. The former represent, as we
conceive, the churches of Gentile origin,
formed and established in the period of the
wife's disgrace : these virgins we take to be
new churches, formed among: nations not
sooner called to the knowledge of the
gospel and the faith in Christ, at the very
season of the restoration of Israel, in whose
conversion the restored Hebrew church may
have a principal share. This is that fulness
of the Gentiles of which St. Paul speaks as

172
coincident in time Avith the recovery of the
Jews, and, in a great degree, the effect of
their conversion. " Have they stumbled
that they should fall ?" saith the apostle,
•speaking of the natural Israel: " God
forbid : but rather, through their fall, sal
vation is come unto the Gentiles, for lo
provoke them to emulation. Noav, if the
fall of them be the riches of the world, and
their loss the' riches, of the Gentiles, how
much more their fulness? For if the casting
away of them be. the reconciling of the
world, what shall the receiving of them be
but life from the dead?" In these texts,
the apostle clearly lays out this order ofthe
business, in the conversion of the whole
world to Christ : first, the rejection of the
unbelieving Jews : then, the first call of the
Gentiles : the recovery of the Jews, after a
long season of obstinacy and blindness, at
last provoked to emulation, brought to a
right understanding of God's dispensations,
by that very call which hitherto has been
one of their stumbling-blocks : and lastly,
in consequence of the conversion of the
Jews, a prodigious influx from the Gentile
nations yet unconverted, and immersed in

173
the darkness and corruptions of. idolatry ;
Avhich make little less than Iavo thirds, not
of the civilized, but of the inhabited world.
The churches of this new conversion seem
to be the virgins, the queen's bridemaids,
in the nuptial procession. »
In the next verse (the sixteenth), the
psalmist again addresses the queen.
" Thy children shall be in the place of
thy fathers ;
" Thou shalt make them princes, in all
the earth."
Thy ' children shall be what thy fathers
Were, God's peculiar people; and shall
hold a distinguished rank and character in
the earth.
The psalmist closes his divine song with
a distich setting forth the design and pre
dicting the effect of his own performance.
" I will perpetuate the remembrance of
thy name to all generations ;
" Insoinuch that the peoples shall praise
thee for ever."
By inditing this marriage-song, he hoped
to be the means of celebrating the Re-

174.-
deemer's name from age to age, and of in
citing the nations of the world to join in his
praise. The event has not disappointed the
holy prophet's expectation. His composi
tion has been the delight of the congrega
tions ofthe faithful for little less than three
thousand years. For one thousand and
forty, it Avas a means of keeping alive in
the synagogue the hope of the Redeemer
to come : For eighteen hundred since, it
has been the means of perpetuating in
Christian congregations the grateful remem
brance of Avhat has been dorie, — ¦ anxious
attention to what is doing, — and the cheer
ing hope ofthe second coming of our Lord ;
who surely cometh to turn away ungodli
ness from Jacob, and to set up a standard to
the nations which yet sit in darkness and
the shadoAV of death. " He that witnesseth
these things, saith, Behold I come quickly.
And the Spirit saith, Come ! and the bride
saith, Come! and let every one that
heareth say, Amen ! Even sod Come,
Lord Jesus-!"

175

SERMON IX.

I John, v. 6.
This is he that came by water and blood, even
Jesus - Christ ; — not by water only, but by
water and blood.
¦Tor the surer interpretation ofthese words,
it will be necessary to take a general view
of the sacred book in which we find them
written, and to consider the subject-matter
ofthe whole, but more particularly ofthe
tAVo last chapters.
The book goes under the title of " The
General Epistle of St. John." But in the
composition of it, narrowly inspected, no
thing is to be found of the epistolary form.
It is not inscribed either to any individual,
like St. Paul's to Timothy and Titus, or the
second of the two which follow it, " to the
well-beloved Gaius," — nor to any particu-

17©
lar church, like St. Paul's to the churches
of Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and others, —
nor to the faithful of any particular region,
like St. Peter's first epistle, " to the strangers
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cap
padocia, Asia, and Bithynia,"-1— nor to any
principal branch of the Christian church,
like St. Paul's to the Hebrews,— nor to the
Christian church in general, like the second
of St. Peter's, " to them that had obtained
like precious faith Avith him," and like
St. Jude's, " to them that are sanctified by
God the Father, and preserved in Jesus
Christ, and called:" It bears no such in
scription : It begins without salutation, arid
ends without benediction. It is true, the
writer sometimes speaks, but without nam-
ing himself in the first person, — ^ and ad
dresses his reader, without naming him in
the second. But this colloquial style is
very common in all Avritings of a plain
familiar cast: Instances of it occur in
St. John's Gospel ; and it is by no means a
distinguishing character of epistolary com
position. It should seerii that this book
hath for no other reason acquired the title of
an epistle, but that, in- the first formation oi

177
the canon of the NeAv Testament, it was
put into the same volume Avith the didactic
writings of the apostles, Avhich, with this
single exception, are all in the epistolary
form. It is indeed a didactic discourse
upon the principles of Christianity, both in
doctrine and practice : And Avhether we
consider the sublimity of its opening, with
the fundamental topics of God's perfections,
man's depravity, and Christ's propitiation,
— the perspicuity with which it propounds
the deepest mysteries of our holy faith, and
the evidence of the proof which it brings to
confirm them; Avhether Ave consider the
sanctity of its precepts, and the energy of
argument with which they are persuaded
and enforced, — the dignified simplicity of
language in Avhich both doctrine and pre
cept are delivered ; whether we regard the
importance of the matter, the propriety of
the style, or the general spirit of ardent
piety and warm benevolence,, united with %
fervid zeal, Avhich breathes throughout the
whole composition, — Ave shall find it in
every respect worthy of the holy author to
whom the constant tradition of the church
ascribes it, " the disciple Avhom Jesus loved,"
vol. i. sr

178
The particular subject of the two last
chapters is the great doctrine of the incar
nation, or, in St. John's OAvn Avords, of
Christ's coming in the flesh. It may seem
that I ought to say, the two doctrines of
the incarnation and the atonement: But if
I so said, though I should not say any thing
untrue, I should speak improperly ; for the
incarnation of our Lord and the atonement
made by him are not two separate doc
trines : They are one ; the doctrine of atone
ment being included in that of the incarna
tion, rightly understood, and as it is stated
by St. John.
The doctrine of the incarnation in its
whole amount is this: That one of the three
persons of the God was united to a man,
i. e. to a human body and a human soul, in
the person of Jesus, in order to expiate the
guilt of the whole human race, original
and actual, by the merit, death, and suffer
ings, of the man so united to the Godhead.
This atonement was the end of the incarn ac
tion : And the two articles reciprocate ; for
an incarnation is implied and presupposed
in the Scripture doctrine of atonement, as

179
the • necessary means in the end : For if
satisfaction * Avas . to be made to Divine
justice for the sins of men, by vicarious
obedience and vicarious sufferings, in such
a way (and in no ofher way could it be
consistent Avith Divine wisdom) as might
attach the pardoned offender to God's ser
vice, upon a principle of love and gratitude,
il was essential to this plan, that God him
self should take a principal part in all that
his justice required to be done and suffered, .
to make room for his mercy; and the
divine nature itself being incapable of suf
fering, it was necessary to the scheme of
pardon, that the Godhead should conde
scend to unite to itself the nature capable.
For, make the supposition, if you please,
that after the fall of Adam another perfect
man had been created : Suppose that this
perfect man had fulfilled all righteousness,
— that, like bur Lord, he had been ex
posed to temptations of Satan far more
powerful than those, to which our first
parents yielded ; and that, like our Lord,
he had baffled Satan in every attempt :
Suppose this perfect man had consented* to
w 2

180
offer up his own life as a ransom for other".
lives forfeited, and to suffer in his own per
son the utmost misery a creature could be
made to suffer, to avert punishment from
Adam, and from Adam's whole posterity,.
— the life he would have had to offer would
have been but the life of orie ; the lives for
feited Avere many. Could one life be a
ransom for more than" one ? Could the
sufferings of one single man, upon any prin
ciple upon which public justice may exact
and accept vicarious punishment, expiate
the guilt of more than one other man?
Could it expiate the apostacy of millions ?
It is true, that in human governments the
punishment of a few is sometimes accepted
as a satisfaction for the offence of many ;
as in military punishments, Avhen a regi
ment is /ieciniated. But the cases, will
bear no7 comparison. The regiment has
perhaps deserved lenity by former good
services ;; Avhich in the case between God
and man cannot be alleged. The satisfac
tion of the tenth man goes to no farther
effect than a pardon for the other nine of
the single individual crime that is passed.:
The law remains in force ; and the nine,

181
who for that time escape, continue subject
to its rigour, and still liable to undergo the
punishment, if the offence should be re
peated. But such is the exuberance of
mercy in man's redemption, that the expia
tion extends not only to innumerable
offences past, but to many that are yet to
come. The severity of the law itself is mi
tigated ; the hand-writing of ordinances is
blotted out ; and duty henceforward is
exacted upon a principle of allowance for
human frailty. And who will havethe folly
or the hardiness to say, that the suffering
virtue of one mere man would have been a
sufficient price for such a pardon ? It must
be added, that when . human authority
accepts an inadequate satisfaction for of
fences involving multitudes, the lenity, in
many cases, arises from a policy founded
on a prudent estimation of the imperfec
tion of power in human government,' which
might sustain a diminution of its strength
by the loss of numbers. But God hath no
need of the wicked inan ; it would be no
diminution of strength to his government
if a World should perish: It is therefore
from pure mercy that he ever spares. Th$
v 3

182
disobedience of our "first parents Avas no
thing less than a confederacy Avith the
apostate spirit against the sovereign autho
rity of God: And if such offenders arc
spared by such a sovereign, it-must be'in a
way Avhich shall unite the perfection of
mercy with lhe perfection of justice ; for
in God mercy and justice must equally be
perfect. Since, then, one mere man could make
no expiation of the sins of myriads, make,
if you please, another supposition. Sup
pose an angel had undertaken for us, — had
desired to assume our mortal nature, and to
do and suffer for us, Avhat, done and suffered
by a man, Ave have found would have been
inadequate. We shall then halve the life of
one incarnate angel, still a single life, a
ransom for myriads of men's lives forfeited ;
and the merit and sufferings of one angel to
compensate the guilt of myriads of men,
and to be an equivalent for their punish
ment. I- fear the amended supposition has
added little or nothing to the value of the
pretended satisfaction . Whatever reverence
may be due from man in his present con-

18S
dilion upon earth to the holy angels as his
superiors, Avhat are they in the sight of God ?
They are nothing better now than the glori
fied saints in heaven av ill. hereafter be; and
"God charges even his angels with folly,
and the heavens are not pure in his sight."
But admit that either a perfect man or an
incarnate angel had been able to pay the
forfeit for us ; and suppose that the forfeit
had been paid by a person thus distinct and
separate from the Godhead : What effect
Avould have been produced, by a pardon so
obtained, in the mind of the pardoned
offender? Joy, no doubt, for an unex
pected deliverance from impending venge
ance, —love for the person, man or angel,
who had wrought the deliverance, — re
morse, that his crimes had involved another's
innocence in misery; but certainly no at
tachment to' the service of the sovereign.
The deliverer might have been loved ; but
the Being Avhose justice exacted the satis
faction would have remained the object of
mere fear, unmixed with love, or rather of
fear mixed with aversion. Pardon thus
obtained never could have inflamed the
N 4

184
repentant sinner's bosom Avith that love of
God which alone can qualify an intelligent
creature for the enjoyment of the Creator's
presence. This could only be effected by
the wonderful scheme in which Mercy and
Truth are made to kiss each other, — ¦ when
the same God Avho in one person exacts the
punishment, in another himself sustains- it;
and thus makes his own mercy pay the satis
faction to his own justice.
So essential was the incarnation of the
Son of God to the effectual atonement of
man's guilt by the shedding of his blood.
On the other hand, the need there was of
such atonement is the only cause that can
be assigned which could induce the Son of
God to stoop to be. made man : For had
the instruction of man, as some have
dreamed, been the only purpose of our
Saviour's coming, a mere man might have
been impowered to execute the whole busi
ness ; for whatever knowledge the mind of
man can be made to comprehend, a man
might be made the instrument to convey.
This inseparable and necessary connexion

185
with the' doctrine of atonement constitutes
an^.essentia'1 difference between the awful
mystery of the incarnation in the Christian
system, and those avatars in the super
stitious religion of the Indian Brahmin
which have been compared with it, but in
which it is profanely mimicked rather
than imitated. Yet the comparison is not
unfounded, nor without its use, if it be
conducted Avith due reverence and circum
spection. In those impious incoherent
fables, as in all the Pagan mythology, and
in the vgry worst of the Pagan rites, ves
tiges are discernible of the history, the
revelations, and the*rites of the earliest of
the patriarchal ages ; and thus the worst
corruptions Of idolatry may be brought to
bear an indirect testimony to the truth of
revelation. But Ave must be cautious, that,
in making the comparison, we mistake not
a hideously* distorted picture for a flattered
likeness — a -disfigured for an embellished
copy; lest we be inadvertently and "insen
sibly reconciled to the impure and blasphe
mous fictions of idolatry — to her obscene
and savage rites, as nothing Avorse than
elegant adumbrations of sacred truth in

186
significant allegory. In the numerous suc
cessive incarnations of Veeshnu," the Deity
is embodied for subordinate and partial
purposeSj altogether unworthy of that man
ner of interference. The incarnation of
Christ was for a purpose which God only
could accomplish, and God himself could
accomplish in no other way : It Avas. for
the execution of a plan Avhich Divine
wisdom could alone contrive — Divine love
and Almighty power could alone effect:
It Avas to rescue those from endless misery
whom Divine justice (which, because it is
mere and very justice, must be inflexible)
demanded for its victims.
It is therefore Avith great truth and reason
that St.* John sets forth this as the cardinal
doctrine of Christianity ; insomuch,' that he
speaks of the belief of this article as the
accomplishment of our Christi an*warfare —
the attainment at least of that -faith Avhich
with certainty overcorneth the world. — -¦
"This," he says, "is the victory which
overcometh the Avorld, even our failh."
Then he adds — -"Who is he that overcometh
the world, but he that believeth that Jesus

187
is tlie Son of God ?" " Son of God" is a
title that belongs to our Lord in his human
character, describing him as that man avIio
became the Son of God by union Avith the
Godhead ; as " Son of Man," on the con
trary, is a title Avhich belongs to the Eternal
Word, describing that person of the God
head avIio Avas made man by uniting himself
to lhe Man Jesus. To believe, therefore,
that Jesus is the Son of God, is to believe
that he is God himself incarnate. This, the
apostle says, is the faith which overcometh
the AVorld ; inspiring the Christian with
fortitude to surmqunt the temptations of
the world, in Avhatever shape they may
assail him. On the other hand, the denial
of this great truth, so animating lo the
believer's hopes, he represents as the- begin
ning of that apostacy which is to come to its
height in the latter ages, as one of the cha
racters of Antichrist. " Ye have heard,"
he says, " that Antichrist shall come : EAren
now there are many Antichrists. Who is a
liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the
Christ? Ffe is Antichrist, denying the
Father and the-Son." And again, *-' Every
spirit that Confesseth that Jesus Christ is

188
come in the flesh, is of God ; and every
spirit that confesseth not lhat Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh, is not of God : And this
is that spirit of Antichrist whereof ye have
heard that it should come, and now already
is it in the world." " The Christ" is a name
properly alluding to the inauguration of the
Redeemer to his triple office of prophet,
priest", and king, by the unction from above:
But in the phraseology of the heretics of
the apostolic age, it \vas used as- a name of
that Divine Being Avith Avhom Ave maintain
but they denied an union of the Man Jesus.
To deny therefore that Jesus is the Christ,
Avas, in their Sense of the word, " Christ,"
to deny lhat he is the Son of God, or God
himself incarnate. He lhat denieth this,
says the apostle, is a liar, and is Antichrist.
Tavo remarkable sects of these lying Anti
christs arose in the apostles' days — the sect
of the Cerinthian heretics, Avho denied the
divinity of our Saviour ; and the sect ofthe
Docetse, Avho denied his manhood, main
taining that the body of Jesus, and every
thing he appeared to do and suffer in" it, Avas
mere illusion. Thus, both equally denied
the incarnation; both therefore equally

189
Avere. liars and Antichrists: And to give
equal and direct contradiction to the lies of
both, St. John delivers the truth in these
terms, that "Jesus is the Christ come in
the flesh."
In my text, the apostle having stated the
doctrine in the preceding Verse, gives a
brief summary of the irresistible evidence
by which it is confirmed to us ; which he
opens more distinctly, but still in very few
comprehensive Avords, in the two subsequent
verses. The evidence is such as mUst com
mand the assent of all who understand the
component parts of it ; and these parts are
intelligible to all Avho are Avell instructed in
their Bibles ': So that, of all evidence, at the
same time that it is the most profound, it
seems to be the most popular, and the best
calculated to work a general conviction. It is
much to be lamented that this evidence has
been totally overlooked by those who, Avith
much ostentation of philological learning
which they possessed, and of metaphysical
which they possessed not,' have composed
laboured demonstrations (as they presume
to call them) of natural and revealed re-

190
ligion,* — demonstrations Avhich have made,
I fear, more infidels than converts. The
apostle's demonstration proceeds thus : In
theverse preceding my text, he states his pro
position (though not for the first time), that
" Jesus is the Son of God :" Then he adds
— "This is he that came by water and
blood, Jesus the Christ ; — not by the water
only, but by the water and the blood ;" that
is, this is he who in the fulness of the time.
is come, according to the early promise of
his coming, Jesus, by water and blood
proved to be the Christ, — not by the water
only, but by the water and the blood. That
this is the true exposition of the text, —
that the coming by Water and blood, as our
public translation gives the passage, is com
ing with the evidence of the water and the
blood, proving that he was the Christ, —
appears from the distinct explication .which
immediately* follows pf the Avhole evidence,
of Avhichthe water arid the blood make prin
cipal parts. For thus the apostle- proceeds ;
" And tbe spirit beareth witness (or more
literally, the spirit is a thing Avitnessing),
because the spirit is truth." The word
" spirit" signifies here, as in many other
fit

191
places, the gift of tongues, and other
extraordinary endowments, prelernaturally
conferred by the agency of the Spirit, not
on the apostles only, but on believers in
general in the a'postolic age, When the
Avord signifies the Divine persori, the epi
thet Holy is usually joined with it. This
spirit is a " thing witnessing," besides the
water and the blood, because this " spirit
is truth.". It is the completion of a pro
mise: These extraordinary gifts of the
Spirit, consisting in an improvement of the
faculties of lhe mind for the apprehension
of divine truth, and in. enlargements of its
command over the bodily organs (as- in the
gift of tongues) for the propagation of it,
Avere an evident completion of the promise
given by our Lord to the apostles,, expressly
in the character of the son of God, that
after his return to the Father. he would send
the SpiriTrte4ead~thein into all truth. These
gifts, therefore, the fulfilment of that pro
mise, Avere the truth making good the
Avords ; -which truth proved the sincerity
and veracity of the giver of the promise,
and established his pretensions. Thus, this
spirit, because it was truth, Avas a thing

19&-
bearing Avitness together with the Avater and
the blood..
The apostle goes on : " For there are
three Avhich bear record in'hea\^en ('. e. there
are three in heaven which bear record), —
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost;
and these three are one. And there are
three that bear witness in the earth, — the
spirit, and the water, and the blood; and
these three agree in one."
I shall not enter into argument in defence
ofthe verse containing the testimony ofthe
Three in heaven. It has indeed of late years
been brought under suspicion ; and lhe au
thenticity of it has been given up by men
of great learning and unquestioned piety ;
even among the orthodox. But I conceive
that the exposition Avhich I shall give ofthe
entire passage will best vindicate the since
rity of the text as it stands, against the ex
ceptions of an over-subtle criticism in these
late ages, contradicting the explicit testi
mony of St. Jerome, that critical reviser of
the Latin yersion in the fourth century, or,
at the latest, in the very beginning of tha

IO

193
fifth, corroborated as it is by the citations
of still earlier fathers.
" There are three," says the apostle (for
these I assume as his genuine words),
" There, are three in heaven that bear re
cord," — ¦ record to this fact, that Jesus is
the Christ, — the Father, the Word, and
the Holy Ghost." The Father bare witness
by his oavii voice from heaven, twice declar
ing Jesus his beloved Son, — first, after his
baptism, when he came up out ofthe river;
and again at the transfiguration : A third
time the Father bare witness, Avhen he sent
his angel to Jesus in agony in the garden.
The Eternal Word bare Avitness, by the ful
ness, of the Godhead dwelling in Jesus bo
dily, — by that plerfitude of strength and
power with Avhich he was supplied for the
performance of his miracles, and the en-'
durance in his frail and mortal body of the
fire ofthe Father's Avrath : The Word bare
witness,.— perhaps more indirectly, — still
the Word bare witness, by the preternatural
darkness which for' three hours obscured the
sun, while Jesus hung in torment upon the
cross, — in the quaking of the earth, the
vol. i. o

394
rending of the rocks, and the openirig of the
graves, to liberate the bodies of the saints
which appeared in the holy city after our
Lord's resurrection : For these extraordi
nary convulsions of the material Avorld must
be ascribed to that power by Avhich God in
the beginning created it, and still directs the
course of it, — that is, to the immediate act
of the Word ; for " by him all things Avere
made, and he upholdeth all things by the
Word of his own power." The Holy Ghost
bare witness, by the acknowledgment of the
infant Jesus, made, by the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, by the mouths of his ser
vants and instruments Simeon and Anna;
and more directly, by his visible descent
upon the adult Jesus at his baptism, and
upon the apostles of Jesus after the ascen
sion of their Lord. Thus the Three in
heaven bare witness ; and these three, the
apostle adds, are one* — one .in the unity of
a consentient testimony ; for that unity is
all that is requisite to the purpose of the
apostle's present argument. It is remark
able, however, that he " describes the unity
of the testimony ofthe three celestial and the
three terrestrial Avitnesses in different terms,

195
— I conceive for this reason, Of the latter
more could not be said Avith truth than that
they " agree in one ;" for they are not one
in nature and substance : But the Three in
heaven being in substance and in nature
one, he asserts the agreement of their testi
mony in terms which predicate their sub
stantial unity, in which the consent of tes
timony is necessarily included ; lest, if he
applied no higher phrase to them than to
the terrestrial Avitnesses, he might seem ta
citly to qualify and lower his own doctrine.
He goes on: " And there are three inearth
that bear witness, — the spirit, and the
water, and the blood ; and these three agree
in one."
Having thus detailed the particulars of
the evidence, the apostle closes this part of
his argument with these words : " This. is
the Witness of God :" that is, this testimony,
made up of six several parts, the witness of
three witnesses in heaven, ' and the witness
of three witnesses in earth, — this, taken al
together; is " the witness of God which he
hath testified of his Son."
o 2

196
'•; The spirit here, in the eighth verse, as.
Avell as in my text, is evidently lo be un
derstood of the gifts preterrialurally con
ferred upon believers. But \vhat is the
Avater, and what is the blood, produced as
two other terrestrial witnesses ? Avhat is their
deposition, and Avhat is ils effect and
amount? *
No one who recollects the circumstances
of the crucifixion, as they are detailed in
St. John's Gospel, can for a moment enter7
tain a doubt that the water and the blood
mentioned here , as Avitnesses*, are the water
and lhe blood Avhich issued from the Re
deemer's side, Avhen his body, already
dead, was pierced by a soldier with a spear.
But how were these Avitnesses ? and what
did they attest ? First, it is lo be observed,
that lhe stream, not of blood alone, but of
Water with the blood, Avas something pre
ternatural and miraculous; for St. John
dwells upon it with earnest reiterated asse
veration, as a thing so. wonderful that the
explicit testimony of an eye-witness Avas
requisite to make it credible; and yet of
great importance to be accredited as a main

197
foundation of faith, " One of the soldiers,"
the evangelist saith, " with a spear pierced
his side; and forthwith came there out blood
and water. And he that saAv it bear record ;
and his record is true ; and he knoweth that
he saith true, that ye might believe." AVhen
a man accompanies the assertion of a fact
with this declaration, that he was an eye-
Avitness, that what he asseris he himself
believes to be true, — that he was under no
deception, at the time, — that he not only
believes but knows the fact to be true, from
the certain information of his own senses, —
that he is anxious for the sake of others
that it should be believed, — he certainly
speaks of something extraordinary and hard
to be believed, and yet in his judgment
of great importance. The piercing of our
SaA'lour's side', with a spear, and the not
breaking of his legs, though that piece of
cruelty Avas usually practised among the
Romans m the execution of* that horrible
punishment which it Avas our Lord's lotto
undergo, had been facts of great impor
tance, though nothing had issued from the
Avound; because, as the evangelist observes,
they were the completion of tAvo very re-
o 3

198
markable prophecies concerning the Mes
siah's sufferings : But there Avas nothing in
either, in the doing of the one or the not
doing of the Other, so much out ofthe com
mon course as to be difficultof belief. The
streaming of the blood from a Avound in a
body so lately dead that the blood might
well be supposed to be, yet fluid, Avould
have been nothing remarkable. The ex
traordinary circumstance must have been
the flowing of the water with the blood.
Some men of learning have imagined that
the water 'which issued in this instance
Avith the blood was the fluid with which
the heart in its natural situation in the
human body is surrounded. This, chemists
perhaps may class among the Avatery fluids;
being neither viscous like an oil, nor inflam
mable like spirits, nor elastic "or volatile like
an air or ether : It differs, however, re
markably from plain water, as anatomists
assert, in the colour and other qualities:
And that this fluid should issue with the
blood of the heart, when a sharp weapon
had divided the membranes Avhich enclose
it, as the spear must have done before it
reached the heart, had been nothing more

199
extraordinary than that blood by itself
should have issued at a Avound in any other
part. Besides, in the detail of a fact nar
rated with so much earnestness to gain be
lief, the evangelist must be supposed to
speak* Avith the most scrupulous precision,
and to call every thing by its name. Che
Avater, therefore, which he says he saw
streaming from the wound, Avas as truly
water as the blood was blood ; the pure
element of water, — transparent, colourless,
insipid, inodorous Avater. And here is the
miracle, that pure water, instead of the fluid
of the pericardium in its natural state,
should have issued Avith the blood from a
wound in the region of the heart. This pure
water and the blood coming forth together,
are two of the three terrestrial witnesses
Avhose testimony is so efficacious,, in St.
John's judgment, for the confirmation of our
faith. But how do this Avater and this blood
bear witness that the crucified Jesus was the
Christ ? Water and blood were the indis
pensable, instruments of cleansing and ex
piation in all the cleansings and expiations
o 4

200
of the laAV. " Almost all things," saith
St. Paul, " are by the law purged Avifh*
blood ; and Avithout shedding of blood there
is no remission." But the purgation Avas
not by blood only, but by blood and water;
for the same apostle says — " When Moses
hacbspoken every precept to all the people
according to the law, he took* the blood of
(falves and of goats, Avith Avater, and
sprinkled both the book and all the people."
All the cleansings and expiations of the
laAV, by Avater and animal blood, were
typical of the real cleansing of the con
science by the Avater of baptism, and of
the expiation of real guilt by the blood of
Christ shed upon the cross, and virtually
taken and received by the faithful in the
Lord's supper. The flowing therefore of
this water and this blood, immediately
upon our Lord's death, from the Avound
opened in his side, was a notification to
the surrounding multitudes, though at the
time understood by few, that the real ex
piation was noAV complete, and the cleansing
fount set open. — O wonderful exhibition
of the goodness and severity of God ! It
is the ninth hour, and Jesus, strong to the

201
last in suffering, commending his spirit to
the Father, exclaims with -a loud voice that
" it is finished," boAvs his anointed head,
and renders up the ghost ! Nature is con
vulsed ! earth trembles ! the sanctuary, that
type of the heaven of* heavens, is suddenly
and forcibly thrown, open ! the tombs are
burst ! Jesus hangs upon the cross a corpse !
and lo the fountain, which, according to
the prophet, Avas this day to be set open for
sin and for pollution, is- seen suddenly
springing from his Avound ! — Who, con
templating only in imagination the mys
terious aAvful scene, exclaims not Avith the
centurion — " Truly this Avas the Son. of
God !"— truly he was the Christ !
Thus I have endeavoured to explain hoAv
the Avater and the blood, together with the
spirit,, are Avitnesses upon earth to establish
the faith Avhich overcometh the ' world.
Much remains untouched ; but the time
forbids me to proceed. One thing only I
must add, — that the faith which over
cometh the world consists not in the invo
luntary assent of the mind to historical
evidence ; nor in its assent, perhaps still
6t

202
more involuntary, to the conclusions of
argument from facts proved and admitted.
All this knowledge and all this under
standing the devils possess,, yet have not
faith ; and, believing without faith, they
tremble. Faith is not merely a speculative
but a practical acknowledgment of Jesus as
the Christ,— an effort and motion of the
mind toward God ; Avhen the sinner, con
vinced of sin, accepts with thankfulness
the proffered terms of pardon, and in
humble confidence applying individually
to self the benefit of the general atonement,
in the elevated language of a venerable
father of the church, drinks of the stream
which flows from the Redeemer's wounded
side. The effect is, that in a little he is
filled with that perfect love of God which
casteth out fear, — he cleaves to God Avith
the entire affection of the soul. And from
this active lively faith, overcoming the
world, subduing carnal self, all these good
works do necessarily spring, which God
hath before ordained that we should walk
in them.

203

SERMON X.

Luke, iv. 18, 19-
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because
he hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the
blind, — to set at liberty them that are
bruised, — to preach the acceptable year of
the Lord. *
It 'Avas, as' it should seem, upon our
Saviour's first appearance in the synagogue
at Nazareth, the residence of his family,
in the character of a public teacher, that to
the astoriishirient of that assembly, where
he was known only as the carpenter's son,
he applied to himself that remarkable
* Preached before the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, June i; 1793.

204.
passage of Isaiah which the evangelist re
cites in the Avords of my text. " This day,"
said our Lord, " is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears." The phrase " this day" is not,
I think, to be understood of that particular
Sabbath-day upon which he undertook lo
expound this prophetic text to the men
of Nazareth ; nor " your ears/' of the ears
of the individual congregation assembled
at the time within lhe walls of that parti
cular synagogue. The expressions are to
be taken according to the usual latitude of
common speech, — " this day," for the
whole time of our Lord's appearance in
the flesh, or at least for lhe Avhole season
of his public ministry ; and "your ears,"
for the ears of " all you inhabitants of
Judea and Galiiee who iioav hear my doc-*
trine and see my miracles." Our Lord
affirms, that in his Avorks and in his daily
preaching, his countrymen might discern
the full completion of this prophetic text;
inasmuch. as he was the person upon whom
the Spirit of Jehovah Avas, — whom Jehovah
had anointed " to preach the gospel to the
poor,"— -Avhom Jehovah had sent " to heal.
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance

205
to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, — to set at liberty them that
are bruised, — and to. preach the acceptable
year of the Lord."
None but an inattentive reader of the
Bible can suppose that these words were
spoken by the prophet Isaiah of himself.
Isaiah had a portion without doubt, but a
portion only, of the Divine Spirit. In
any sense in which the Spirit of Jehovah
was upon the prophet, it was more emi
nently upon him who received it not by
measure. The prophet Isaiah restored not,
that. Ave knoAv, any blind man to his sight ;
he delivered no captive from his chain.
He predicted indeed the restoration of the
Jews from the Babylonian captivity,- —
their final restoration from their present
dispersion, — and the restoration of man
from the worse captivity of sin : But he
never took upon him to proclaim the actual
commencement ofthe season of liberation;
Avhich is the thing properly implied in the
phrase of " preaching deliverance to the
Captives." To the brokenhearted, he, ad
ministered no other balm than the distant

206
hope of one who in future times should
bear their sorroAvs; nor Avere the poor of
his OAvn time particularly interested in his
preaching. The characters, therefore,
which the speaker seems to assume in
this prophetic text, are of two kinds, —
such as are in no sense ansAvered by any
known circumstance in the life and cha
racter of Isaiah, or of any other personage
of the ancient Jewish history, but in every
sense, literal and figurative, of which the
terms are capable, apply to Christ; and
such as might in some degree be answered
in the prophet's character, but not other
wise than as his office bore a subordinate
relation to Christ's office, and his predic
tions to Christ's preaching. It is a thing
well known to all who have been conver
sant irt Isaiah's writings, that many of his
prophecies are conceived in the form of
dramatic dialogues, in which the usual
persons of the sacred piece are God the
Father, the Messiah, the prophet himself,
and a chorus of the faithful : But it is left
to the reader to discover, by the matter
spoken, how many of these speakers are
introduced, and to which speaker each

207
part of the discourse belongs. It had been
reasonable therefore to suppose, that this,
like many other passages, is delivered in
the person of the Messiah, had our Lord's
authority been Avanting for the application
of the prophecy to himself. Following the
express authority of our Lord, in the appli
cation of this -prophecy to him, we might
have spared lhe use of any other argument,
were it not that a new form of infidelity of
late hath reared its hideous head ; which,
carrying on an impious, opposition to the
genuine faith, under the pretence of re
formation, in its affected zeal to purge the
Christian doctrine of I know not what cor
ruptions, and to restore our creed to what
it holds forth as the primitive standard, -*—
under that infatuation which by the just
judgment of God ever clings to self-suffi
cient folly, pretends to have discovered
inaccuracies in our Lord's own doctrine;
and scruples not to pronounce him not
merely a man, but a man peccable and
fallible in that degree as to have misquoted
and misapplied the prophecies of the Old
Testament. In this instance our great
Lord and Master defies* the profane cen-

208
sures of the doctors of that impious school.
This text, referred to its original place in
the book of Isaiah, is evidently lhe open
ing of a prophetic dialogue; and in lhe
particulars of the character described in it,
it carries its OAvn internal evidence rof its
necessary reference to our Lord, and
justifies his application of it to himself; —
as Avill farther appear, from a more parti
cular exposition.
" The Spirit of. the Lord is upon me,"
or " over me." The expression -implies a
superiority and control of the Divine Spirit,
— the Spirit's government and guidance of
the man, and the. man's entire submission,
in the prosecution of the work he had in
hand, to the Spirit's direction.
" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me." Under
the Taw, the three great offices of prophet,
priest, and king, were conferred by the
ceremony of anointing the person. The
unction of our Lord Avas the descent of the
Holy Ghost upon him at his baptism.
This Avas analogous to the ceremony of

209
anointing, as it Avas a mark publicly exhi
bited, " that God had anointed him," to
use St. Peter's expression, " with the Holy
Ghost and with power."
It will seem nothing strange that Jesus,
who was himself God, should derive autho
rity frdm the unction, of that Spirit which
upon other occasions he is said to give, and
that he should be under the Spirit's direc
tion, —if it be remembered, that our'Lord
was' as truly man as he was truly God,—
that neither of the two natures was ab
sorbed in the other, but both remained iri
themselves perfect, notwithstanding the
union of the two in one person. The
Divine Word, to which the humanity Avas
united, was not, as some ancient heretics
imagined, instead of a soul to inform the
body of the man ; for this could not have
been, Avithout a diminution of the divinity,
which upon this supposition must have
become obnoxious to all the perturbations
of the human soul, — to the passions of grief,
fear, anger, pity, joy, hope, and disappoint
ment, — to all Avhich our Lord, without sin,
was liable. The human nature in our Lord
vol. i. p

210
was complete in both its parts, consisting
of a body and a rational soul. The rational
soul of our Lord's human nature was a
distinct thing from the principle of divinity
to which it Avas united ; and being so dis
tinct, like the souls of other men, it owed
the right use of its faculties, in the exercise
of them upon religious subjects, and its
uncorrupted rectitude of will, to the in
fluence of the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus
indeed " Avas anointed Avith this hdly oil
above his fellows ;" inasmuch as the inter
course was uninterrupted, the illumination
by infinite degrees more full, and the con
sent and submission on the part of the man
more perfect, than in any of the sons of
Adam ; insomuch that he alone, of all the
human race, by the strength and light im
parted from above, was exempt from sin,
and rendered superior to temptation. To
him the Spirit was given not by measure.
The unmeasured infusion of the Spirit into
the Redeemer's soul was not the means but
the effect of its union to the second person
of the Godhead. An union of which this
had been the means had differed only in
degree from that which is in some degree

211
the privilege of every true believer,— Avhich
in an eminent degree was lhe privilege of
the apostles, who, by the visible descent of
the Holy Ghost upon them on the day of
Pentecost, were in some sort, like their
Lord, anointed Avilh the unction from on
high. But in him the natures were united;
and the uninterrupted, perfect commerce ot
his human soul Avith the Divine Spirit
was the effect and the privilege of that
mysterious conjunction.
" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel."— To preach the gospel. The ori
ginal Avord which is expressed* in our Eng
lish Bibles by the word " gospel," signifies
good news, a joyful message, or glad tidings;
and our English word " gospel," traced to
its original in the Teutonic language, is
found to carry precisely the same import,
—being a compound of tAvo words, an
adjective signifying good, and a substantive
which signifies a tahj message, or declaration.
But as this signification of the English
Avord, by the general neglect of the parent
language, is pretty much forgotten, or
p 3

212
remembered only among the learned, it
may give perspicuity lo the text if for the
single Avord " gospel" Ave substitute the
two Avords " glad tidings." " The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach glad tidings to the
poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken
hearted, to preach deliverance to the cap
tives, and recovering of sight to the blind,
— to set at liberty ihem that are bruised, —
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
Our blessed Lord, in the course of his
ministry, restored the sight of the corporeal
eye to many who were literally blind. By
his .miraculous assistance in various in
stances of worldly affliction, far beyond the
reach of any human aid, he literally healed
the broken heart; as in the instance of
Jairus, whose breathless daughter he revived
• — of the AvidoAV of Nain, whose son he
restored to her from the coffin — of the
family of Lazarus, Avhom he raised from
the grave — of the Syrophoenician woman,
whose young daughter he rescued from
possession — and of many other sufferers,
whose several cases time would fail me to

213
recount. We read not, hoAvever, that during:
his life on earth he literally opened the
doors of any earthly prison for the enlarge
ment of the captive, or that in any instance
he literally released lhe slave or the convict
from the burden of the galling chain. It is
probable, therefore, thai all these expres
sions, of " the poor, the brokenhearted, the
captive, the blind, and the bruised," carry
something of a mystic meaning, denoting
moral disorders and deficiencies under the
image of natural calamities and imperfec
tions ; and that the various benefits of re
demption are described under the notion of
remedies applied to those natural afflictions
and distempers. In this figurative sense,.
the poor are not those who are destitute of
this world's riches; but those who before
our Lord's appearance in the flesh were
poor in religious treasure, without any clear
knowledge of the true God, of their own
duty here, and of their hope hereafter, — ~
the Avhole heathen, world, destitute of the
light of revelation. To them our Lord
preached the glad tidings of life and immor
tality. The brokenhearted are sinners, not
hardened in their sins, but desponding under
p 3

214
a sense of guilt, without a hope of expiation.
These broken hearts the Redeemer healed,
by making the atonement, and by declaring
the means and the terms of reconciliation.
The captives are they who were in bondage
to the law of sin, domineering in their
members, and overpowering the will of the
conscience and the rational faculty. The
blind are the devout but erring Jews of our
Lord's days, blind to the spiritual sense of
the symbols of their ritual law. The bruised
are the same Jews, bruised in their con
sciences by the galling fetters of a religion of
external ordinances, whom our Lord released
by lhe promulgation of his perfect Jaw of
liberty. But notwithstanding that the ex
pressions in my text may easily bear, and
in the intention of the inspiring Spirit,
certainly, I think, involved this mystic
meaning, yet since the prophecy, in some
of these particulars, had a literal accom
plishment in our Lord's miracles, the literal
meaning is by no means to be excluded.
Indeed, when of both meanings of a pro
phet's phrase, the literal and the figurative,
either seems clearly and equally admissible,
the true rule of interpretation seems to be,

215
that the phrase is to be understood in both.
This seems a clear conclusion from the very
nature of our Lord's miracles, which, for
the most part, Avere aclions distinctly sym
bolical of one or other of the spiritual
benefits of the redemption. As such, they
Avere literal completions of the prophecies ;
taking the place, as it were, of the prophe
cies so completed ; pointing to another
latent meaning, and to a higher completion;
and thus forming a strict and wonderful
union betAveen the letter and the spirit of
the prophetic language.
This text is not the only passage in the
prophetic writings in which the preaching
of glad tidings to the poor is mentioned as
a principal branch of the Messiah's office.
That in the exposition of these prophecies
the figurative sense of the expression is not
to exclude the literal, is evident from this
consideration, that the discoveries of the
Christian revelation are in fact emphatically
glad tidings to the poor, in the literal accep
tation of the Avord, — to those Avho are
destitute of worldly riches. To those who,
from their present condition, might be
p 4

216
likely to think themselves forsaken of their
Maker — to doubt whether they existed for
any other purpose than to minister to the
superfluous enjoyments of the higher ranks
of society, by the severity of their OAvn toil,
— to persons in this Ioav condition, and
under these gloomy apprehensions, Avas it
not glad tidings to be told that they had a
hope, beyond the infidel's expectation, of a
perpetual cessation of sorrow in the grave ?
hope of a day when all shall rise to meet
before the common Lord, high and low,
rich and poor, one with another ! — when,
Avithout regard to the distinctions of this
transitory life, each man shall receive his
proper portion of honour or shame, enjoy
ment or misery, according to the degree of
his moral and religious Avorth ! — that he
whose humble station excluded him, in this
life, from the society and the pleasures of
the great (now fallen from their greatness),
shall become the companion and the fellow
of angels and of glorified saints ! shall stand
for ever in the presence of his Redeemer
and his God, and partake of the pleasures
Avhich are at God's right hand !

217
Again, the discoveries of Christianity
were made in a manner the most suited to
popular apprehension; and, for that reason,
they Avere emphatically glad tidings to the
poor. Its duties are not delivered. in a
system built on abstract notions of the
eternal fitness of things — ofthe useful and
the fair, — notions not void of truth, but
intelligible only to minds highly improved
by long habits of study and reflection. In
the gospel, the duties of man are laid down
in short, perspicuous, comprehensive pre
cepts, delivered as the commands of God,
under the aAvful sanctions of eternal reAvards
and punishments. The doctrines of the
Christian revelation are not encumbered
with a long train of argumentative proof;
which is apt to bewilder the vulgar, no less
than it gratifies the learned : They are pro
pounded to the faith of all, upon the
authority of a teacher Avho came down from
heaven, " to speak what he kneAV, and tes
tify what he had seen."
Again, the poor are they on whom the
Christian doctrine would most readily take
effect. Christ's atonement, it is true, hath

218
been made for all. The benefits of redemp
tion are no less common to all ranks of
society than to all nations of the world ; and
upon this ground, the first news of the
Saviour's birth was justly called, by the
angels Avho proclaimed it, " glad tidings of
great joy which should be to all people."
Every situation of life hath its proper temp
tations and its proper duties; and with the
aids which the gospel offers, the temptations
of all situations are equally surmountable,
and the duties equally within the power of
the believer's improved strength. It were
a derogation from the greatness of our
Lord's work, to suppose, that with an equal
strength of religious principle once formed,
the attainment of salvation should be more
precarious in any one rank of life than in
another. But if we consider the different
ranks of men, not as equally religious, but
as equally without religion (which was the
deplorable situation of the world when
Christianity made its first appearance), the
poof were the class of men among whom the
new doctrine was likely to be, and actually
was, in the first instance, the most effica
cious. The riches of the world, and the

219
gratifications ihey afford, are too apt, Avhen
their evil tendency is not opposed by a
principle of religion, lo beget that friend
ship for the Avorld Avhich is enmity with
God. The poor, on the other hand, ex
cluded from the hope of worldly pleasure,
Avere likely to listen Avith the more attention
to the promise of a distant happiness ; and,
exposed to much actual suffering here, they
would naturally be the most alarmed with
the apprehension of continued and -increased
suffering in another world. For this third
reason, the gospel, upon its first publica
tion, was emphatically "glad tidings to
the poor."
From these three considerations, that the
gospel, in the matter, in the manner of the
discovery, and in its relation to the stale of
mankind at the time of its publication, was
in fact in a peculiar sense " glad tidings lo
the poor," the conclusion seems just and
inevitable, that, in my text, and in other
passages of a like purport, the prophets
describe the poor, in the literal acceptation
of the word, as especial objects of lhe
Divine mercy in the Christian dispensation.

220
And this sense of such prophecies, Avhich
so much claims the attention both of rich
and poor, receives a farther confirmation
from our Lord's appeal to his open practice
of preaching to the poor, as an evidence to
his contemporaries of his divine mission.
"Go ye," he said to the Baptist's messen
gers, " and show John again those things
Avhich ye do hear and see : The blind re
ceive their sight, and the lame walk ; the
lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear ;
the dead are raised up, and the poor
HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM."
Here "* the preaching of the gospel to the
poor" is mentioned by our Lord among
the circumstances of his ministry Avhich so
evidently corresponded Avilh the prophecies
of the Messiah as to render any more ex
plicit answer to the Baptist's inquiries un
necessary. This, therefore, must be a
preaching of the gospel to the poor literally ;
for the preaching of it to the figurative
poor, the poor in religious knowledge, to
the heathen Avorld, commenced not during
our Lord's life on earth, and could not be
alleged by him, at that time, among his
own personal exhibitions of the prophe,-

221
ticai characters of the Messiah of the
Jews. Assuredly, therefore, our Lord came " to
preach glad tidings to the poor." " To
preach glad tidings lo the poor" Avas men
tioned by the prophets as one of the especial
objects of his coming : To preach to them,
he clothed himseif with flesh, and in his
human nature received the unction of the
Spirit. And since the example of our Lord
is, in every particular in which it is at all
imilable, a rule to our conduct, it is clearly
our duty, as the humble folloAyers of our
merciful Lord, to entertain a special regard
for the religious interests of the poor, and
to take care what Ave can that the gospel
be still preached to them. And the most
effectual means of preaching the gospel to
the poor is by charitable provisions for the
religious education of their children,
. Blessed be God, institutions for this
pious purpose abound in most parts of the
kingdom. The authority of our Lord's
example, of preaching to the poor, will,
with every serious believer, outweigh the

objection which hath been raised against
these charitable institutions, by a mean and
dastardly policy imbibed in foreign climes,
not less unchristian than it is inconsistent
wilh the genuine feelings ofthe home-bred
Briton, — a policy Avhich portends to fore
see, that by the advantages of a religious
education, the poor may be raised above
the laborious duties of his station, and his
use in civil life be lost. Our Lord and his
apostles better understood the interests of
society, arid were more lender of its Security
and peace, than many, perhaps, of Our
modern theorists. Our Lord and his
apostles certainly never saAv this danger,
that the improvement of lhe poor in religi
ous knowledge might be a means of con
founding civil subordination. They were
never apprehensive that the poor would be
made the worse servants by an education
whichshould teach themtoservetheirmasters
upon earth from a principle of duty to the
great Master ofthe Avhole family in heaven.
These mean suggestions of a Avicked policy
are indeed contradicted by the experience
of mankind.. The extreme condition of
oppression and debasement — the unnatural

223
condition of slavery, produced, in ancient
times, its poets, philosophers, and moralists.
Imagine not that I would teach you to infer
that the condition of slavery is not adverse
to the improvement ofthe human character:
Its natural tendency is certainly -to fetter
the genius and debase the heart : But some
brave spirits, of uncommon strength, have
at different times surmounted the disad
vantages of that dismal situation; and the
fact whieh I would offer to your atlention
is this, — that these men, eminent in taste
and literature, were not rendered by those
accomplishments the less profitable slaves.
Where, then, is the danger, that the free-'
born poor of this country should be the
Avorse hired servants, for a proficiency in a
knowledge by which both master and servant
are taught their respective duties, by Avhich
alone either rich or poor may be made wise
unto salvation ?
Much serious consideration Avould indeed
be due to the objection, were it the object,
or the ordinary and probable effect of these
charitable seminaries for the maintenance

224
and education of the infant poor, to qualify
them for the occupations and pursuits of
the higher ranks of society, Or to give them
a relish for their pleasures and amusements.
But this is not the case. Nothing more is .
attempted, nor can more indeed be done,
than lo give them that instruction in the
doctrines and duties of religion to which a
claim of common right is in some sort con
stituted in a Christian country, by the mere
capacity to profit b}r it; and to furnish
them with those first rudiments of Avhat
may be called the trivial literature of their
mother tongue, Avithout which they would
scarce be qualified to be subjects even of
the lowest class of the free government
under Avhich they are born, — a government
in which the meanest citizen — 'the very
mendicant at your doors, unless his life or
his franchises have been forfeited by crime
to public justice, hath his birth-rights, and
is intrusted Avith a considerable share of the
management of himself. It is the pecu
liarity, — and this peculiarity is the prin
cipal excellence of such governments, — that
as the -great have no property in the labour
5

225
of the poor, other than what is acquired for
a time by «a mutual agreement, the poor
man, on the other hand, hath no claim
upon his superior for support and main
tenance, except under some particular
covenant, — as an apprentice, a journey
man, a menial servant, or a labourer, —
which entitles him to the recompense of
his stipulated service, and to nothing else.
It follows, that, in such states, every man
is to derive a support for himself and his
family from the voluntary exertions of his
own industry, under the direction of his own
genius, his own prudence, and his own con
science. Hence, in these free governments,
some considerable improvement of the un
derstanding is necessary even for the lowest
orders of the people ; and much strength of
religious -principle is requisite to govern the
individual, in those common concerns of
his private life in which, the laws leave the
meanest subject, equally with his betters,
master of himself. Despotism — sincere,
unalloyed, rigid despotism, is the only form
of government which may with safety to
itself neglect the education of its infant
poor. Where it is the principle of govern-
VOL. i. Q

226
ment that the common people are to be
ruled as mere animals, it might indeed be
impolitic to suffer them to acquire the
moral discernment and the spontaneity of
man : But in free states, whether monar
chical, or of Avhatever form, the case is
exactly the reverse. The schemes of Pro
vidence and Nature are too deeply laid to
be overthrown by man's impolicy. It is
contrary to the order of Nature, it is re
pugnant to the decrees of Providence, —
and therefore the thing shall never be, —
that civil liberty should long maintain it's
ground among any people disqualified by
ignorance and profligacy for the use and
enjoyment of it. Hence lhe greatest danger
threatens every free constitution, when, by
a neglect of a due culture ofthe infant mind,
barbarism and irreligion are suffered lo
overrun the lower orders. The barriers
which civilized manners naturally oppose
against the encroachments of power, on the
one hand, and the exorbitance«of licentious
ness, on the other, will soon be borne
down ; and the government will degenerate
either into an absolute despotic monarchy,
or, what a subsisting example proves to be
»4

227
by infinite degrees a heavier curse, the
capricious domination of an unprincipled
rabble. Thus Avould ignorance and irre-
ligion, Avere they once to prevail generally
in the lower ranks of society, necessarily
terminate in one or the other of these two
dreadful evils, — the dissolution of all
government, or the enslaving of the ma
jority of mankind : while true religion, on
the contrary, is the best support of every
government, which, being founded on just
principles, proposes for its end the joint
advancement of the virtue and the hap
piness of the people ; and by necessary
consequence co-operates Avith religion in
the tAvo great purposes of exalting the
general character and of bettering the
general condition of man. Of every such
government, Christianity, by consent and
concurrence in a common end, is the
natural friend and ally; at the same time
that, by its silent influence on the hearts of
men, it affords the best security for the
permanence of that degree of orderly
definite liberty Avhich is an essential prin
ciple in every such constitution. The
Christian religion fosters and protects such
q 2

228
liberty, — not by supporting the absurd
and pernicious doctrine, of the natural
equality of men, — not by asserting that
^sovereignty is originally in the multitude,
and lhat kings are the servants of their
people, — npt by releasing the conscience
of the subject from lhe obligations of
loyalty, in every supposed case of the so
vereign's misconduct, and maintaining Avhat
in lhe new vocabulary of modern democracy
is named the sacred right of insurrection :
not by all, or by any of these detestable
maxims, Christianity supports that rational
liberty which she approves arid* cherishes ;
but by planting in the breast of the indivi
dual powerful principles of self-govern
ment, which render greater degrees of
civil freedom consistent with the public
safety. The patrons, therefore, of these benefi
cent institutions, in which the children of
the poor are trained in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord, have no reason to
apprehend that true policy will disapprove
the pious work which charity hath sug
gested. Thousands of children of both

229
sexes, annually rescued by means of these
charitable seminaries, in various parts of
the kingdom, from beggary, ignorance, and
vice, are gained as useful citizens to the
state, at the same time that they are pre
served as sheep of Christ's fold. Fear
not, therefore, to indulge the feelings of
benevolence and charity which this day's
spectacle aAvakens in your bosoms..
It is no weakness to sympathize in the
real hardships of the inferior orders : it is
no weakness to be touched Avith an anxiety
for their welfare, — to feel a complacency
and holy joy in the reflection, that, by the
well-directed exertions of a godly charity,
their interests secular and eternal are
secured : it is no weakness to rejoice, that,
without breaking the order of society,
religion can relieve the condition of poverty
from the greatest of its evils, from ignorance
and vice : it is no Aveakness to be liberal
of your wordly treasures in contribution to
so good a purpose. The angels in heaven
participate these holy feelings. Our Father
which. is in heaven accepts and will reward
the work, provided it be well done, in the
q 3

230
true spirit of faith and charity ; for of such
as these — as these who stand before you,
arrayed in the simplicity and innocence of
childhood, in the humility of poverty, — •
of such as these, it was our Lord's express
and solemn declaration, " of such is the
kingdom of God !"

231

SERMON XL

Mark, vii. 37-

And they were beyond measure astonished,
saying, He hath done all things well ; he
maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb
fo speak. *
It is matter of much curiosity, and afford
ing no small edification, if the speculation
be properly pursued, to observe the very
different manner in which the various
spectators of our Lord's miracles were
affected by what they saAv, according to
their different dispositions.
We read in St. Luke, that our Lord
" was casting out a devil, and it was dumb ;
and it came to pass, that when the devil
1 ij» ' "¦
* Preached for the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, 1796.
Q 4

282
was gone out the dumb spake;" and the
populace that were witnesses of the miracle
" wondered :" they wondered, and there
was an end of their speculations upon the
business : they made no farther inquiry ;
and their thoughts led them to no farther
conclusion than that the thing was very
strange. These seem to have been people
of that stupid sort which abounds too much
in all ranks of society, Avhose notice is
attracted by things that, come to pass, not
according to the difficulty of accounting
for them, — a concern which never breaks
their slumbers, — but according as they are
more or less frequent. They are neither
excited, by any scientific curiosity, to
inquire after the established causes of the
most common things, nor, by any pious
regard to God's presidential government
of the world, to inquire after him in the
most uncommon. Day and night succeed
each other in constant vicissitude; the
seasons hold their unvaried course; the
sun makes his annual journey through the
same regions ofthe sky; the moon runs
the circle of her monthly changes, vrith a
motion ever varying* yet subject to one

233
constant law and limit of its variations ;
the tides of the ocean ebb and flow ; heavy
Avaters are suspended at a great height in
the thinner fluid of the air, — ihey are
collected in clouds, which overspread the
summer's sky, and descend in showers to
refresh the verdure of the earth, — or they
are driven by strong gales to the bleak
regions of the North, Avhence the wintry
winds return them to these milder climates,
to fall lightly upon the tender blade in
flakes of snow, and form a mantle to
shelter the hope of the husbandman from
the nipping frost. These things are hardly
noticed by the sort of people Avho are now
before us: they excite not even their
wonder, though in themselves most wonder
ful; much less do they awaken them to
inquire by what mechanism of the universe
a system so complex in its motions and
vicissitudes, and yet so regular and orderly
in its complications, is carried on. They
say to themselves — " These are the com
mon occurrences, of nature ;" and ihey are
satisfied. These same sort of people, if
they see a blind man restored to sight, or
the deaf and dumb suddenly endued, with-

234
out the use of physical means, with the
faculties of hearing and of speech, wonder,
— i. e. they say to themselves — " It is
uncommon ;" and they concern themselves
no farther. These people discover God
neither in the still voice of Nature nor in
the sudden blaze of miracle. They seem
hardly to come Avithin that definition of
man which was given by some of the
ancient philosophers, — that he is an animal
Avhich contemplates the objects of its senses.
They contemplate nothing : two sentences,
" It is very common," or " It is very
strange," make at once the sum and the
detail of their philosophy and of their
belief, and are to them a solution of all
difficulties. They wonder for a Avhile; but
they presently dismiss the subject of their
wonder from their thoughts. Wonder, con
nected with a principle of rational curiosity,
is the source of all knowledge and discovery,
— and it is a principle even of piety ; but
Avonder which ends in wonder, and is
satisfied with wondering, is the quality of
an idiot.
This stupidity, so common in all ranks

235
of men, — 'for what I noAV describe is no
peculiarity of those Avho are ordinarily
called the vulgar and illiterate, — this
stupidity is not natural to man : it is the
effect of an over-solicitude about the low
concerns of the present world, which alie-'
nates the mind from objects most worthy
its attention, and keeps its noble faculties
employed on things of an inferior sort,
drawing them aside from all inquiries, ex
cept what may be the speediest means to
increase a man's wealth and advance his
wordly interests.
When the stupidity arising from this
attachment to the Avorld is connected, as
sometimes it is, with a principle of positive
infidelity, or, which is much the same
thing, with an entire negligence and prac
tical forgetfulness of God, it makes the
man a perfect savage. .When this is not
the case, — when this stupid indifference to
the causes ofthe ordinary and extraordinary
occurrences of the world, and something of
a general belief in God's providence, meet,
as they often do, in the same character, it
is a circumstance of great danger to the

236
man's spiritual state, because it exposes him
to be the easy prey of every i in postor. The
religion of such persons has always a great
tendency toAvards superstition ; for, as their
uninquisitive temper keeps them in a total
ignorance about secondary causes, they are
apt to refer every thing Avhich is out of
Avhat they call the common course of
nature, — that is, Avhich is out ofthe course
of their oavu daily observation and ex
perience, — to an immediate exertion of
the power of God : and thus the common
sleight-of-hand tricks of any vagabond
conjurer may be passed off upon such
people for real miracles. Such persons as
these were they, who, when they saw a
dumb daemoniac endued with speech by
our Lord, were content to Avonder at it.
The Pharisees, however, a set of men im
proved in their understandings, but wretch
edly hardened in their hearts, Avere not
without some jealousy even* of this stupid
wonderment. They knew that the natural
effect of wonder, if it rested on the mind,
Avould be inquiry after a cause ; and they
dreaded the conclusions to which inquiry in

237
this case might lead. They would not,
therefore, trust these people, as perhaps
they might have done with perfect security,
to their OAvn stupidity ; but they suggested
a principle to stop inquiry. They told the
people that our Lord cast out devils by the
aid and assistance of Beelzebub the prince
of the devils. This extraordinary suggestion
of the. Pharisees will come under consider
ation in its proper place.
We read again, in St. Matthew, that our
Lord, upon another occasion, restored a
dumb daemoniac to his speech ; and the
multitude assembled upon this occasion
marvelled, saying — " It Avas never so seen
in Israel." These people came some small
matter nearer lo the ancient definition of
man than the wondering blockheads in St.
Luke who had been spectators of the former
miracle. They not only Avondered, but
they bestowed some thought upon the sub
ject of their wonder ; and in their reasonings
upon it they went some little way. They
recollected the miracles recorded in their
sacred books of Moses and some ofthe an
cient prophets : They compared this per-

238
formance of our Lord with those, and per
haps Avilh things that they had seen done in
their own limes by professed exorcisers ;
and the comparison brought them to this
conclusion, that " it was never so seen in
Israel," — that our Lord's miracle surpassed
any thing that ever had been seen even in
that people Avhich was under the immediate
and peculiar government of God, and
among whom extraordinary -interpositions
of power had for that reason been not un-
frequent. They seem, however, to have
stopped short at this conclusion : They pro
ceeded not to the obvious consequence, that
this Avorker of greater miracles was a greater
personage and of higher authority than
Moses and the prophets. The Pharisees,
hoAvever, as might be expected, again took
alarm; and, to stifle inquiry, had recourse
to their former solution of the wonder, that
our Lord cast out devils by Beelzebub the
prince of the devils.
Upon a third occasion, as we read again
in this same evangelist, St. Matthew, a per
son was brought to our Lord, " possessed
with a devil, and blind and dumb." Our

239
Lord healed him, " insomuch that the
blind and dumb both spake and saAv."
The populace, upon this occasion, were
amazed. But they were not only amazed,
— they said not only lhat it never was so
seen in Israel, — but they Avent much
farther; they said — " Is not this the son
of David ?" Of* these people, we may as
sert that they Avere not far from the king
dom of God. They looked for the redemp
tion, of Israel by a son of David : They be
lieved therefore in God's promises by his
prophets ; and they entertained a suspicion,
though it appears not that they went farther,
that this might probably be the expected
son of David. The alarm of the Pharisees
Avas increased ; and they had recourse to
their former suggestion.
The manner in which these people
treated the miracles which Avere done under
their eyes comes now under consideration.
They were impressed Avith Avonder, it
seems, no less than the common people;
but their wonder Avas connected Avith the
pretence at least of philosophical disquisi-

240
tion upon the phsenomena which excited it.
They admitted that the things done, in
every one of these instances, were beyond
the natural poAvers of man, and must be re
ferred to the extraordinary agency of some
superior being ; but they contended that
there was no necessity to recur to an imme
diate exertion of God's OAvn poAver, — that
the power of the chief of the ' rebellious
spirits was adequate to the effect.
This suggestion of the Pharisees pro
ceeded upon an assumption, Avhich, con
sidered generally and in the abstract,
without an application to any specific case,
cannot be denied : They supposed that
beings superior to man, but still created
beings, Avhose powers fell short of the Di
vine, might possess that degree, of power
over many parts of the universe which
might be adequate to effects quite out of the
common course of nature ; and that, by a
familiarity with some of these superior be
ings, a man might perform miracles.
Some of the philosophizing divines of
later, times, who, under the mask of zeal

241
for religion, have done it more disservice
than its open enemies, — some of these,
anxious, as they would pretend, for the>
credit of our Lord's miracles, and for the
general evidence of miracles, have gone
the length of an absolute denial of these
principles ; and have ventured to assert that
nothing preternatural can happen in the
world but by an immediate act of God's
own poAver. The assertion in itself* is ab
surd, and in its consequences dangerous ;
and nothing is to be found in reason or in
Scripture for its support, — much for its
confutation. Analogy is the only ground
upon Avhich reason, in this question, can
proceed ; and analogy decides for the truth
of the general principle of the Pharisees.
Not, certainly, in their application of it to
the specific case of our Lord's miracles, — >
but for the truth of their general principle,
that subordinate beings may be the imme
diate agents in many preternatural effects,
analogy is clearly on their side. It is a
matter of fact and daily experience, that
mere man, in addition to the natural do
minion ofthe mind of every individual over
the body which he animates, has acquired
vol. i. R

*24>2
an empire of no small extent over the matter
of the external world. By optical machines,
we can look into the celestial bodies with
more accuracy and precision than with the
naked eye Ave can look from an eminence
into a city at the distance of a few, miles;
we can form a judgment ofthe materials of
which they are composed ; Ave can measure
their distances ; we can assign the quantity
of matter they severally contain — the den
sity of the matter of Avhich they are made;
we can estimate their mechanical powers :
We knoAv the Aveight of a given quantity of
matter on the surface of the sun as well as
we knoAv its weight upon the surface of the
earth : We can break the compound light
of day into the constituent parts of Avhich it
is composed. But this is not all : Our ac
quired poAver goes to practical effects. We
press the elements into our service, and can
direct the general principles of the mecha
nism of the universe to the purposes of man :
We can employ the buoyancy of the waters
and the power of the winds to navigate vast
unwieldy vessels to the remotest regions of
the globe, for the purposes of commerce or
of war ; and Ave animate an iron pin, turn-
fit

248
ing on a pivot, to direct the course of the
mariner to his destined port: We can
kindle a fire by the rays of the sun, collected
in the focus of a burning-glass, and produce
a heat Avhich subdues that stubborn metal
which defies the chemist's furnace: We
can avert the stroke of lightning from our
buildings. These are obvious instances of
man's acquired power over the natural ele
ments, -!-- a power which produces effects
which might seem preternatural to those
who have no knowledge ofthe means. And
shall Ave say that beings superior to man
may not have powers of a more considerable
extent, which they may exercise in a more
summary way, — which produce effects far
more wonderful, such as shall be truly mira
culous with respect to our conceptions, who
have no knowledge of their means.
Then,. for Scripture, it is very explicit
in asserting the existence of an order of
beings far superior to man ; and it gives
something more than obscure intimations,
thattheholyangels are employed uponextra-
ordinary occasions in the affairs of men, and
the management of this sublunary world.
r 2

244
But the Pharisees went farther : Their
argument supposed that even the apostate
spirits have powers adequate to the pro
duction of preternatural effects. And with
respect to this general principle, there is
nothing either in reason or Scripture to
confute it.
Reason must again recur to analogy.
And we find not that the powers which
men exercise over the natural elements are
at all proportioned to the different degrees
of their moral goodness or their religious
attainments. The stoic and the libertine,
the sinner and the saint, are equally adroit
in the application of the telescope and the
quadrant, — in the use of the compass, —
in the management of the sail, the rudder,
and the oar, — and in the exercise of the
electrical machine. Since, then, in our
own order of being, the poAver of the
individual over external bodies is not at all
proportioned to his piety or his morals,
but is exercised indiscriminately and in
equal degrees by the good and by the bad,
we have no reason from analogy to suppose
but that the like indiscrimination may ob-

245
tain in higher orders, and that both the
good and evil angels may exercise powers
far transcending any we possess, the effects
of Avhich to us will seem preternatural :
For there is nothing in this to disturb the
established order of things ; since these
poAvers are, no less than our own, subject
to the sovereign control of God, who
makes the actions of evil angels, as of bad
irien, subservient to the accomplishment of
his own will, and will not suffer the effects
of them finally to thwart his general
schemes of mercy.
The Scriptures, again, confirm the prin
ciple. We read, in the book of Exodus,
of an express trial of skill, if We may be
allowed the expression, between Moses
and the magicians of Egypt, in the exer
cise of miraculous powers; in Avhich the
magicians Avere completely foiled, — not
because their feats were not miraculous,
but because their power, as they were at
last driven to confess, extended not to
those things which Moses did. - They per
formed some miracles; but Moses per
formed many more, and much greater..
r 3

246
When lhe wands of the magicians Avere
cast upon the ground and became serpents,
the fact, considered in itself, was as much
a miracle as when Aaron's rod was cast
upon the ground and became a serpent;
for it was as much a miracle that one dry
stick should become a live serpent as
another. When the magicians turned the
water into blood, we must confess it was
miraculous, or we must deny that it Avas a
miracle when Aaron turned the water into
blood. When the frogs left their marshy
bed to croak in the chambers of the king,
it Avas a miracle, whether the frogs came
up at the call of Moses and Aaron or of
Jannes and Jambres. And the sacred
history gives not the least intimation of
any imposture in these performances of
the magicians: It only exhibits the cir
cumstances in Avhich Moses's miracles
exceeded those of the magicians ; and
marks the point where the power of the
magicians, by their own confession, stopped,
when Moses's went on, as it should seem,
without limits. Now, whoever will allow
that these things done by the magicians
were miraculous, — i. e. beyond the natural

247
powers of man, — must allow lhat they
were done by some familiarity of these
magicians with the Devil : For they were
done in express defiance of God's power ;
they Avere done to discredit his messenger,
and to encourage the King of Egypt to
disregard the message.
It Avas not, therefore, in the general prin
ciple, that miracles may be wrought by the
aid of evil spirits, that the Aveakness lay
of the objection made by the Pharisees to
our Lord's miracles, as evidence of his
mission. Our Lord himself called not this
general principle in question, any more
than the writers of the Old Testament call
in question the reality of the miracles of
the Egyptian magicians. But the folly of
their objection lay in their application of
it to the specific instance of our Lord's
miracles ; which, as he replied to them at
the time, were works no less diametrically
opposite to the Devil's purposes and the
interests of his kingdpm, than the feats of
Pharaoh's magicians, or any other Avonders
that have at any time been exhibited by
wicked men in compact with the Devil,
r 4

248
have been in opposition to God. Our
Lord's miracles, in the immediate effects
of the individual acts, were works of
charity : They were works which, in the
immediate effect of the individual acts,
rescued the bodies of miserable men from
that tyranny which before the coming of
our Lord the Devil had been permitted to
exercise over them ; and the general end
and intention of them all was the utter
demolition of the Devil's kingdom, and
the establishment of the kingdom of God
upon its ruins. And to suppose that the
Devil lent his own power for the further
ance of this work, was, as our Lord justly
argued, to suppose that the Devil was
waging Avar upon himself.,
There is, however, another principle
upon Avhich the truth of our Lord's mira
cles, as evidence of his mission from the
Father, may be argued, — a principle which
applies to our Lord's miracles exclusively,
and gives them a degree of credit beyond
any miracles except his own and those
which after his ascension were performed
by his disciples in his name, in the primi-

249
tive ages. To this principle Ave are led,
by considering the manner in which the
particular miracle to Avhich my text relates
affected the spectators- of it; who seem to
have been persons of a very different com
plexion from any that have yet come
before us.
" They were beyond measure astonish
ed ;" — so we read in our English Bibles ;
but the better rendering of the Greek
words of the evangelist Avould be — *' They
were superabundantly astonished, saying,
He hath done all things well ; he maketh
both the deaf to hear and the dumb to
speak." They were superabundantly astonished :
Not that their astonishment was out of
proportion to the extraordinary nature of
the thing they had seen, as if the thing was
less extraordinary than they thought it;
but their astonishment was justly carried
to a height which no astonishment could
exceed. This is that superabundant asto
nishment which the evangelist describes,
not taxing it with extravagance. It was

250
not the astonishment of ignorance : It was
an astonishment upon principle and upon
knowledge. It was not the astonishment
of those Avho saw a thing done which they
thought utterly unaccountable. They kneAV
hoAv to account for it : They knew that
the finger of God himself was the efficient
cause of Avhat they saw ; and to that cause
they Avithout hesitation, yet not hastily and
in surprise, but upon the most solid prin
ciples of belief, referred it. It was not the
astonishment of those who see a thing done
which they thought would never come to
pass : It Avas the astonishment of those who
find a hope which they had entertained of
something very extraordinary to be done
satisfied in a degree equal to or beyond
their utmost expectations : It was the
astonishment of those who saw an extra
ordinary thing, which they expected to
take place some time or other, but knew
not exactly when, accomplished in their
own times, and under- their own inspection:
It Avas that sort of astonishment which any
of us, who firmly expect the second coming
of our Lord, but knowing not the times
and the seasons, which the Father hath

251
put in his own poAver, look not for it at
any definite time, — it was that sort of
astonishment which we should feel if we
saAv the sign of the Son of Man this
moment displayed in the heavens : For
observe the remark of these people upon
the miracle, — " He hath done all things
well ; he maketh both the deaf to hear and
the dumb to speak." To have done a
thing Avell, is a sort of commendation which
we bestow, not upon a man that performs
some extraordinary feat, Avhich we had no
reason to expect from him, but upon a
man who executes that which by his calling
and profession it is his proper task to do,
in the manner that Ave have a right to
expect and demand of him Avho pretends
and professes to be a master in that par
ticular business. This is the praise which
these people bestowed upon our Lord's
performances. " He hath done all things
well ;" — he hath done every thing in the
most perfect manner Avhich Ave had a right
to expect that he should do who should
come to us assuming the character of our
Messiah.

252
The ancient prophecies had described all
the circumstances of our Saviour's birth,
life, and death; and, with other circum
stances, had distinctly specified the sort of
miracles Avhich he should perform. This is
the circumstance which, I say, is peculiar
to our Lord's miracles, and puts the evi
dence of them beyond all doubt, and super
sedes the necessity of all disputation con
cerning the general evidence of miracles.
Our Lord, and of all persons who have ever
appeared in the world, pretending to work
miracles, or really working miracles in proof
of a divine mission, our Lord alone, could
appeal to a body of recorded prophecy,
delivered many hundred years before he
came into the world, and say — ".In these
ancient oracles it is predicted that the Mes
siah, appearing among you at a time defined
by certain signs and characters, shall be
known by his performing — not miracles
generally — but such and such specific miracles.
At a time distinguished by those signs and
characters, I come ; those specific works I
do ; and I exhibit the character of the
Messiah, delineated in those prophecies, in
all its circumstances."

253
It is remarkable, that our Lord, in reply
to the Pharisees, condescended not to resort
to this summary and overbearing proof.
But he answered their objection by an argu
ment, just indeed, ' and irresistibly con
clusive, but of more refinement. This, I
conceive, was in resentment of the insin
cerity of these uncandid adversaries. It is
indisputable, from many circumstances in
the gospel history, that the Pharisees knew
our Lord to be the Messiah ; and yet they
were carried by motives of worldly interest
to disoAvn him, — just as Judas knew him to
be the Messiah, and yet he was carried by
motives of worldly interest to betray him.
Thus, disoAvning the Messiah, whom they
knew, they were deliberate apostates from
their God ; and they were treated as they de
served, when 'our Lord rather exposed the
futility of their own arguments against him,
than vouchsafed to offer that sort of evi
dence, which, to any that were not obstinate
in wilful error, must have been irresistible,
and which had indeed to the godly multi
tude offered itself. But when John the
Baptist senthis disciples to inquire of Jesus
if he was the person who was to come* or

*254
whether they were to look for another (they
were sent, you will observe, for their OAvn
conviction, — not for John's satisfaction ;
for he at this time could have no doubt),
our Lord Avas pleased to deal with them in
a very different manner : He made them
eye-witnesses of many of those miracles
which Avere a literal completion of the pro
phecies ; and bade them go back and tell
John what they had heard and seen. "Go
and tell your master that you have seen me
restore the paralytic; you have seen me
cleanse the leper, cure the lame, the blind,
the deaf, and the dumb ; you have seen me
liberate the possessed ; you have seen me
raise the dead; and you have heard me
preach the gospel to the poor. He Avill
connect these things Avith the prophecies
that have gone before concerning me : —
He will tell you what conclusion you
must draw, and set before you the danger
which threatens those who are scandalized
in me."
I must now turn from this general sub
ject, nor farther pursue the interesting
meditations Avhich it might suggest, in order

255
to apply the Avhole to the particular occa
sion Avhich has brought me hither.
You Avill recollect, that the miracles
which are specified in the prophecies as
works that should characterize the Messiah
Avhen he should appear, were, in great part,
the cure of diseases by natural means the
most difficult of cure, and the relief of
natural imperfections and inabilities. In
such works our Lord himself delighted ; and
the miraculous powers, so long as they sub
sisted in the church, were exercised by the
first disciples chiefly in acts of mercy of
the same kind. Noav that the miraculous
powers are withdrawn, we act in conformity
to the spirit of our holy religion, and to our
Lord's OAvn example, when we endeavour
what Ave can to extend relief, by such natural
means as are within our power, to the like
instances of distress. It was prophesied of
our Lord, that when he should come to
save those that Avere of a fearful heart, " the
eyes ofthe blind should be opened, and the
ears of the deaf should be unstopped ; that
the lame man should leap as the hart, and
the tongue of the dumb should sing." All

256
this, and much more, he verified. Of all
natural imperfections, the want of speech
and hearing seem the most deplorable, as
they are those which most exclude the
unhappy sufferer from society, — from all
the enjoyments of the present world, and,
it is to be feared, from a right apprehension
of his interests in the next. The cure of
the deaf and the dumb is particularly men
tioned in the prophecies, among the works
of mercy the most characteristic of man's
great deliverer : And accordingly, when he
came, there was, I think, no one species of
miracle which he so frequently performed ;"
which may justify an attention even of pre
ference in us to this calamity.
It is now some years since a method has
been found out, and practised Avith consi
derable success, of teaching persons deaf
and dumb from the birth to speak: But it
was not till the institution of this Asylum, in
the year 1792, that the benefit of this dis
covery was extended in any degree to the
poor ; the great attention, skill, and trouble,
requisite in the practice, putting the expense
of cure far beyond the reach of the indigent,

257
and even of persons of a middling condition.
The Directors of this charity, who are likely,
from their opportunities, to have accurate
information upon the subject, apprehend
that the number of persons in this lament
able state is much greater than might be
imagined. In this Asylum, as many as the funds of
the charity can support, are taught, Avith
the assistance of the two senses of the sight
and the touch, to speak, read, write, and
cast accounts. The deafness seems the
unconquerable part of the malady ; for
none deaf and dumb from the birth have
ever been brought to hear. But the cala
mity of the Avant of the sense of hearing is
much alleviated, — comparatively speaking
it is removed, by giving the use of letters
and of speech ; by Avhich they are admitted
to the pleasure of social conversation,— are
made capable of receiving both amuspment
and instruction from books, — are qualified
to be P: useful both to themselves and the
community, — r arid, Avhat is most of all, the
treasures of that knowledge which maketh
wise unto salvation are brought within their
vol. i. §

reach. The children admitted are kept
under the tuition of the house five years,
which is found to be the time requisite for
their education. They are provided with
lodging, board, and Avashing ; and the only
expense that falls upon the parent or the
parish is in the article of clothing. The
proficiency of those admitted at the first
institution, in November 1792, exceeds the
most sanguine expectations of their bene
factors ; and the progress of those who have
been admitted at subsequent periods is in
full proportion to the time. The number
at present exceeds not tAventy. There are
at this time at least fifty candidates for
admission; the far greater part of whom
the slender finances ofthe society will not
permit to be received.
I am persuaded that this simple state
ment ofthe object ofthe charity, the success
with which the good, providence of God
has blessed its endeavours, within the nar
row sphere of its abilities, and the deficient
state of its funds, is all that it is necessary or
even proper for me to say to excite you to
a liberal contribution for the support "of thiw

259
excellent institution, and the furtherance
and extension of ils vieAvs. You profess
yourselves the disciples of that Master who
during his abode on earth in the form of" a
servant went about doing good, — who did
good in that particular species of distress in
which this charity attempts to do it, — and
who, seated noAV at the right hand of God,
sends down his blessing upon those Avho
follow his steps, and accepts the good that
is done to the least of those whom he calls
his brethren as done unto himself.

s 2

260

SERMON XIL

John, xiii. 34.
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye
love one another ; as I have laved you, that
ye also love one another.
Ln that memorable night when divine love
and infernal malice had each their perfect
work, — the night when Jesus was betrayed
into the hands of those who thirsted for his
blood, and the mysterious scheme of man's
redemption was brought to its accomplish
ment, Jesus, having finished the paschal
supper, and instituted those holy mysteries
by which the thankful remembrance of his
Oblation of himself is continued in the
church until his second coming, and the
believer is nourished Avith the food of ever
lasting life, the body and blood of the

261
crucified Redeemer; when all this was fin
ished, and nothing now remained of his
great and painful undertaking but the last
trying part of it, to be led like a sheep to the
slaughter, and to make his life a sacrifice
for sin, — • in that trying hour, just before
he retired to the garden, where the power
of darkness Avas to be permitted to display
on him its last and. utmost effort, Jesus gave
it solemnly in charge to the eleven apostles
(the twelfth, the son of perdition, was already
lost ; he was gone to hasten the execution of
his intended treason), — lo the eleven, whose
loyalty remained as yet unshaken, Jesus in
that awful hour gave it solemnly in charge,
" to love one another, as he had loved them :"
And because the perverse wit of man is ever
fertile in plausible evasions of the plainest
duties, : — lest this command should be inter
preted in after ages as an injunction in
which the apostles only were concerned,
imposed upon them in their peculiar cha
racter of the governors of the church, our
great Master j to obviate any such Avilful
misconstruction of his dying charge, de
clared it to be his pleasure and his meaning,
that the exercise of mutual love, in all ages,
s 3

262
and in all nations, among men of all ranks,
callings, and conditions, should be the gene
ral badge and distinction of his disciples.
" By this shall all men knoAV that ye are my
disciples, if ye love one another." And this
injunction of loving one another as he had
loved them, he calls a new commandment.
" A neAv commandment I give unto you,
that ye love one another."
It was indeed in various senses a new
commandment. First, as the thing en
joined was too much a novelty in the
practice of mankind. The age in which
our SaAaour lived on earth was an age of
pleasure and dissipation. Sensual appetite,
indulged to the most unwarrantable excess,
had extinguished all the nobler feelings.
This is ever its effect when it is suffered to
get the ascendant ; and it is for this reason
that it is said by the apostle to Avar against
the soul. The refinements of luxury, spread
among all ranks of men, had multiplied
their artificial wants beyond the proportion
of the largest fortunes ; and thus bringing
all men into the class of the necessitous, had
universally induced that churlish habit of

263
the mind in Avhich every feeling is con
sidered as a weakness which terminates not
in self; and those generous sympathies by
which every one is impelled to seek his.
neighbour's good are industriously sup
pressed, as disturbers of the repose of the
individual, and enemies to his personal
enjoyment. This is the tendency and hath
ever been the effect of luxury, in every
nation where it hath unhappily taken root.
It renders every man selfish upon principle.
The first symptom of this fatal corruption
is the extinction of genuine public spirit,
— that is, of all real regard to the interests
and good order of society ; in the place of
which arises that base and odious counter
feit, Avhich, assuming the name of patriotism,
thinks to cover the infamy of every vice
which can disgrace the private life of man,
by clamours for the public good, of which
the real object all the while is nothing more
than the gratification of the ambition and
rapacity of the demagogue. The next stage
of the corruption is a perfect indifference
and insensibility, in all ranks of men, to
every thing but the gratification of the
moment. An idle peasantry subsist them-
s 4

264
selves by theft and violence ; and a
voluptuous nobility squander, on base and
criminal indulgences, that superfluity of
store Avhich should go to the defence of the
country in times of public danger, or to
the relief of private distress. In an age
therefore of luxury, such as that was. in
which our Saviour lived on earth, genuine
philanthropy being necessarily extin
guished, what is far beyond ordinary
philanthropy, the religious love of our
neighbour, rarely if ever will be found.
Nor Avas it missing only in the manners
of the world, — but in the. lessons of the
divines and moralists of that age mutual
love was a topic out of use. The Jews of
those times were divided in their religious
opinions betAveen the Iavo sects of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sad
ducees Avere indeed the infidels of their
age; they denied the existence of any
immaterial substance, — of consequence
they held that the human soul is mortal ;
and they denied the possibility of a re
surrection. Their disciples were numerous
among the great and voluptuous ; but they

265
never had any credit with the body of the
people. The popular religion was that of
the Pharisess ; and this, as all must know
who read the New Testament, was a religion
of form and shoAv, — if that indeed may
be called a religion, of which the love of
God and man made no essential part.
Judge Avhether they taught men to love one
another, who taught ungrateful children to
evade the fifth commandment with an
untroubled conscience, and to defraud an
aged parent of that support which by the
law of God and nature was his due. In
respect therefore of both these circum
stances, that it prescribed what was ne
glected in the practice of mankind, and
what was omitted in the sermons of their
teachers, our Lord's injunction to his
disciples, to love one another, was a new
commandment. But the novelty of it con
sisted more particularly in this, — that the
disciples were required to love one another
after the manner, and, if the frailty of
human nature might so far aspire, in the
degree in which Christ loved them : " As
I have loved you, that ye alsp love one
another." \ Christians are to adjust. their

266
love to one another to the measure and
example of Christ's love to them. Christ's
love was perfect as the principle from
which it flowed, the original benignity of
the Divine character. The example of this
perfect love in the life of man Avas a neAv
example ; and the injunction of conformity
to ihis new example might Avell be called a
new commandment. Otherwise, the com
mandment lhat men should love one an
other, considered simply in itself, without
reference to the deficiencies in the manners
of the age, or to the perfection of Christ's
example, had been no new precept of
revealed religion. This is a point Avhich
seems to be generally mistaken. Men are
apt, upon all occasions, to run into ex
tremes; and it has been too much the
practice of preachers in these later ages,
in their zeal to commend what every one
will indeed the more admire the more he
understands it, to heighten the encomium
of the Christian system, by depreciating,
not only the lessons of the heathen mo
ralists, but the moral part of the Mosaic
institution. They consider not that the
peculiar excellence of the Christian system
15

267
lies much. more in doctrine than in precept.
Our Saviour indeed, and his apostles after
him, took all occasions of reproving the
vices of mankind, and of inculcating a
punctual discharge of the social duties ;
and the morality which they taught Avas
of the purest and the highest kind. The
practice of the duties enjoined in their pre
cepts is the end for which their doctrines
Avere delivered. It is always therefore to
be remembered, that the practice of these
duties is a far more excellent thing in the
life of man, far more ornamental of the
Christian profession, than any knowledge
ofthe doctrine without the practice; as the
end is always more excellent than the
means. Nay, the knowledge of the doc
trines, Avithout an attention to the practical
part, is a thing of no other worth than as
it may be expected some time or other to
produce repentance. But this end of
bringing men to right conduct — to habits
of temperance and sobriety — to the mutual
exercise of justice and benevolence — to
honesty in their dealings and truth in their
words — to a love of God, as the protector
of the just— to a rational fear of him, as

268
the -judge of human actions, — -the esta
blishment of this practical religion is an
end common to Christianity with all the
earlier revelations, — with the earliest re
velations to the patriarchs, with the Mosaic
institution, and with the preachings of the
prophets : And . the peculiar excellency of
Christianity cannot be placed in that Avhich
it hath in common with all true religions,
but rather in the. efficacy0of the means
which it employs to compass the common
end of all, the conversion of the lost world
to God. The efficacy of these means .lies
neither in the fulness nor the perspicuity
of the precepts of the gospel, though they
are sufficiently full and entirely perspicuous;
but the great advantage of the Christian
revelation is, that, by the large discovery
which it makes of the principles and plan
of God's moral government of the Avorld,
it furnishes sufficient motives to the prac
tice of those duties, which its precepts, in
harmony with the natural suggestions of
conscience, and with former revelations,
recommend. This is the true panegyric
of the glorious revelation we enjoy, — that
its doctrines are more immediately and

269
clearly connected with its end? and more
effectual for the attainment of it, than the
precarious conclusions of human philoso
phy, or the imperfect discoveries of earlier
revelations, — that the motives by which
its precepts are enforced are the most
poAverful that might Avith propriety be
addressed to free and rational agents. It
is commonly said, and sometimes strenu
ously insisted, as a circumstance in which
the ethic of all religions falls short of the
Christian, that the precept of universal
benevolence, embracing all mankind, with
out distinction of party, sect, or nation, had
never been heard of till it was inculcated
by our Saviour. But this is a mistake.
Were it not that experience and obser
vation afford daily proof hoAv easily a
sound judgment is misled by the. exu
berance of even an honest zeal, we should
be apt to say that this could be maintained
by none who had ever read the Old Testa
ment. The obligation indeed upon Chris
tians, to make the avowed enemies of
Christianity the objects of their prayers
and of their love-, . arises out pf the peculiar
nature of Christianity, considered as the

270
work of reconciliation : Our Saviour, too,
was the first who showed to Avhat extent
the specific duty of mutual forgiveness is
included in the general command of mutual
love: But the command itself, in its full
extent, " That every man should love his
neighbour as himself," we shall find, if we
consult the Old Testament, to be just as
old as any part of the religion of the Jews.
The two maxims to Avhich our Saviour re
fers the whole of the law and the prophets
were maxims of the Mosaic laAV itself.
Had it indeed been othenvise, our Saviour,
when he alleged these maxims in answer
to the laAvyer's question, " Which is the
chief commandment of the law ?" Avould
not have answered Avith that wonderful
precision and discernment which on so
many occasions put his adversaries to
shame and silence.
Indeed, had these maxims not been found
in the laAV of Moses, it would still have
been true of them that they contain every
thing which can be required of man as
matter of general indispensible duty ; inso
much, that nothing can become an act of

271
duty to God or to our neighbour otherwise
than it is capable of being referred to the
one or the other of these two general topics.
They might therefore be said to be, in the
nature of the thing, the supreme and chief
of all commandments ; being those to which
all others are naturally and necessarily sub
ordinate, and in which all others are con
tained as parts in the whole. All this
would have been true though neither of
these maxims had had a place in the laAV
of Moses. But it would not have been a
pertinent answer to the lawyer's question ;
nor would it have taken the effect Avhich
our Lord's answer actually took Avith the
subtle disputants Avith whom he Avas en
gaged, " that no nian durst ask him any
more questions." The laAvyer's question
Avas not, what thing might, in its own na
ture, be the best to be commanded. To
this, indeed, it might have been wisely
answered, that the love of God is the best'
of all things, and that the next best is the
love of man; although Moses had not ex
pressly mentioned either. But the question
was — " Whichds the great commandment
in the law?"— »-that is, in Moses's law; for

272
the expression " the law," in the mouth of
a Jew, could carry no other meaning. To
this it had been vain to allege " the love of
God or man," had there been no express
requisition of them in the law, notwith
standing the confessed natural excellence
of the things ; because the question was
not about natural excellence, but Avhat was
to be reckoned the first in authority and
importance among the written cominand-
ments. Those masters of sophistry with
whom our Saviour had been for some hours
engaged felt themselves overcome, , when
he produced, from the books of the law,
two maxims, Avhich, forming a complete
and simple summary of the who]e, — and
not only ofthe whole of the Mosaic law,
but of every, law which God ever did or
ever will prescribe to man, — evidently
claimed to be. the first and chief command
ments. The first, enjoining the love of
God, is to be found, in the very words in
which our Saviour recited it, in the sixth
chapter of Deuteronomy, at the fifth verse.
The second, enjoining the love of our
neighbour, is to be found, in the very words
in which our Saviour recited it, in the
5

273
nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, at the
eighteenth verse.
The injunction, therefore, of conformity
to his own example, is that which is chiefly
new in the commandment of our Lord.
As it is in this circumstance that the com
mandment is properly his, it is by nothing
less than the conformity enjoined, or an
assiduous endeavour after that conformity,
that his commandment is fulfilled.
The perfection of Christ's example it is
easier to understand than to imitate; and
yet it is not to be understood without serious
and deep meditation on the particulars of
his history. Pure and disinterested in its
motives, the love of Christ had solely for
its end the happiness of those who were the
objects of it. An equal sharer with the
Almighty Father in the happiness and
glory of the Godhead, the Redeemer had
no proper interest in the fate of fallen man.
Infinite in its comprehension, his love em
braced his enemies ; intense in its energy;
it incited him to assume a frail and mortal
nature— to undergo contempt and death;
vol. i. t

274
constant in its operations, in the paroxysm
of an agony the sharpest the human mind
was ever known to sustain, it maintained
its vigour unimpaired. In the whole busi
ness of man's redemption, wonderful in all
its parts, in its beginning, its progress, and
completion, the most wonderful part of all
is the character of Christ, — a character not
exempt from those feelings of the soul and
infirmities of the body Avhich render man
obnoxious to temptation ; but in which the
two principles of piety to God and good
will to man maintained such an ascendancy
over all the rest that they might seem by
themselves to make lhe whole. This cha
racter, in which piety and benevolence,
upon all occasions and in all circumstances,
overpowered all the inferior passions, is
more incomprehensible to lhe natural rea
son of the carnal man than the deepest
mysteries, — more improbable than the
greatest miracles, — of all the particulars of
the gospel history the most trying to the evil
heart of unbelief,- the very last thing, I
am persuaded, that a ripened faith receives;
biit of all things the most important and the
most necessary to be well understood and

275
firmly believed, — the most efficacious for
the softening of the sinner's heart, for
quelling the pride of human Avisdom, and
for bringing eA^ery thought and imagination
of the soul into subjection to the righteous
ness of God. " Let this mind," says the
apostle, " be in you, Avhich Avas also in
Christ Jesus ;" — that mind Avhich incited
him, Avhen he considered the holiness of
God, and the guilt and corruption of fallen
man, to say— " I come to do thy will, O
God!" — that is, according to the same
apostle's interpretation, to do that will by
which Ave are sanctified, — to make the
satisfaction for lhe sinful race which Divine
justice demanded. Being in the form of
God, he made himself of no reputation ; he
divested himself of that external form of
glorj' in which he had been accustomed to
appear to the patriarchs in the first ages, in
which he appeared to Moses in lhe bush,
and to his chosen servants in later periods of
the Jewish history, — that form of glory in
which his- presence Avas manifested between
the cherubim in the Jewish sanctuary. He
made himself of no reputation; and, uniting
himself to the holy fruit of Mary's womb,
t 2

276
he took upon him the form of a slave —
of that fallen creature Avho had sold himself
into the bondage of Satan, sin, and death;
and, being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself, — he subinitted to the
condition of a man in its most humiliating
circunistarrces, — and carried his obedience
unto death — the death even of the cross —
the painful ignominious death of a male
factor, by a -public execution. He who
shall one day judge the world suffered
himself to be produced as a criminal at
Pilate's tribunal ! He submitted to the sen
tence Avhich the dastardly judge Avho pro
nounced it confessed to be unjust!. The
Lord of glory suffered himself to be made
the jest of Herod and his captains ! He who
could have summoned twelve legions of
angels to form a flaming guard around his
person, or have called down fire from heaven
on the guilty city of Jerusalem, on his false
accusers, his unrighteous judge, the execu
tioners, and the insulting rabble, made no
resistance when his body Avas fastened to
the cross by the Roman soldiers, — endured
the reproaches of the chief priests and
rulers — the taunts and revilings of the
14

277
JeAvish populace ! And this not from any
consternation arising from his bodily suffer
ings, which might be supposed for the
moment to deprive him of the knoAvledge of
himself. He possessed himself to the last.
In the height of his agonies, with a mag
nanimity not less extraordinary than his
patient endurance of pain and contumely,
he accepted the homage Which in that situa
tion was offered to him as the King of
Israel ; and,' in the highest tone of confident
authority, promised to conduct the penitent
companion of his sufferings that very day to
Paradise. What, then, was the motive
Which restrained the Lord of might and
glory, that he put not forth his poAver for
the deliverance of himself and the destruc
tion of his enemies ? — Evidently that which
he avoAvs upon his coming first irito the
vvorld : " I come to do thy will, O God !"
and, by doing of that will, to rescue man
from wrath and punishment. Such is the
example of resignation to God's will, of
indifference to things temporal, of humi
lity, and of love, we are called upon to
imitate. t 3

278'
The sense of our inability to attain to the
perfection of. Christ's example, is a reason
for much humility, and for much mutual
forbearance, but no excuse for the wilful
neglect of his command. It may seem that
it is of little consequence to inculcate virtues
Avhich can be but seldom practised ; and a
general and active benevolence, embracing
all mankind, and embracing persecution
and death, may appear to come under
this description. It may seem a virtue
proportioned to the abilities of few, and
inculcated on mankind in general to little
purpose. But, though it may be given to
feAV to make themselves conspicuous as
benefactors of mankind,, by such actions as
are usually called great, because the effect
of them On the Avelfare of various descrip
tions of the human race is immediate and
notorious, the principle of religious philan
thropy, influencing the Avhole conduct of a
private man, in the lowest situations of life,
is of much more universal benefit than is at
first perceived. The terror of the laAvs may
restrain men from flagrant crimes ; but it is
this principle alone that can make any man
a useful member of society. This restrains

279
him, not only from those violent invasions
of another's right which are punished by
human laws, but it overrules the passions
from which those enormities proceed ; and
the secret effects of it, Avere it but, once uni^
versal, Avould be more beneficial to human
life than the most brilliant actions of those
have ever been to Avhom blind superstition
has erected statues and devoted altars. As
this principle is that which makes a man the
most useful to others, so it is that alone
Avhich makes the character of the individual
amiable in itself, — amiable, not only in the
judgment of man, but in the sight of God,
and in the truth of things ; for God himself
is love, and the perfections of God are the
standard of all perfection.

t 4

280

SERMON XIII.

Matthew, xvi. 18, 19-
J say also unto thee, that thou art Peter ;¦ and
upon this rock I will build my church, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,
and whatsoever -thou shalt loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven.*
It is much to be lamented, that the sense
of this important text, in which our Lord
for the first time makes explicit mention of
his church, declaring, in brief but compre-
prehensive terms, the groundwork of the

* Preached before the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, February 20, 1795.

281
institution, the high privileges of the com
munity, and its glorious hope, — it is much
to be lamented that the sense of so import
ant a text should have been brought under
doubt and obscurity, by a variety of forced
and discordant expositions, which preju
dice and party-spirit have produced ; while
writers in the Roman communion have
endeavoured to find in this passage a foun
dation for the vrain pretensions of the Roman
pontiff; and Protestants, on the other hand,
have been more solicitous to give it a sense
which iriight elude those consequences, than
attentive to its true and interesting meaning.
It will not be foreign to the purpose of our
present meeting, if, without entering into a
particular discussion ofthe various interpre
tations that have been offered, we take the
text itself in hand, and try whether its true
meaning may not still be fixed Avith cer
tainty, by the natural import of the words
themselves*, without any other comment
than what the occasion upon which they
were spoken, and certain occurrences in
the first formation of the church, to which
they prophetically allude, afford.

282
Among the divines of the reformed
churches, especially the Calvinists, it hath
been a favourite notion, that St. Peter him
self had no particular interest in the promises
Avhich seem in this passage to be made to
him. The Avords Avere addressed by our
Lord to St. Peter, upon the occasion of his
prompt confession of his faith in Jesus as the
Christ, the Son ofthe living God ; and this
confession of St. Peter's was his answer to a
question Avhich our Lord- had put to the
apostles in general, " Whom say ye that I
am ?" — Avhich question had arisen out of
the answers they returned to an antecedent
question, *" Whom say men that I am ?"
Noav, Avith respect to this confession of
St. Peter's, tAvo of the most learned: and
acute among the commentators of antiquity,
St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome, solicitous,
as it should seem, for the general reputation
of the apostles, as if they thought that at
this early period no one of them could
without blame be behind another in the
fulness and the fervour of his faith, — from
these, or from Avhat motives it is not easy
to divine, these two ancient commentators
6f

283
have taken upon them to assert that St.
Peter, upon this occasion, Avas but the
spokesman of the company, and replied to
our Lord's question " Whom say ye that I
am ?" in the name of all.
Improving upon this hint, modern expo
sitors of the Calvinistic school proceed to a
conclusion which must stand or fall Avith
the assumption upon Avhich it is founded.
They say, since St. Peter's confession of his
faith Avas not his own particular confession,
but the general Confession' of the apostles,
made by his mouth, the blessing annexed
must be equally common to them all ; and
was pronounced upon St. Peter, not indi
vidually, but as the representative of* the
twelve ; insomuch, that whatever the privi
leges may be Avhich are described in my
text as the custody of the keys of the king
dom of heaven, and lhe authority to bind
and loose on earth with an effect that should
be ratified in heaven, — whatever these pri
vileges may be, St. Peter,, according to
these expositorsj is no othenvise interested
in them than as an equal sharer Avith-the
rest of the apostolic band.

284
But we may be alloAved to demand of
these apt disciples of 'St. Chrysostom and
St. Jerome, what right they can make out
for St. Peter to be the spokesman of the
company, and, Avithout any previous con
sultation with his brethren, to come forward
with an answer, in the name of all, to a
question of such moment. What right will
they pretend for St. Peter to take so much
upon him, — unless they will concede to him
that personal precedence among the twelve,
which, however it may be evinced by many
circumstances in the sacred history, it is
the express purpose of their exposition
to refute ? St. Peter, it must be confessed,
upon two other occasions spoke in the
name of all : But, that he so spake upon
those occasions, is not left to be understood
as a thing of course ; but it is evident, in the
one instance, by the very words he used,—
in the other, it is remarked by the sacred
historian. In the present case, have we any
suGh evidence of the thing supposed — any
indication of it in the apostle's words — any
assertion of the historian ? — Quite the con
trary. To our Lord's first question, " Whom
say men that I am?" the answer, we are

285
told indeed, was general. "They said—"
says lhe sacred historian. The question Avas
about a plain matter of fact, concerning
which there could not be two opinions.
To the second question, " Whom say ye
that I am ?". Simon Peter is mentioned as
the person Avho alone replied; as if, upon*
this point, no one else Avas ready Avith an
ansAver. " Simon Peter answered and said — "
Why is the mode of narration changed ?
why is it not said again — " They said ?"
Why is the speaker, and the speaker only,
named in the one case rather than in the
other, if the answer given was equally in
.both a common answer ? Whence is it that
the two other evangelists who have recorded
this discourse, though far less minute in the
detail of the particulars than St. Matthew,
are both, however, careful to name St. Peter
as the person .avIio replied to the second
question ? and whence is it that not the
most distant hint of any general concur-
.rence of the apostles in St. Peter's senti
ments is given by any one of these three
writers ?
Again, let the manner of our Lord's

286*
reply to St. Peter be remarked. I Avould
ask, in Avhat way any one person of a
numerous company can be more- pointedly
addressed — in what Avay can a discourse
be more expressly confined and limited to
one, in exclusion of the rest, than by
calling that one person by his proper
name, adding to his proper name his
patronymic, and subjoining to that distinct
compellation these express Avords, " I say
unto thee?" But this Avas lhe manner of
our Lord's reply to St. Peter's confession
of his faith. " Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-Jonah ; and I say also unto thee — "
Can it be supposed, that Avhat was thus
particularly said to Simon, son of Jonah,
was equally said to another Simon, Avho
Avas not the son of Jonah — to James, the
son of Alpheus — to the sons of Zebedee,
or any other persons present who Avere not
named? I ask, by what other mode of
compellation our Lord could have more
distinctly marked St. Peter as the individual
object of discourse, had he intended so to
mark him ? I ask, by what mode of com
pellation was St. Peter marked as the in
dividual object of our Lord's discourse

287
upon another occasion, upon which no
man in his senses ever doubted that
St. Peter individually Avas addressed? —
By the same mode of .compellation Avhich
is used here: He Avas spoken to by his
name and by his patronymic. " Simon,
son of Jonah, lovest thou me ?" Clearly
therefore Peter individually was upon this
occasion blessed by our Lord : Clearly
'therefore the confession which obtained
the blessing was St. Peter's OAvn.
It may perhaps be objected, that it is
upon record in St. John's Gospel, that upon
another occasion, the self-same confession,
in the self-same terms, was made by
St. Peter in the name of all. — I answer,
it was upon a subsequent occasion ; when,
it may Avell be. supposed, the satisfaction
which our Lord upon this occasion had
expressed in St. Peter's confession, had
made a deep impression upon the minds
of the apostles; and had brought them to a
general concurrence in St. Peter's senti
ments. But it is particularly to be re
marked, that St. Peter upon this occasion,
making a confession for himself, as I con-

288
tend, obtains a blessing : Afterwards, Avhen
the same confession Avas made by him in
the name of all, no blessing follows it.
The reason is obvious : The blessing due lo
the first confession was already St. Peter's :
He had carried off the prize; and the
rest of the apostles% more tardy, though
not less sincere in the same faith, could
have no share of what St. Peter had made
his own.
But there is yet another argument that
St. Peter upon this occasion spoke singly
for himself; the force of which, however
it hath passed unnoticed, is. nothing short
of demonstration. It is to be draAvn from
those words of our Lord, " I say unto
thee, thou art Peter." Proper names, in
the HebreAV language, were titles rather
than names — words expressiye of some
peculiar adjunct of the persons by whom
they Avere first borne. This was more par
ticularly the case when a person's name
was changed: The new name was always
significant ; and, for the- most part, when
given by Divine authority, predictive of
some peculiarity in the character, the life,

289
the achievements, or the destiny, of the
person on Avhom it Avas imposed. When
Simon, son of Jonah, first became a fol
lower of our Lord, our Lord gave him the
name of Cephas or the rock, which passed
into the equivalent Avord of the Greek
language, Petros. Our Lord, upon this
occasion of his confession of his faith,
says to him — " Thou art Peter." The
like form of words,— * though the similarity
appears not in our English Bibles, — but
the like form of words was used by the
patriarch Jacob, as the exordium of the
blessing Avhich he pronounced upon the
most distinguished of his sons. " Thou
art Judah; thy brethren shall praise thee;"
— that is, Thou hast been rightly named
Judah ; the name properly belongs to
thee ; because thou wilt be what the name
imports, the object of thy brethren's praise.
So, here, " Thou art Peter," — that is,
Thou hast been properly so named ; for it
now appears that thou hast about thee what
the name imports. But how Avas it- that
this now appeared? Nothing had passed
which could discover any peculiarity of
St. Peter, unless it was the confession
vol. i. v

290
which he had made of his faith in Jesus.
This confession therefore was, by our
Lord's own judgment, that which evinced
the singular propriety of the name. But
how should this confession evince the pro
priety of the name, if the merit of the
confession was not at this time peculiar to
St. Peter ? If this confession contains the
reason of the name, and yet was the com
mon confession of all the apostles, made
only by St. Peter's mouth, the inevitable
consequence will be, that the name might
have been imposed Avith equal propriety
upon any one of the twelve, Judas Iscariot
perhaps alone excepted; — Avhich is in
effect to say, that it Avas imposed upon
Simon the son of Jonah, by the Omniscient
discerner of the hearts of men, with no
propriety at all.
Standing upon this firm ground of argu
ment, we may noAV venture to assume a
confident tone ; nor scruple to assert, that
St. Peter upon this occasion answered only
for himself, — that the blessing he obtained
was for himself singly, the reward of his
being foremost in the faith which he con-

291
fessed*, — that, to be the carrier of the
keys of the kingdom of heaven — to loose
and bind on earlh, in any sense Avhich the
expressions may bear in this passage —
w-ere personal distinctions of the venerable
primate of the apostolic college, appro
priated to him in positive and absolute
exclusion of ali other persons, — in exclu
sion of the apostles his contemporaries, and
of the Bishops of Rome his successors. We
need not scruple to assert, that any inter
pretation of this passage, or of any part of
it, founded upon a notion lhat St. Peter
upon this occasion spoke or Avas spoken
to as the representative of the apostles, is
groundless and erroneous.
Having laid this foundation, let us noAV

* Some sort of general confession of our Lord as Son of
God had been made by different persons, upon different
occasions, before this of St. Peter's, — by Nathaniel, upon
his very first acquaintance with our Lord,— by the apostles,
and others perhaps with them, in the. boat, upon the lake
of Gennesaret, after the storm. It is shown in the sequel,
that this last fell far short of St. Peter's ; and the same
remark would apply to Nathaniel's. St. Peter was un
questionably foremost in the full distinct confession now
made.
u 2

292
endeavour to fix the sense, first, of the pro
mise to St. Peter, and in the next place, of
the promise to the church.
The promise to St. Peter consists ofthese
two articles, — that the keys of the king
dom of heaven should be given to him ;
and that whatsoever he should bind or
loose on earth should be bound or loosed
in heaven.
The keys of the kingdom of heaven here
promised to St. Peter, by the principles we
have laid down for the exposition of this
text, must be something quite distinct from
that Avith Avhich it hath generally been
confounded — the power of the remission
and retention of sins, conferred by our
Lord, after his resurrection, upon the
apostles in general, and transmitted through
them to the perpetual succession of the
priesthood. This is the discretionary
power lodged in the priesthood of dis=-
pensing the sacraments, and of granting to
the penitent and refusing to the obdurate
the benefit and comfort of absolution. The
object of this power is the individual upon

293
whom it is exercised, according to the
particular circumstances of each man's
case. It was exercised by the apostles in
many striking instances : It is exercised
now by every priest, when he administers
or Avithholds the sacraments of baptism and
the Lord's supper, or, upon just grounds,
pronounces or refuses to pronounce upon
an individual the sentence of absolution.
St. Peter's custody of the keys Avas quite
another thing. It was a temporary, not a
perpetual authority : Its object Avas not
individuals, but the whole human race.
The kingdom of heaven upori earth is the
true church of God. It is now therefore
the Christian church : Formerly the JeAvish
church Avas that kingdom. The true
church is represented in this text, as in
many passages of holy writ, under the
image of a walled city, to be entered only
at the gates. Under the Mosaic economy
these gates were shut, and particular per
sons only could obtain admittance, —
Israelites by birth, or by legal incorpo
ration. The locks of these gates Avere the
rites of the Mosaic law, which obstructed
u 3

294
the entrance of aliens. But, after out
Lord's ascension, and the descent of the
Holy Ghost, the keys of the city were
given to St. Peter, b}r that vision which
taught him, and authorized him to teach
others, that all distinctions of one nation
from another Avere at an end. By virtue
of this special commission, the great apostle
applied the key, pushed back the bolt of
the lock, and threAV the gates of the city
open for the admission of the whole Gen
tile world, in the instance of Cornelius
and his family. To this, and to this only,
our Lord prophetically alludes, when he
promises to St Peter the custody of the keys^
With this, the second article of the pro
mise, the authority to loose and bind, is
closely connected. This again being, by
virtue of our rule of interpretation, peculiar
to St Peter, must be a distinct thing from
the perpetual standing power of discipline^
conveyed upon a later occasion to the
church in general, in the same figurative
terms. St. Peter was the first instrument
of Providence in dissolving the obligation
ofthe Mosaic law in the ceremonial and of

295
binding it in the moral part. The rescript
indeed for that purpose was drawn by
St. James, and confirmed by the authority
of the apostles in general, under the direc
tion of the Holy Ghost; but the Holy
Ghost moved the apostles to this great
business by the suggestion and the persua
sion of St. Peter, as we read in the fifteenth
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And
this was his particular and personal com
mission to bind and loose.
I must not quit this part of my subject
without observing, that no authority over
the rest of the apostles was given to
St. Peter, by the promise made to him, in
either or in both ils branches ; nor was
any right conveyed to him which could
descend from him to his successors in any
see. The promise was indeed simply a
prediction that he Avould be selected to
be the first instrument in a great work
of Providence, which Avas of such a nature
as to be done once for all; and, being
done, it cannot be repeated. The great
apostle fulfilled his commission in his life
time : He applied his key, — he turned
u 4

296
back the lock, — he loosed and he bound.
The gates of the kingdom of heaven are
f.iroAvn open, — -the ceremonial law is abro
gated — the moral is confirmed ; and the
successors of St. Peter in the see of Rome
can give neither furtherance nor obstruction
to the business.
So much for the promise to St. Peter.
The promise to the church, which is next
to be considered, consists likeAvise of two
articles, — lhat it should be built upon a
rock; and that, being so built, the gates of
hell should not prevail against it.
The first part of the promise, that the
church should be built upon a rock, is
contained in those words of our Lord to
St. Peter, " I say Unto thee, thou art Peter;
and upon this rock (or, as the words might
be belter rendered, " upon this self-same
rock,") I will build my church;" — which
may be thus paraphrased : " Thou hast
now shown the propriety of the name
which I gave thee, taken from a rock ; for
thou hast about thee that Avhich hath in it
the likeness of a rock; and upon this self-

297
same rocky thing I will build my church."
We have already seen that lhe reason of
the name of Peter, given to Simon, lay in
the confession which he now made. In
that confession, therefore, Ave must seek
the rocky thing to which the name alluded.
Of all nalural substances, a rock, though
¦*¦ ' o
not perhaps the most dense, is certainly
the most durable, the least liable to internal
decay, and the least obnoxious to destruc
tion or damage by any external force ; for
which reason, the sacred writers often
apply to rocky mountains the epithet of
everlasting. Hence, a rock is the most
apt image that the material world affords
of pure unadulterated truth, — in its na
ture, than adamant more firm, more per
manent, more insurmountable. These
things being put together, what shall we
find in St. Peter's confession which might
be represented by a rock, but the truth
of it ? This, then, is the rock upon which
our Lord promises to build his church, —
the faith confessed by St. Peter, in a truth,
firm, solid, and immutable.
This being the case, it Avill be necessary,

298
for the fuller explication of the promise,
to consider the extent and the particulars
of this faith of St. Peter's.
It is remarkable, that the apostles in
general, upon a certain occasion, confess
ing a faith in Jesus as the Son of God,j
obtained no blessing. I speak not now of
that confession Avhich upon a subsequent
occasion was made by St. Peler, in the
name of all ; but of a confession made
before, by the apostles in a body, for any
thing that appears, without St Peter's
intervention. We read, in the fourteenth
chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, that after
the storm upon the lake of Gennesaret,
which ceased upon our Lord's entering
into the vessel, " They that were in the
ship came and worshipped him, saying,
Of a truth thou art the Son of God." No
blessing follows. Simon Peter, some short
time after, confesses, in terms which to an
inattentive reader might seem but equiva
lent ; and he is blessed. The conclusion is
inevitable, that more was contained in this
confession of St. Peter's than in the prior
confession of the apostles in the ship,—"

299
more, therefore, than in a bare confession
of Jesus as a son of God.
What that more was Avill easily be under
stood, if we take St. Peter's answer in
connexion with our Lord's question,' pay
ing a critical attention to the terms of both.
Our Lord puts his first question in these
terms: " Whom do men say that I, the
Son of Man, am ?" Then he says —
" Whom say ye that I am ?" Simon Peter
ansAvers — " Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God." Our Lord, in the
terms of his question, asserts of himself
that he is the Son of Man : St. Peter's
answer, therefore, connected with our
Lord's question, amounts to this, — " Thou,
who sayest rightly of thyself that thou art
the Son of Man, art Christ, the Son ofthe
living God." St. Peter therefore asserts
these three things of Jesus, — that he Avas
Christ ; that he Avas the Son of Man ; and
that he was the Son of God. The Son
of Man, and the Son of God, are distinct
titles of the Messiah. The title of the
Son of Man belongs to him as God the
Son ; the title of the Son of God belongs

300
to him as man. The former characterizes
him as that one of the three persons of the
ever-blessed Trinity which was made man ;
the other characterizes him as lhat man
which Avas united to the Godhead. St.
Peter's confession therefore amounts to a
full acknowledgment of the great mystery
of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, to
destroy the works of the Devil; and the truth
of this faith is the rock upon Avhich Christ
promises to build his church.
Upon the second article of the promise
to the church, " that the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it," the time compels
me to be brief. Nor is there need I should
be long. In the present state of sacred
literature, it Avere an affront to this assembly
to go about to prove that the expression of
" the gates of hell" describes the invisible
mansion of departed souls, with allusion
to the sepulchres of the JeAvs and other
Eastern nations, under the image of a
place secured by barricadoed gates, through
which there is no escape, by natural means,
to those who have once been compelled to
enter. Promising that these gates shall

301

not prevail against his church, our Lord
promises, not only perpetuity to the church,
to the last moment of the world's existence,
notAvilhstanding the successive mortality of
all its members in all ages, — but, what
is much more, a final triumph over the
poAver of the grave. Firmly as the gates
of Hades may be barred, they shall have
no power to confine his departed saints,
when the last trump shall sound, and the
voice of the archangel shall thunder through
the deep.
I have now gone through the exposition
of my text, as much at large as the time
Avould allow, though more briefly than the
greatness ofthe subject might deserve. To
apply the Avhole to the more immediate
concerns of this assembly, I shall conclude
with two remarks.
The first is, That the church, to which
our Lord promises stability and a final
conquest over the power of the grave, is
the building raised by himself, as the
master-builder, — that is, by persons com
missioned by him, acting under his di-

302
rections, and assisted by his Spirit, upon
the solid rock of the truth of St. Peter's
faith. That faith was a faith in the Me
diatorial offices of Christ, in his divinity,
and in the mystery of the incarnation.
Whatever may be raised by man upon any
other foundation, however it may assume
the name of a church, is no part of Christ's
building, and hath no interest in these
glorious promises. This deserves the serious
attention of all who in any manner engage
in the plantation of churches and the pro
pagation of the gospel. By those who have
the appointment of itinerant missionaries
for the conversion ofthe heathen, it should
be particularly attended to, in the choice
of persons for so great an undertaking ;
and it deserves the conscientious attention
of every such missionary, in the prosecution
of his work. Whatever may be the diffi
culty of giving a right apprehension of the
mysteries of our religion to savages, whose
minds have never yet been raised to the
contemplation of any higher object than
the wants of the animal life, — the difficulty,
great indeed, but not insuperable to h^m
that worketh with us; must be encountered,
14

303
or the Avhole of the missionary's labour will
be vain. His catechumens are not made
Christians till they are brought to the full
confession of St. Peter's faith ; nor hath he
planted any church Avhere he hath not laid
this foundation. For those who presume
to build upon oilier foundations, their work
will perish ; and it will be as by fire, if they
themselves are saved.
The second remark I have to make is no
less interesting to us. The promise of -per
petual stability, in the text, is to the church
catholic : it affords no security to any
particular church, if her faith or her Avorks
should not be found perfect before God.
The time shall never be when a true church
of God shall not be somewhere subsisting
on the earth; but any individual church,
if she fall from her first love, may sink in
ruins. Of this, history furnishes but too
abundant proof, in the examples of churches,
once illustrious, planted by the apostles,
Avatered with the blood of the first saints
and martyrs, which are noAV no more.
Where are now fhe seven churches of Asia,
whose praise is in the Apocalypse ? Where

304
shall we noAV find the successors of those
earliest archbishops, once stars in the Son
of Man's right hand ? Where are those
boasted seals of Paul's aposlleship, the
churches of Corinth and Philippi ? Where
are the churches of Jerusalem and Alex
andria ? — But is there need that we resort,
for salutary warning, to the examples of
remote antiquity ? Alas ! Avhere at this
moment is the church of France ? — her
altars demolished — her treasures spoiled —
her holy things profaned — her persecuted
clergy and her plundered prelates wanderers
on the earth ! Let us take Avarning by a
visitation that is come so near our doors.
Lei us not defraud ourselves of the benefit
of the dreadful example, by the miserable
subterfuge of a rash judgment upon our
neighbours, and an invidious comparison
of their deservings with our OAvn. Let us
not place a vain confidence in the purer
Avorship, the better discipline, and the
sounder faith, Avhich for two centuries and
an half we have enjoyed. These things are
not our merits ; they are God's gifts ; and
the security we may derive from them will
depend upon the use we make of them.

305
Let us not abate — let us rather add to our
zeal for the propagation of the gospel in
distant parts; but let us not forget that
we have duties nearer home. Let us of
the ministry give heed to ourselves and to
our flocks ; let us give an anxious and
diligent attention to their spiritual con
cerns. Let us all — but let the younger
clergy, more especially, beAvare how they
become secularized in the general cast and
fashion of their lives. Let them not think
it enough to maintain a certain frigid
decency of character, abstaining from the
gross scandal of open riot and criminal
dissipation, but giving no farther attention
to their spiritual duties than may be con
sistent with the pursuits and pleasures of
the world, and may not draAv them from a
fixed residence in populous cities, at a
distance from their cures, or a wandering
life in places of public resort and amuse
ment, Avhere they have no call, and where
the grave dignified character of a parish
priest is ill exchanged for that of a fashion
able trifler. We know the charms of im
proved and elegant society. Its pleasures
in themselves are innocent; but they are
vol. i. x

306
dearly bought at the expense of social and
religious duty. If we have not firmness to
resist the temptations they present, when
the enjoyment is not to be obtained without
deserting the work of the ministry in the
places to which we are severally appointed,
because our lot may have chanced to fall in
the retirement of a country toAvn, or perhaps
in the obscurity of a village, the time may
come, sooner than we think, when it shall
be said — Where is now the church of Eng
land ? Let us betimes take warning. "As
many as I love, I rebuke and chasten," said
our Lord to the church of Laodicea, whose
worst crime it was that she was " neither
hot nor cold." " Be zealous, therefore, and
repent. He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

S07

SERMON XIV.

1 Corinthians, ii. 2.
For I have determined not to know any thing
among you save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified.*
Among various abuses in the Corinthian
church, which this epistle, as appears from
the matter of it, was intended to reform, a
spirit of schism and dissension, to which an
attempt to give a new turn to the doctrines
of Christianity had given rise, was in itself
the most criminal, and in its consequences
the most pernicious. Who the authors of
this evil were, is not mentioned, and it Avere
idle to inquire. They were run after in
their day ; but their names have been long
* Preached in the Cathedral Church of Gloucester, at a
public ordination of priests and deacons,
x 2

308
since forgotten; nor is any thing remem
bered of them but the mischief which they
did. The general character of the men,
and the complexion of their doctrine, may
easily be collected from this and the subse
quent epistle. They were persons who,
without authority from heaven, had taken
upon themselves to be preachers of the
gospel. The motive from which they had
engaged in a business for which they were
neither qualified nor commissioned, was
not any genuine zeal for the propagation of
the truth, nor any charitable desire lo reclaim
the profligate and to instruct lhe ignorant ;
but the love of gain — of power and ap
plause, — the desire, in short, of those
advantages which ever attend popularity in
the character of a teacher. A scrupulous
adherence to the plain doctrine of the gos
pel had been inconsistent with these views,
since it could only have exposed them to
persecution. Whatever therefore the Chris
tian doctrine might contain offensive to the
prejudice of Jew or Gentile, they endea
voured to clear away by figurative interpre
tations, by which they pretended to bring
to light the hidden sense of mysterious ex-

309
pressions, which the first preachers had not
explained. While they called themselves
by the name of Christ, they required not
that the Jew should recognize the Maker of
the world, the Jehovah of his fathers, in the
carpenter's reputed son; nor would they
incur the ridicule of the Grecian schools, by
maintaining the necessity of an atonement
for forsaken and repented sins, and' by
holding high the efficacy of the Redeemer's
sacrifice. Such preaching was accompanied with
no blessing. These pretended teachers could
perform no miracles in confirmation of their
doctrine : It was supported only by an
affected subtlety of argument, and the stu
died ornaments of eloquence. To these
arts they trusted, to gain credit for their
innovations Avith the multitude. Not that
the Corinthian multitude, more than the
multitude of any other place, were qualified
to enter into abstruse questions — to appre
hend the force or to discern the fallacy of a
long chain of argument — or to judge of the
speaker's eloquence ; but they had the art
to persuade the people that they excelled in
x 3

310
argument and rhetoric. They told the peo
ple that their reasoning was such as must
convince, and their oratory such as ought
to charm : And the silly people believed
them, when they bore witness to themselves.
St. Paul they vilified, as a man of mean
abilities, who either had not himself the
penetration to discern I know not what
hidden meaning of the revelation -of Avhich
he was the minister, or had not the talents
of a teacher in a sufficient degree to carry
his disciples any considerable length ; and,
through his inability, had left untouched
those treasures of knoAvledge which they
pretended to disclose.
This sketch of the characters of the false
teachers in the Corinthian church, and of
the sort of doctrine which they taught, is the
key to the apostle's meaning, in many pas
sages of this epistle, in which, as in the
text, he may seem to speak with disparage
ment of wisdom, learning, and eloquence,
as qualifications of little significance in a
preacher of the gospel, and as instruments
unfit tp be employed in the service of
divine truth. In all these passages, a par-

311
ticular reference is intended to the arrogant
pretensions of the false teachers, — to their
affected learning, and counterfeit wisdom.
It was not that, in the apostle's judgment,
there is any real opposition between the
truths of revelation and the principles of
reason, — or that a man's proficiency in
knowledge can be in itself an obstacle in
the way of his conversion to the Christian
faith, — or that an ignorant man can be
qualified to be a teacher of the Christian re
ligion; which are lhe strange conclusions
which ignorance and enthusiasm, in these
later ages, have draAvn from the apostle's
words : But he justly reprobates the folly
of that pretended wisdom, which, instead
of taking the light of reArelation for its guide,
would interpret the doctrines of revelation
by the previous discoveries of human rea
son ; and he censures the ignorance of that
learning, which imagines that the nature of
the self-existent Being, and the principles
of his moral government pf the Avorld, are
in such sort the objects of human knowledge,
as, like the motions of the planets, or the
properties of light, to be open to scientific
investigation : And he means to express
x 4

312
how little is the amount and hoAv light the
authority of the utmost wisdom that may be
acquired in the schools of human learning,
in comparison of that illumination which
was imparted to him by the immediate in
fluence of the Divine Spirit, the fountain
of truth and knowledge, on his mind.
That this is the true interpretation of what
the apostle says, or hath been supposed to
say, in disparagement of human learning,
may appear from this consideration. We
have, in the twelfth chapter of this epistle,
a distinct enumeration ofthe extraordinary
gifts of the Spirit; which were nine, it
seems, in number. In a subsequent part
ofthe same chapter, we have an enumera
tion of ecclesiastical offices, — nine also in
number. The nine gifts, and the nine
offices, taken in the order in which they are
mentioned, seem to correspond ; the first
gift belonging to the first office, the second
to the second, and so on * : Only, it is to
be supposed, that as the authority of all in-

* Vide Appendix.

313
ferior offices is included in the superior, so
the higher and rarer gifts contained the loAver
and more common. At the head of the list
of offices, as the first in authority, stand
" apostles and prophets ;" by Avhich last
Avord are meant expounders of the Scriptures ;
— for, that the exposition of Scripture Avas
the proper office of those who were called
prophets in the primitive church, is a thing
so well understood, and so generally ac
knowledged, that any particular proof of it
upon the present occasion may be spared.
Corresponding to these two offices, at the
head of the catalogue of gifts, stand " the
Avord of wisdom," and " the word of know
ledge." The word of wisdom seems to have
been a talent of arguing from the natural
principles of reason, for the conviction and
conversion of philosophical infidels. This
was the proper gift of the apostles, who
were to carry the glad tidings of salvation
to distant nations, among which the light
of revelation had either never shone, or had
at least for ages been extinguished. The
word of knowledge was the talent of hold
ing learned arguments from the ancient
prophecies, and other writings of the Old

314.
Testament, to silence the objections of
JeAvish adversaries, and to demonstrate the
consistency ofthe gospel with former revela
tions. This was the proper gift of those Avho
were appointed to expound the Scriptures
in congregations ofthe faithful, once formed
by the preaching of the apostles. These
persons, by the Avay, bore the name of pro
phets, because their office in the church
stood in the same relation to the office of the
apostles as that of the prophets under the
law to the office of Moses. The JeAvish
prophets Avere only guardians and ex
pounders of the law prescribed by Moses,
and -of the revelation Avhich he published.
The prophets in the primitive church Avere
not the publishers of the gospel, but ex
pounders of what the apostles had pre
viously taught. The apostolic gift, the
Avord of wisdom, consisted, it should seem,
in an intuitive knoAvledge of philosophic
truth, and an insight into the harmony of
the faith Avhich the apostles taught Avith
what are called the principles of natural re
ligion. The prophetic gift, the Avord of
knowledge, consisted in a prompt recollec
tion of all parts of the sacred writings, and

315
an insight into the harmony of the different
revelations. It pleased God to commit the
first preaching of the gospel to men whose
former occupations and conditions may be
supposed to have excluded them from the
pursuits and the attainments of learning,
and from the advantages of education,
" that the excellency of the power might be
of God — not of them." But it is evident
that these gifts, Avith which he Avas pleased
to adorn the tAvo first offices in the Christian
church, Avere to those first preachers instead
of education : For the qualities of a pene
trating judgment in abstruse questions, and
a ready recollection of written knoAvledge,
which the first preachers enjoyed by the
immediate influence ofthe Holy Spirit, are
in kind the very same Avhich men to whom
this supernatural assistance is denied may
with God's blessing acquire in a less degree,
by long and diligent study. These talents
existed unquestionably in the minds of the
first inspired preachers in a degree in Avhich
by the mere industry of study they cannot
be attained. The apostles were by infinite
degrees the best-informed of all philoso
phers ; and the prophets of the primitive

316
church Avere the soundest of all divines:
But yet the light of inspiration and the light
of learning, however different in degree (as
the difference indeed is inexpressible), are
nevertheless the same in kind ; for reason
is reason, and knowledge is knoAvledge, in
whatever manner they may be produced, —
the degree of more and less being the only
difference of which the things are capable.
As the word of wisdom, therefore, and the
word of knoAvledge, were to the first
preachers instead of learning, so in these
later ages, when the Spirit no longer im
parts his extraordinary gifts, learning is in
stead of them.
The importance and the necessity of it to a
Christian preacher, evidently appears from
God's miraculous interposition, in the first
ages, to infuse learning into the minds of
those who by education Avere unlearned ;
for, if the attainments of learning were of
no importance to the true and effectual
preaching of the gospel, to what purpose
did that God who commanded the light
to spring out of darkness by an exertion
of the same almighty power light up the

317
lamp of knowledge in the minds of un
educated men? The reason of this extraor
dinary interposition in the early ages was,
that, for the first promulgation of the
gospel, no abilities to be acquired by edu
cation were sufficient for the teacher's office:
And the reason that this extraordinary in
terposition hath long since ceased is, that
Christianity having once taken root in the
world, those inferior abilities which may
be attained by a diligent improvement of
ou-r natural talents are noAV sufficient for its
support. But in all ages, if the objections
of infidels are to be confuted, — if the
scruples of believers themselves are to be
satisfied, — if Moses and the prophets are
to be brought to bear witness to Jesus of
Nazareth, — if the calumnies of the blas
pheming Jews are to be repelled, and their
misinterpretations of their own books con
futed, — if Ave are to be " ready," that is,
if we are to be qualified and prepared, " to
give an answer to every man that asketh
us a reason of the hope that is in us," — a
penetration in abstruse questions — a quick
ness in philosophical discussion — a critical
knowledge of the ancient languages — a

318
familiar acquaintance Avith the Jewish his
tory, and Avilh all parts ofthe sacred writings
— a sound judgment, a faithful memory,
and a prompt elocution — are talents with
out which the Avork of an evangelist will be
but ill performed. When they are not in
fused by inspiration, they must be acquired
by diligence in study and fervency in
prayer. And if any in the present age
imagine, that, Avanting the advantages of
education, they may be qualified for
preachers of the gospel, they are to be con
sidered as enthusiasts; unless, like the
apostles, they can appeal to a confirmation
of their Avord by " signs and wonders fol
lowing." Inspiration is the only means by
which they may be qualified for the busi
ness in which they presume to meddle ; and
of a real inspiration, the poAver of mira
cles is the proper sign and inseparable
concomitant. It is the usual plea ofthese deluded men,
when they Would assert their sufficiency
Avhile they confess their ignorance, that,
however deficient they may be in other
knowledge, they know Christ. And God

319
forbid, that, in a country professing Christ's
religion, Christ should not be known by
every one in the degree necessary to his
OAvn salvation, — that any one should not
so knoAV Christ as to have a right appre
hension of the necessary articles of the
Christian faith — right notions of his duty
to God and to his neighbour — a stedfast
faith in God's promises through Christ —
such views, in short, of the Christian doc
trine, as may give it its full effect upon
his heart and practice. This knowledge of
Christ, the most illiterate hath, or ought to
have, in a Christian country ; and he who
hath it not is culpable in his ignorance.
But this knoAvledge, without which no
one's condition is secure, is noi that which
may authorize the private Christian to
assume the office of a public teacher.
It may indeed be made a question
whether any degree of knowledge may
justify the officious interference of an in
dividual, of his own pure motion, in a
business of such serious concern to the
community ; for, if it be allowed in any
society that mere ability constitutes a right

320
to act in any particular capacity, the conse
quence Avill be, that every man will be
justified in the usurpation of any office in
the state, by his OAvn opinion of his own
sufficiency. The extravagance and the
danger of this principle, applied in the civil
departments, Avould be readily perceived.
A man who from a conceit of his OAvn abi
lities should take upon him to play the
magistrate, the general, or the privy coun
sellor, without a commission regularly ob
tained from the source of civil power, would
soon be shut up in some proper place,
where he might act his fooleries in secret,
without harm to his neighbour or public
discredit to himself. The reason that the
extravagance and danger of the same prin
ciple is not equally perceived when it is
applied in the ecclesiastical polity, and that
disturbers of the ecclesiastical constitution
are suffered to go loose, while other mad
men are confined, is only this, — that the
interests of the church are not so seriously
considered as those of the state, because
its good government and its disorders come
not so immediately home to the particular
interests of each member of the community.
14

821.
I mean not, however, at present to enter
into the question, what more than mere
sufficiency may be requisite to give a man
authority to set up as a public teacher of
what he really knoAvs; or how far the
rights of a commission actually existing may
be infringed by the laic's invasion of the
preacher's chair. When it is considered that
not fewer than nine different ecclesiastical
offices, distinguished by their different gifts,
appear to have been subsisting at Corinth
when this epistle was Avritten, — and lhat,
by the consent of the most learned in eccle
siastical chronology, this epistle was Avritten
so early as the fifty-seventh year of our
Lord, — it should seem that the formation
of a church — the constitution of an hierar
chy, composed of different orders, which
orders were appointed to distinct duties,
and invested Avith distinct rights — Avas a
thing of so great antiquity as may leave no
doubt remaining with any reasonable man
of the divine authority of the institution.
But Avhat I at present insist upon is this,
— that that knowledge of Christ by which
a man may be qualified to bear the office
vol. 1/ y

322
of a teacher cannot be separated from other
branches of knoAvledge to which unedu*
cated men can in these days make no
pretensions. I contend that it never was
separated : For the word of wisdom, and
the word of knowledge, in the apostles and
primitive prophets, consisted not in a know
ledge of revelation only, — but, as their
writings testify, in a general comprehension
of all that other men acquire in a less degree
by education, — in those branches at least
of human knowledge Avhich are connected
with theology and morals.
They Avere, perhaps, not knowing in
the details of natural philosophy : for the
argument for the being and the providence
of God, from the visible order and harmony
of the universe, is the same, by whatever
laws its motions may be carried on. They
Were not physicians or anatomists ; because
they had the power of curing diseases and
healing wounds without medicine or art.
But they were profound metaphysicians -r-
the best of moralists — well-informed histo
rians — accurate logicians — and excellent
in that strain of eloquence which is ealcu-

12

323
lated for the conveyance of instruction, the
enforcement of duty, the dissuasion of vice,
the conviction of error, and the defence of
truth. And whoever pretends to teach
without any of these qualifications, hath
no countenance from the example of the
apostles, Avho possessed them all in an
eminent degree, not from education, but
from a higher source.
St. Paul, indeed, says of hirnself, that
Avhen he first preached the gospel to the
Corinthians, " he came not unto them
Avith excellency of speech or of Avisdom ;"
— that is, he came not, like the false
teachers, making an ostentatious display of
studied eloquence, nor boasting his pro
ficiency in philosophy : He required not
that the Corinthians should receive the
testimony of God, which he delivered to
them as the testimony of God, because he
who delivered it was a knowing man, or
an accomplished orator : He rested not the
evidence of his doctrine upon mere argu
ment, nor did he think to persuade by mere
eloquence; for argument alone, although
it might indeed evince the consistency
y 2

324
and reasonableness of the doctrine* could
never amount lo a proof of its heavenly
origin ; and the apostles had means of
persuasion more powerful than eloquence
— which, by the way, no modern teacher
hath : His knoAvledge and eloquence, how
ever necessary, were still in him but second
ary qualifications; and so little was he
ambitious of the fame of learning, that he
determined not " to knoAv any thing
among them save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified." But consider what this knoAvledge ofthe
apostle really contained. " To know Jesus
Christ, and him crucified," was to knoAv, —
not simply to believe, but to knoAv in such
a manner as to be able to teach others,
that Jesus of Nazareth Avas the Messiah
announced by the prophets from the begin
ning ofthe world ; and to understand that
the sufferings ofthe Messiah Avere the means
appointed by God for man's deliverance
from sin and damnation. This knowledge,
therefore, of Jesus Christ, and him cruci
fied, to Avhich St. Paul laid claim, contained
an. accurate knowledge of the ancient pro-
10

325
phecies — a clear apprehension of their
necessary reference to the Messiah — a
discernment of their exact completion in
the person of Jesus — and an insight into
that great mystery of godliness, the expia
tion of the actual sins of men, and the
cleansing of man's sinful nature, by the
shedding ofthe blood of Christ.
And Avho is sufficient fbr these things ?
That no study can attain this knowledge of
Christ in the degree in which the apostles
possessed it, he who confesses not hath
studied Christ to little purpose: But he
who imagines that Christ may thus be
known by men uninformed both by inspir
ation and education, or imagines that, Avhen
inspiration is wanting education may con
tribute nothing at all in aid ofthe deficiency,
— that is, to make my meaning very plain,
he who imagines that, of uninspired men,
the learned and the unlearned are equally
qualified to be teachers of the word of God,
— he who builds this extravagant opinion
upon the terms in which the apostle speaks
of the knowledge of Christ as the only
knowledge to which he himself made pre-
y 3

326
tensions, only proves that more learning is
necessary than he is aAvare of to the right
apprehension of this single text.
Inferences naturally Aoav from* the doc
trine Avhich hath been asserted, of high
concern to every one in this assembly. We
who, with however weak ability, fill the
high station of the prophets in the primi
tive church, — you who are this day to be
admitted to a share in that sacred office, —
are admonished of the diligence with which
we must devote ourselves to study, and of
the assiduity which Ave must use in prayer
to acquit ourselves of the duties of our
calling. The laity are admonished of the
folly and the danger of deserting the minis
try of those who have been rightly separated
to that holy service, in the vain hope of
edifying under their instruction who cannot
be absolved of the crime of schism upon
any better plea than that of ignorance.
To allege the apostles as instances of illi
terate preachers, is of all fallacies tlie
grossest. Originally, perhaps, they were
men of little learning — fishermen — tent-
makers — excisemen : But when they began

327
to preach, they no longer were illiterate ;
they were rendered learned in an instant,
without previous study of their OAvn, by
miracle. The gifts Avhich Ave find placed
by an apostle himself at the head of their
qualifications were evidently analogous to
the advantages of education. Whatever
their previous character had been, the
apostles, Avhen they became preachers, be
came learned : They were of all preachers
the most learned. It is therefore by profici
ency in learning, accompanied with an un
reserved submission of the understanding
to the revealed word, — but it is by learn
ing, not by the want or the neglect of it,
that any modern teacher may attain to
some distant resemblance of those inspired
messengers of God.

329
APPENDIX.
1 CORINTHIANS, xii. 8, 9, 10.
J. HE word qf wisdom, — the talent of arguing
from the natural principles of reason, for the
conversion of philosophical infidels. The word
of knowledge, — the talent of holding learned
arguments from the ancient prophecies, and the
writings of the Old Testament, for the con
version of Jewish infidels. Faith, — a depth
and accuracy of understanding in the general
scheme of the Christian revelation, for the im
provement and edification of believers. The
gifts qf healing, and the working qf miracles, —
fbr the purpose of making new converts, and
displaying the extent of the power of Christ.
Prophecy, or the talent of foreseeing future
events, — for the purpose of providing against
the calamities, whether worldly or spiritual,
that might threaten particular churches ; such
as famines, pestilence, wars, persecutions, here
sies. Discerning qf spirits, — fbr the better
government of the church. And the gift of
tongues, and the interpretation qf tongues,
which seem to have been very generally
dispersed, — that every Christian might be
qualified to argue with the learned Jews in the

330
synagogues, from the original Scriptures, espe
cially when the Jew thought proper to appeal
from the Greek of the Septuagint to the Hebrew
text. In these very remarkable passages, the apostle
reckons up nine distinct gifts of the Holy Spirit,
all of the extraordinary kind. In the twenty-
eighth verse he enumerates just as many eccle
siastical offices. The gifts and the offices, taken
in the order in which they are mentioned, seem
to correspond. GJFTS. OFFICES.
1. The word of? . il
. , > Apostles.
wisdom, 3 r
f Prophets, i. e. expound-
2. The word of J ers of the Scriptures
knowledge, j of the Old Testa
ment.

I

„ _, • , C Teachers of Chris-
3'Faith> I tianity.
\. Miracles,  Workers of miracles.
5. Healing,  Healers.
f Helps — MtXr&us ; such
6. Prophecies, or- ag ^^ TychicuSj
predictions, j „ 5
r L Onesimus, &c.
7. Discerning of? Governments — Kuffsg-
spirits, 5 *"***"e*f-
8. Tongues, . . . . . •*> Gifted wUh t eg in
9. Interpretation J. . &
„ A r V various ways.
of tongues, J J

SSI
The fourth and fifth gifts, miracles and
healing, seem to have changed places in the
ninth and tenth verses. Miracles, I think,
must take place as the genus, and healing must
rank below it as the species. Accordingly, in
the twenty-eighth verse, miracles or powers are
mentioned before headings. With this slight
alteration, the list of gifts in the eighth, ninth,
and tenth verses, seems to answer exactly to the
list of offices in the twenty-eighth ; only, it is to
be supposed, that as all inferior offices are in
cluded in the superior, so all the higher and
rarer gifts contain the lower and more common.
Dr. Lightfoot, if I mistake not, hath re
marked this parallelism of gifts and offices, in
his " Horae Hebraicae."

END OP THE FIRST VOLUME.

Printed by A. Strahan,
Printers-Street?, London.

9002 00708 6920