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SERMONS.

PRfNTED BY W. BAYNES, JUN., BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.

SERMONS, K^f!^!^

SAMUEL HORSLEY,

LL.D. F.R.S. F.A.S.

LORD BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH.

A NEW EDITION, COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BAYNES AND SON,

PATERNOSTER ROW ;

AND H. S. BAYNES, EDINBURGH.

1826.

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.
James v. 8 ;

PAGE

For the coming of tlie Lord draweth nigh ]

SERMON II.

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 ? ] 2

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 ?...;.., 21

VI CONTENTS.

SERMON IV.
Psalm xlv. 1 :

PAGE

I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, or
unto the King 30

SERMON V.

Psalm xlv. 1 :

I speak of the things vi^hich I have made touching the King, or
unto the King 38

SERMON VI.

Psalm xlv. 1 :

I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, or
unto the King 50

SERMON VII.

Psalm xlv. 1 :

I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, or
unto the King 62

SERMON VIII.

1 John v. 6 :

PAGE

This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ 3 —
not by water only, but by water and blood 78

SERMON IX.
Luke iv. 18, 19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor 5 he hath sent me to heal the
broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and reco-
vering of sight to the blind — to set at liberty them that are
bruised — to preach the acceptable year of the Lord 93

SERMON X.

Makk 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 1 07

SERMON XL

John xiii. 34 :

A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another 5
as I have loved you, that ye also love one another J 21

via CONTENTS.

SERMON XII.
Matthew xvi. 28:

PAGE

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 132

SERMON XIII.

• Matthew xvi. 18, 19:

say also unto thee, that thou art Peter j 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 145

SERMON XIV.

1 Corinthians ii. 2:

For I have determined not to know any thing among you, save
Jesus Christ, and him crucified 159

Appendix » 1 70

CONTENTfc;.

SERMON XV.

2 Peter i. 20,21:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any
private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old
time — [or, as it is in the margin, came not at any time] — by the
will of man j but holy men of God spake as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost 171

SERMON XVI.

2 Peter i. 20, 21 :

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any
private interpretation. For the prophecy came not at any time
by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as they w^ere
moved by the Holy Ghost 188

SERMON XVII.

2 Peter i. 20 :

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any
private interpretation 1 98

CONTEXTS.

SERMON XVIII.

2 Peter i. 20, 21

PAGE

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any
private interpretation. For the prophecy came not at any time
by the will of man j but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost 21i

SERMON XIX.

Matthew xvi. 21:

From that time forth, began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how
that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the
elders and chief priests, and Scribes, and be killed, and be
raised again the third day 229

SERMON XX.
1 Peter iii. 18—20:
-Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit 3

by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison,
which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffer-
ing of God waited in the days of Noah 246

CONTENTS. XI

SERMON XXI.

Mark ii. 27 :

PAGE

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ... 264

SERMON XXII.

Mark ii. 27:
The Sabbath wa^ made for man, and not man for the Sabbath 274

SERMON XXIII.

Mark ii. 27:

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. . . . 285

SERMON XXIV.

John iv. 42 :

We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the
Christ, the Saviour of the world 301

SERMON XXV.

John iv. 42:

We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the
Christ, the Saviour of the world 312

CONTENTi<.

SERMON XXVI.

John iv. 42:

PAGE

We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the
Christ, the Saviour of the world 325

SERMON XXVII.

PiiiLiPPiANS iii. 15:

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded ; and if
in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this
unto you 340

SERMON XXVIII.

Philippians iii. 15 :

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded ; and if
in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this
unto you 35 1

SERMON XXIX.

Daniel iv. 17:

This matter is by the decree of the Watchers, and the demand by
the word of the Holy Ones ; to the intent that the living may
know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and
giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the
basest of men ^^^

CONTENTS. XIU

SERMON XXX.
Malachi iii. 1, 2 :

PAGE

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Be-
hold He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may
abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he ap-
peareth ? 384

SERMON XXXL

Malachi iii. 1, 2 :

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Be-
hold He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may
abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he ap-
peareth ? 392

SERMON XXXn.
Malachi iii. 1,2:

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Be-
hold He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may
abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he ap-
peareth? '401

SERMON XXXIII.
Malaciii iii. 1,2:

PAGE

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Be-
hold He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may
abide the day of his coming r and who shall stand when he ap-
peareth ? 410

SERMON XXXIV.

Luke i. 28 :

Hail, thou that art highly favoured : the Lord is with thee : blessed
art thou among women 419

SERM'ON XXXV,

Deuteronomy xv. 11 :

For the poor shall never cease out of the land : therefore I com-
mand thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy
brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land 432

SERMON XXXVL
John xi. 25, 26 :

I am the resurrection and the life j he that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth, and
believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this ? 445

SERMON XXXVII.
Mark vli. 26:

PAGE

Tlic woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation 455

SERMON XXXVIII.
Mark vii. 26 :
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation 464

SERMON XXXIX.

EccLESiASTEs xii. 7 :

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was j and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it 477

SERMON XL.

Matthew xxiv. 12 :

Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.. . 491

SERMON XLI.

John xx. 29 :

Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed : blessed
are they who have not seen and yet have believed 504

SERMON XLII.
John xx. 29 :

PAGE

Thomas, because thou hast seen nie, thou hast believed : blessed
are they who have not seen and yet have believed 513

SERMON XLIII.

1 John iii. 3 :

And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even
as He is pure 524

SERMON XLIV.

Romans xiii. 1 :

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers 536

Appendix to the preceding Sermon 552

SERMONS,

SERMON I.

For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. — James v. 8.

Time was, when I know not what mystical meanings
were drawn, by a certain cabalistic 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 phrenzy 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.

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 expo-
sitions in which the school of Origen so much delighted,
we have been too apt to fall into the contrary error; and
the same unwarrantable license of figurative interpretation
which they employed to elevate, as they thought, the
plainer parts of Scripture, has been used, in modern times,
in effect to lower the divine.

Among the passages which have been thus misrepre-
sented 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 be-

B

come 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 of the best modern expositors, it
must seem doubtful whether any clear prediction is to be
found in the New Testament, of an event in which, of all
others, the Christian world is the most interested.

As I conceive the right understanding of this phrase to
be of no small importance, seeing the hopes of the righ-
teous, and the fears of the wicked, rest chiefly on the expli-
cit promises of our Saviour's coming, it is my present pur-
pose to give the matter, as far as my abilities may be equal
to it, a complete discussion ; and 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 assistance, I shall be able so to state
my argument, that every one here, who 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 sel-
dom, 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 ex-
pressions may be more clear and determinate than those of
our translation. And in these cases, the expositions 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 them-
selves 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
tongue. 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 encou-
ragement in this necessary work. I apprehend that we
mistake our proper duty, when we avoid the public dis-
cussion of difficult or ambiguous texts ; and either keep
them entirely out of sight, or, when that cannot easily be
done, obtrude our interpretations upon the laity, as magis-
terial or oracular, without proof or argument; — a plan
that may serve the purposes 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 descriptions of
men, great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant,
should come to the knowledge of the truth. Of the truth,
— that is, of the truths brought to light by the gospel : not
only of the fundamental truths of faith toward God, of re-
pentance from dead works, and of a future judgment ; but
of all the sublimer 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 magnitude
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 dig-
nity of our Saviour's person, — of the mystery of his incar-
nation,— 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 knowledge of the Scriptures, especially the
Scriptures of the New Testament ; and yet that know-
ledge of the Scriptvn-es which is necessary to the under-
standing of these things, is what few, I would hope, in this
country, are too illiterate to attain. It is our duty to faci-
litate the attainment by clearing difficulties. It may be
proper to state those 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
B 2

masters of tlie question, thou^li neither they nor we may
be competent to the resolution of it. This instruction
would more efi'ectualiy secure them against the poison of
modern corruptions, than the practice, dictated b}^ 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 tlie divinit}^ of the Son ;
the incarnation ; the satisfaction of the cross as a sacri-
fice, in the literal meaning of the word ; the mediatorial
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 evi-
dence of the genuine doctrine of the gospel, if holden out
to them, not in parts, studiously divested of whatever may
seem mysterious, — not with accommodations to the pre-
vailing fashion of opinions, — but entire and undisguised.
Nor are the laity to shut their ears against these disputa-
tions, as niceties in which they are not concerned, or dif-
ficulties above the reach of their abilities : and least of all
are they to neglect those disquisitions which immediately
respect the interpretation of texts. Every sentence of the
Bible is from God, and every man is interested in the
meaning of it. The teacher, therefore, is to expound, and
the disciple to hear and read with diligence ; and much
might be the fruit of the blessing of God on their united
exertions. And this I infer, not only from a general con-
sideration of the nature of the gospel doctrine, and the cast
of the Scripture language, which is admirably accommo-
dated to vulgar apprehensions, but from a fact which has
happened to fall much within my own observation, — the
proficiency, I mean, that we often find, in some si^igle sci-

eiice, of men who have never liad a liberal education, and
who, except in that particular subject on which they have
bestowed 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 tlie knowledge of which,
without any other, a great progress may be made. And
these lie much more open to the apprehension of an uncul-
tivated 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 preten-
sions to general learning, make distinguished attainments.

Under these persuasions, I shall not scruple to attempt
a disc^uisition, which, on the first view of it, might seem
adapted only to a learned auditory. And I trust that I
shall speak to your understandings.

I propose to consider what may be the most frequent
import of the phrase of " our Lord's coming," And it will,
if I mistake not, appear, that the figurative use of it, to de-
note the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Ro-
mans, is very rare, if not altogether unexampled in the
Scriptures of the New Testament ; except, perhaps, in some
passages of the book of Revelation : 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 faith-
ful, and dreaded by the impenitent, — a visible descent of
our Lord from heaven, as visible to all the world as his
ascension was to the apostles, — a coming of our Lord in
all the majesty of the Godhead, to judge the quick and
dead, to receive his servants into glory, and send the
wicked into outer darkness.

In the Epistles of St. Saul, St. Peter, and St. James,
we find frequent mention of the 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 judg-
ment, and that it was sometimes used in this literal sense
by our Lord himself; as in the 25th chapter of St. Mat-
thew's gospel, where the Son of man is described as com-
ing 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 unreasonable to
suppose that the inspired writers, though ignorant of the
times 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 imagined, that wherever in the epistles of the
apostles, such assertions occur as those I have mentioned,
the coming of our Lord is not to be taken in the literal
meaning of the 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 pas-
sages wherein the approach of Christ's kingdom is men-
tioned, 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 argument,
while that of the destruction of Jerusalem 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 aiflictions,
with which the providence of God, in the first ages of the
church, was pleased to exercise his servants. Upon these
occasions, to confirm the persecuted Christian's wavering
faith — to revive his weary hope — to invigorate his droop-

ing zeal — nothing could be more eftectual than to set
before him the prospect of that happy consummation, when
his Lord should come to take him to himself, 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 affliction — 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 explicitly 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 pros-
pect of the temporal ruin impending over the Jewish
nation ; or indeed than any 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 to 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 mean-
ing, 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 soo?i and late are to be
very differently understood, when applied to the great ope-
rations of Providence, and to the ordinary occurrences ol
human life. " The Lord," says he, " is not slack concern-
ing 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 compa-

8

rison is rather intended of the mutual proportion oi dif-
ferent intervals of time,4han the magnitude of any one by
itself defined; and the same thing may be said to be
coming either soon or late, according as the distance of
it is compared with a longer or a shorter period of dura-
tion. 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 to be at
hand, if its distance from them was but a small part of
its original distance from the creation of the world — that
is, if its distance then was but a small part of the whole
period of the world's existence, which is the standard, in
reference to which, so long as the world shall last, all
other portions of time may be by us most properly deno-
minated long or short. There is again another use of the
words soon and late, whereby any one portion of time,
taken singly, is understood to be compared, not with any
other, but with the number of events that are to come to
pass in it in natural consequence and succession. If the
events are few in proportion to the time, the succession
must be slow, and the time may be called long. If they
are many, the succession 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 expressions 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 salva-
tion to the extremities of the earth. They were to be
brought before kings and rulers, and to water the new-
planted churches with their blood. Vengeance was to be
executed on the unbelieving Jews, by the destruction of
their city, and the dispersion of their nation. The Pagan
idolatry was to be extirpated^the Man of Sin to be re-
vealed. Jerusalem is yet to be trodden down; the rem-

iiant 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 scheme in its
parts so extensive and so various — they mean to intimate
how busily the great work is going on, and with what
confidence, from what they saw accomplished in their
own days, the first Christians 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 ap-
plication 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 coming, as a thing to follow in its appointed
season, he adds, "Now learn a parable of the fig-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 expositors 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 — 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 distress with which
it was to be accompanied. This exposition, therefore,
makes, as I conceive, the desolation of Jerusalem the prog-
nostic of itself, — the sign and the thing signified the same.
The true rendering of the original I take to be, "So like-
wise 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

10

approach of summer, says our Lord, is not more surely
indicated by the first appearances of spring-, than the final
destruction 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 believ-
ing Gentiles, is the first step in the execution of a settled
plan of Providence, which inevitably terminates in the
general judgment. The chain of physical causes, in the
one case, is not more uninterrupted, or more certainly
productive of the ultimate effect, than the chain of moral
causes in the other. " Verily, I say unto you, this genera-
tion shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." 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 denoted those
particular circumstances of the Jewish war which were
included in our Lord's prediction. All those signs which
answer to the fig-tree's budding leaves, the apostles and
their cotemporaries, 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 declara-
tion 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, whenever it is mentioned 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 ob-
serve, 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 its
near approach, happens to be one in which our Lord's
coming cannot but be literally taken. The passage to

n

which 1 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 bre-
thren concerning theirdeceased friends, reminds them of the
resurrection; and tells them, that those who were already
dead would as surely have their part in a happy immor-
tality as the Christians that should be living at the time
of our Lord's coming. Upon this occasion, his expres-
sions, taken literally, would imply that he included him-
self, with many 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 ima-
gination, and from his full persuasion 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 themselves quite upon an even foot-
ing. In the confident expectation of his own reward,
his intermediate dissolution was a matter of so much in-
difference to him, that he overlooks it. 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 resurrection in their own
time. Some of these persons seem to have taken advan-
tage of St. Paul's expressions in this passage, to represent
him as favouring their opinion. This occasioned the Se-
cond Epistle to the Thessalonians, in which the apostle
peremptorily decides against that doctrine: maintaining
that the Man of Sin is to be revealed, and a long conse-
quence of events to run out, before the day of judgment
can come; and he desires that no expression of his may
be undertsood of its speedy arrival; — which proves, if the
thing needed farther proof than I have already given of it,

J2

that the coming mentioned in his former epistle is the
coming to judgment, and that whatever 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.

SERMON II.

Tell US;, when shall these things be ; and what shall be the signs of thy
coming, and of the end of the world ? — Matt. xxiv. 3.

I PROCEED in my inquiry into the general importance
of the phrase of " the coming of the Son of man" in the
Scriptures of the New Testament.

I have shown, that in the epistles, wherever our Lord's
coming is mentioned, as an expectation that should ope-
rate, through hope, to patience and perseverance, or through
fear, to vigilance and caution, it is to be understood lite-
rally of his coming in person to the general judgment. I
have yet to consider the usual import of the same phrase
in the gospels. I shall consider the passages wherein a
figure hath been supposed, omitting those where the 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 cu-
riosity 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 en-
lightened period which immediately followed our Lord's
ascension, the expression of his coming was taken in its
literal meaning. This interpretation of the reply to St.

13

Peter was set aside by tlie event. In extreme old ao-e,
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 interpreting the reply to St. Peter as a
prediction concerning the term of St. John's life, began to
affix a figurative meaning to the expression of " our Lord's
coming," and persuaded themselves that the prediction
was verified 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 Sa-
viour's words. He seems to have apprehended nothing
in them but an answer of significant, though mild, rebuke
to an inquisitive demand.

If there be any passage in the New Testament in which
the epoch of the 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 prophe-
tical discourses, in Avhich he replied to the question pro-
posed 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 as 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 disciples,
when they put the question, " Tell us, when shall these
things be ; and what shall be the signs of thy coming, and of
the end of the world;" imagined, no doubt, that the coming
of our Lord was to be the epoch of the demolition with
which he had threatened the temple. They had not yet
raised their expectations to any thing above a temporal
kingdom. They imagined, perhaps, that our Lord would
come by conquest, or by some display of his extraordinary

14

powers which should be equivalent to conquest, to seat
himself upon David's throne ; and that the destruction of
the Jewish temple would be either the last step in the
acquisition of his royal power, or perhaps the first exertijii
of it. The veil was yet upon their understandings ; and
the season not being come for taking it 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 coming,
■^-to be his own immediate act, in the course of those con-
quests by which they might think he was to gain his king-
dom ; or the beginning 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 disciples, when they 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 know-
ledge of futurity, but to be in its completion an evidence
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 pro-
phets hath generally used a language, artfully contrived
to be obscure and ambiguous, 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 welfare of the world ; and yet
be overwhelmed at last with evident demonstrations of the
power of God. It might have been expected that our
Lord, in delivering a prediction, should assume the ac-
customed style of prophecy, which derives much of its

usetVil 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 discourse. But, with respect
to his own coming, it seems to be one great object of his
discourse, to advertise the Christian world that it is quite
a distinct event from the demolition of the Jewish temple.
This information is indeed conveyed in oblique insinua-
tions, of which it might not be intended that the full mean-
ing should appear at the time when they were uttered.
But when Christians had once seen Jerusalem, 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, that 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, — be-
lieve it not. If they shall say unto you. Behold, he is
in the desert, — go not forth ; Behold, he is in the se-
cret 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

IG

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 that 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 something which hath its
natural and necessary course in that direction. The light-
ning may break out indifferently in any quarter of the
sky; and east and west seem to be mentioned only as ex-
tremes and opposites. And, accordingly, in 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 lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part
under the heaven, shineth unto the other part under hea-
ven, 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 oion day; intimating, as I con-
ceive, that the day, that is, the time of the Son of man, is
to be exclusively his own, — quite another from the day of
those deceivers whom he had mentioned, and therefore
quite another from the day of the Jev»^ish war, in which
those deceivers 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 which
the eagles were to be gathered, be the Jewish nation, which
was morally and judicially dead, and whose destruction
was pronounced in the decrees of Heaven, — if this were
certain, it might then seem necessary to understand the
coming of the Son of man, in the comparison of the light-
ning, of his coming figuratively to destroy Jerusalem.

17

But tliis interpretation of the eagles and the carcass I take
to be a very uncertain, though a specious conjecture.

As the sacred historians have recorded the several oc-
currences of our Saviour's life without a scrupulous atten-
tion 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 apophthegms.
Hence, also, we sometimes find the same discourse differ-
ently represented, in some minute circumstances, by dif-
ferent evangelists ; and maxims the same in purport some-
what differently expressed, or expressed in the same words,
but sent down in a different order; — circumstances in
which the captious 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 ap-
pear, the rule should be to expound each writer's narrative
by a careful comparison with the rest.

To apply this to the matter in question. These pro-
phecies of our Lord, which St. Matthew and St. Mark
relate as a continued discourse, stand in St. Luke's narra-
tive 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 narrative. 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, addresses a more particular dis-
course to his 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 suddenness with which

18

his real advent, the day of judgment, will at last surprise
the thoughtless 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 de-
livered at another time, upon the occasion which St. Mat-
thew and St. Mark mention. When the disciples, our
Lord having mentioned the demolition of the temple, in-
quired of him, " When shall these things be ; and what
shall be the sign 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 ; for the beginning of the com-
pletion of a long train of prophecy is the natural sign and
pledge of the completion of the whole. He foretells the
total dispersion of the Jews. He mentions briefly his own
coming ; of which, he says, the things previously men-
tioned would be no less certain signs than the first ap-
pearances of spring are signs of the season of the harvest.
He aflirms that the day and hour of his coming is known
to none but the Father; and he closes the whole of this
discourse with general exhortations to constant watchful-
ness, founded on the consideration 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 repeti-
tion 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 discourse, 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 before,
nor have they preserved, as it should seem, so exactly as
St. Luke, the original arrangement of the matter. In par-

19

ticular, St. Matthew lias brought close together the com-
parison of the Son of mans coming with a flash of light-
ning, and the image of the eagles gathered about the car-
cass. 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 tlie lightning 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 par-
ticular question proposed by the disciples respecting some
things our Lord had said in the latter part of this prophecy.
Our Saviour had compared the suddenness of the comino-
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 intended in these si-
militudes, 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 destruction of Jeru-
salem was known to the Messiah by the prophetic spirit,
—for he said that it should take place before the genera-
tion with which he was 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 discourse, he foretells some extraor-
dinary interpositions of a discriminating Providence, 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
c 2

20

be taken and tlie 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 probable that the eagle and the carcass was a proverbial
image among the people of the East, expressing things
inseparably connected 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, in what countries are these calami-
ties to happen, and these miraculous deliverances to be
wrought ? Our divine Instructor held it unfit to give far-
ther light upon the subject. He frames a reply, as was
his custom when pressed with unseasonable questions,
which, at the same time that it evades the particular in-
quiry, might more edify the disciples than the most expli-
cit resolution of the question proposed. " Wheresoever
the carcass is, thither will the eagles be gathered together."
Wheresoever 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 lightning, or the image of the eagles gathered 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 de-
stroy 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 refine-
ments of modern expositors, and to clear some considera-
ble difficulties, which, it must be confessed, attend the
literal interpretation. And to this purpose I shall devote
a separate discourse.

21

SERMON III.

Tell us when shall these things be ; and what shall be the signs of thy
coming, and of the end of the world ? — Matt. xxiv. 3.

It was upon the Wednesday in the Passion 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 apostles, remarking with admiration as they passed
the strength and beauty of that stately fabric, that predic-
tion of its approaching demolition which gave occasion 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 where the city and the temple lay in pros-
pect 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 prediction of the
temple's ruin had excited. Peter, James, John, and An-
drew, came to him, and asked him privately, " Tell us when
shall these things be ; and what shall be the signs of thy
coming, and of the end of the world ?" To this inquiry
our Lord was pleased to reply, in a prophetical discourse
of some considerable length, which takes up two entire
chapters, the twenty-fourth and the twenty-fifth of St. Mat-
thew's gospel ; and yet is brief, if the discourse be mea-
sured by the subject, — if the length of speech be compared
with the period of time which the prophecy embraces,
commencing within a few years after our Lord's ascension,
and ending only with the general judgment. This dis-
course 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
branch of the discourse is the answer to the second part
of the question, " What shall be the signs of thy coming,

22

and of tlie end of the world ?'' You will find, indeed, in
some modern expositions, such a turn given to the expres-
sions in which the apostles put their questions, as makes
the two branches of the sentence, not two distinct ques-
tions, 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 expositors 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 lan-
guage ; which, however, are no idioms of the language of
the inspired penmen, but the idioms of the rabbinical di-
vines,— a set of despicable 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 them-
selves in the mysteries 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 to 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 of the world, in the language
of the apostles, may signify the end of any thing else, or
carry any other meaning than what the words must natu-
rally convey, to every one who believes that the world shall
have an end, and has never bewildered his understanding:

23

in the schools of the rabbin. The apostles, therefore, in
the text clearly ask 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 ques-
tions; and as the questions were distinctly propounded,
the answers are distinctly 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 similar, occasions. The truth is,
that it was our Lord's custom, as appears from the evange-
lical 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 para-
bles were uttered more than once. It is a rule, however,
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 differ-
ent 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 Pharisees
about the signs of the 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 discourse 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

24

similitude of the lightning, by which our Lord represents
the suddenness of his future coming, no allusion could be
intended to the route of the Roman armies, when they in-
vaded Palestine ; and that the image of the eagles gathered
round the carcass hath been expounded with more refine-
ment than truth of the Roman standards planted round
Jerusalem, when the city was besieged by Vespasian. No
argument, therefore, can be drawn from these poetical al-
lusions, that the coming of the Son of man, which is com-
pared to the flash of lightning, was what has been called
his coming figuratively to destroy Jerusalem. I now pro-
ceed 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
of the earth shall be seized with consternation, seeing him
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 overthrow 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

25

Gentiles, which, as St. Paul intimates, is to follow the
restoration of the 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 mentioned
this fulfilling of the times of the Gentiles, then, according
to St. Luke, our Lord introduced those signs in the sun
and the heavenly bodies. These signs, therefore, 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 ful-
filling. 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 dis-
persion by the arms of Vespasian. The dispersion, I say,
of the Jewish people, which, 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 is predicted ; probably of some
who shall pretend to oppose, by force of arms, the return
of the chosen race to the holy land, and the re-establish-
ment of their kingdom. And if this be the probable in-
terpretation 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 de-
claration 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

26

words in the application of that parable,- — namely, all the
first signs which answer to the budding of the fig-tree's
leaves.

Great stress has been laid upon the expressions with
which, as St. Matthew reports them, our Lord introduces
the mention of those signs in sun and moon which are to
precede his advent : " Immediately after the tribulation of
those days, shall the sun be darkened."' The word imme-
diately may seem to direct us to look for this darkness of
sun and moon in something immediately succeeding the
calamities which the preceding part of the prophecy de-
scribes: and as nothing could more immediately succeed
the distresses of the Jewish war than the demolition of the
city and the dispersion 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 " figu-
rative language, 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 im-
pending evil." But we learn from St. Luke, that before
our Lord spoke of these signs, he mentioned the final dis-
solution of the Jewish polity, in the plainest terms, with-
out any figure. He had said, "They," that is (as appears
by the preceding sentence), this people, "shall fall by the
edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all
nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gen-
tiles." And to what purpose should he afterwards pro-
pound in a figure what he had already described in plain
words ? Or how could the figurative description, thus ac-
companied 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

27

mistake concerning the extent of that period of affliction
which is intended by the tribulation of those days. These
words, I beheve, 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 of the 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 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 tlie expiration of it will the true church be se-
cure from 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, — imme-
diately 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 na-
ture of the thing, not likely to be effected without great
disturbances. By this interpretation, and I think in no
other way, the parallel passages of St. Matthew, St. Mark,
and St. Luke, may be brought exactly to one and the same
meaning.

I shall now venture to conclude, notwithstanding the
great authorities which incline the other way, that the
phrase of " our Lord's coming," wherever it occurs in his
prediction of the Jewish war, as well as in most other pas-
sages of the New Testament, is to be taken in its literal
meaning, as denoting his coming in person, in visible pomp
and glory, to the general judgment.

Nor is the belief of that coming, so explicitly foretold,

28

an article of little moment in the Christian's creed, how-
ever some who call themselves Christians may affect to
slight it. It is true, that the expectation of a future re-
tribution is what ought, in the nature of the thing, to be a
sufficient restraint 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
individual's lot would be silently determined, without any
public entry of the Almighty Judge, and without the
formaUty 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 reason's side, to paint the prospect of future good, and
display the terror of future suffering, hath been pleased to
ordain that the business shall be so conducted, and the
method of the business so clearly foretold, as to strike the
profane with awe, and animate the humble and the timid.
He hath warned us, — and let them who dare to extenuate
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 to respect, no ob-
scurity of condition shall exclude the just from public
honour, or screen the guilty from public shame. Opu-
lence will find itself no longer powerful, poverty will be
no longer weak; birth will no longer be distinguished,
meanness will no longer pass unnoticed. The rich and
poor will indeed strangely meet together; when all the
inequalities of the present life shall disappear, and the
conqueror and his captive, the monarch and his subject,
the lord and his vassal, the statesman and the peasant.

29

tlie philosopher and the unlettered liind — 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, and equally public ; while the
eye of the omniscient God hath been equally upon them
all, — while all are at last equally brought to answer to
their common Judge, and the angels stand around specta-
tors, 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 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, in vain, call upon the mountains and the
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 unlooked 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 watch-
fulness 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 !

30

SERMON IV.

I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, — or unto
the King. — IVsalm xlv. 1 .

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 as-
sistance, I purpose to explain to you its application, both
in the general subject, and in each particular part, to this
great occasion; which will afford both seasonable and edi--
fying matter of discourse.

It is a poetical composition, in the form of an epithala-
mium, or song of congratulation, upon the marriage of a
great king, to be sung to music at the wedding-feast. The
topics are such as were the usual groundwork of such gra-
tulatory odes with the poets of antiquity : they all fall under
two general heads — the praises of the bridegroom, 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 administration of his government — for
the magnificence of his court. The bride is celebrated for
her high birth — for the beauty of her person, the richness
of her dress, and her numerous train of blooming bride-
maids. It is foretold that the marriage will be fruitful,
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 com-
mon arrangement of every wedding-song: and were it
not that it is come down to us in the authentic collection
of the sacred hymns of the Hebrew church, and that some
particular expressions are found in it, which, with all the
allowance that can be made for the hyperbolisms of the
oriental style (of which, of late years, w^e have been accus-
* Preached on Christmas-day.

31

tomed to liear more than is true, as applied to tlie sacred
writers), are not easily applicable to the parties, even in a
royal marriage ; — were it not for such expressions which
occm-, and for the notorious circumstance 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 of the 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 favourite image with all the ancient prophets, when they
would set forth the loving-kindness 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
Lord's own use of it, who describes God in the act of set-
tling the church in her final state of peace and perfection,
as a king making a marriage for his son; — the conjec-
ture that will naturally arise upon the recollection of
these circumstances will be, that this epithalamium, pre-
served among the sacred writings of the ancient Jewish
church, celebrates no common marriage, but the great
mystical wedding, — that Christ is the bridegroom, and the
spouse his church. And this was the unanimous opinion
of all antiquity, without exception even of the Jewish ex-
positors. For although, with the veil of ignorance and
prejudice upon their understandings and their hearts, they
discern not the completion of this or of any of their pro-
phecies in the Son of Mary, yet they all allow, that this is
one of the prophecies 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

32

of great name and authority, and, indeed, of great learn-
ing, who have maintained, that the immediate subject of
the psalm is the marriage of Solomon with 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, unfortunately gained cre-
dit, in a late age, in the reformed churches, upon the au-
thority of Calvin ; insomuch that, in an English transla-
tion 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 argument prefixed to the
psalm: "The majestic of Solomon, his honour, strength,
beauty, riches, and power, are praised ; and also his mar-
riage with the Egyptian, being an heathen woman, is
blessed." It is added, indeed, " Under this figure, the
wonderfuU majestic and increase of the kingdom of Christ,
and his church now taken of the Gentiles, is described."
Now the account of this matter is this : This English
translation of the Bible, which is, indeed, upon the whole,
a very good one, and furnished with very 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 character of Calvin, which
was no more than was due to his great piety and his great
learning ; but they unfortunately contracted also a venera-
tion for his opinions, — a veneration more than was due to
the opinions of any uninspired teacher. The bad eff'ects of
this unreasonable partiality the Church of England feels,
in some points, to the present day ; and this false notion,
which they who were led away with it circulated among
the people of this country, ofthe true subject of this psalm,
in the argument which they presumed to prefix to it, is
one instance 9f this calamitous consequence.

Calvin was undoubtedly a good man, and a great di-

33

vine: but, with all his sireat talents and his oTeatlearnino-
he was, by his want of taste, and by the poverty of his
imagination, a most wretched expositor of the prophecies,
just as he would have been a wretched expositor of any
secular poet. He had no sense of the beauties, and no
understanding of the imagery of poetry ; and the far
greater part of the prophetical writings, and- all the psalms,
without exception, are poetical : and there is no stronger
instance 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 opposition 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 con-
junction of Christ with his church is propounded to us."

It is most certain, that, in the prophetical book of the
Song of Solomon, the union of Christ and his church is
described in images taken entirely from the mutual pas-
sion and early loves of Solomon and his Egyptian bride.
And this, perhaps, might be the ground of Calvin's
error : he might imagine, that this psalm was another
shorter poem upon the same subject, and of the same
cast. But no two 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
know 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 any where find king Solomon. We find, indeed, pas-
sages 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 address, mentioned
in the second verse. These might be qualities, for any
thing that we know to the contrary, belonging to Solomon ;
I say, for any thing that we know to the contrary ; for in
these particulars the sacred history gives no information.
We read of Solomon's learning, and of his wisdom, and of the

34

admirable sagacity and integrity of his judicial decisions:
but we read not at all, as far as I recollect, of the extraor
dinary comeliness of his person, or the affability of his
speech. And if he possessed these qualities, they are no
more than other monarchs have possessed in a degree not
to be surpassed by Solomon. Splendour and stateliness of
dress, twice mentioned in this psalm, were not peculiar to
Solomon, but belong to every great and opulent monarch.
Other circumstances might be mentioned, applicable, in-
deed, to Solomon, but no otherwise than as generally ap-
plicable to every king. But the circumstances which are
characteristic of the king who is the hero of this poem,
are every one of them utterly inapplicable 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 sword upon his
thigh, rides in pursuit of flying foes, makes havoc among
them with his sharp arrows, and reigns at last by conquest
over his vanquished enemies. Now, Solomon was no war-
rior : he enjoyed along reign of forty years of uninterrupted
peace. He retained, indeed, the sovereignty of the coun-
tries which his father had conquered, but he made no new
conquests of his own. " He had dominion over all the
region west of the Euphrates, over all the kings on this
side of the river (they were his vassals), and he had peace
on all sides round about him. And Judah and Israel
dwelt safely, every man under his vine, and under his fig-
tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon."
If Solomon ever girded a sword 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 hunt-
ing. We read, indeed, that Jehovah, offended at the
idolatries of Solomon in his old age, stirred up an adver-
sary unto Solomon in Hadad the Edomite, and another in
Rezon the Syrian, and a third in Jeroboam the son of Ne-
bat. But though Hadad and Rezon bore Solomon and his
people a grudge, there is no reason to suppose that the

35

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 two circumstances ;
the first, that the return of Hadad into his country from
Egypt was early in the reign of Solomon; for he returned
as soon as he heard that David and Joab were both dead.
And if this Edomite had provoked a war in so early a
period of Solomon's reign, the sacred history could not
have spoken in the terms of which it speaks of the unin-
terrupted peace which Israel enjoyed all the days of Solo-
mon. The second circumstance is this :— In that portion
of the history which mentions these adversaries, it is said
of the third adversary, Jeroboam, "that he lifted up his
hand against the king ;" and yet it is certain, that Jero-
boam never lifted up his hand till Solomon himself was
in his grave. Solomon was 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." Jeroboam thereupon fled into Egypt, and re-
mained there till the death of Solomon. And this makes
it probable of the two foreign adversaries, that, whatever
hatred might be rankling in their hearts, they awaited for
Solomon's death, before they proceeded to open hostilities.
But, however that might be, it is most certain, that the
character of a warrior and a conquerer never less belonged
to any monarch than to Solomon.

Another circumstance of distinction in the great per-
sonage celebrated in this psalm, is his love of righteous-
ness and hatred of vi^ickedness. The original expresses
that he had set his heart upon righteousness, and bore an
antipathy to wickedness. His love of righteousness and
hatred of wickedness had been so much the ruling princi-
ples of his whole conduct, that for this he was advanced
to a condition of the highest bliss, and endless perpetuity
was promised to his kingdom. The word we render righ-
teousness, in its strict and proper meaning, signifies "jus-
D 2

36

tice," or the constant and perpetual observance of the na-
tural distinctions 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 judicial authority. But the word we render wickedness,
denotes not only injustice, but whatever is contrary to
moral purity in the indulgence of the appetites of the in-
dividual, and whatever is contrary to a principle of true
piety toward God. Now the word righteousness being
here opposed to this wickedness, must certainly be taken
as generally as the word to which it is opposed in a con-
trary signification. It must signify, therefore, not merely
"justice," in the sense we have explained, but purity of
private manners, and piety toward God. Now Solomon was
certainly upon the whole a good king ; nor was he without
piety : but his love of righteousness, in the large sense in
which we have shown the word is to 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 worth and virtue of his character,
had no such predominant attachment to righteousness nor
antipathy to wickedness, in the large sense in which the
words are taken by the Psalmist, but that his love for the
one, and his hatred of the other, were overpowered by his
doating fondness for many of his seven hundred wives,
who had so much influence with him in his later years,
that they turned away his heart to other gods, and pre-
vailed upon the aged king to erect temples to their idols.

Another circumstance wholly inapplicable to Solomon
is, the numerous progeny of sons, the issue of the mar-
riage, all of whom were to be made princes over all the
earth. Solomon had but one son, that we read of, that ever
came to be a king, his son and successor Rehoboam ; and
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.

37

Upon the whole, therefore, it appears, that in the cha-
racter which the Psalmist draws of the king, whose mar-
riage is the occasion and the subject of this song, some
things are so general, as in a certain sense to be appli-
cable to any great king, of fable or of history, of ancient
or of modern times. And these things are, indeed, appli-
cable to Solomon, because he was a great king, but for no
other reason. They are no otherwise applicable to him,
than to king Priam or Agamemnon, to king Tarquin or
king Herod, to a king of Persia or a king of Egypt, a
king of Jewry or a king of England. But those circum-
stances of the description which are properly characte-
ristic, are evidently appropriate to some particular king,
— not common to any and to all. Every one of these cir-
cumstances, in the Psalmist's description of his king, posi-
tively exclude king Solomon; being manifestly contra-
dictory to the history of his reign, inconsistent with 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 pro-
mise of the endless perpetuity of his kingdom. At the
same time, every particular of the description, interpreted
according to the usual and established significance of the
figured style of prophecy, is applicable to, and expressive
of, some circumstance in the mystical union between Christ
and his church. A greater, therefore, than Solomon is
here; and this I shall show more particularly in the se-
quel. It is certain, therefore, 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 with great good judgment, that upon
the revision of our English Bible, in the reign of James
the First, the Calvinistic argument of this psalm, as it
stood in queen Elizabeth's Bible, was expunged, and that
other substituted which we now read in our Bible of the

38

larger size, in these words: "The majesty and grace of
Christ's kingdom ; the duty of the church, and the bene-
hts thereof;" which, 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 expound.

SERMON V.

I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, or unto
the King. — Psalm xlv. 1 .

In my last Discourse in this place, I undertook to show,
that the subject of this psalm (which, in its composition, is
evidently in the form of anepithalamium, or a marriage song)
is the connexion between 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 imme-
diate and single subject of the psalm, in the first intention
of the author, without any reference to the marriage of
Solomon, or any earthly monarch, as a type. But as this,
which was the unanimous opinion of all antiquity, has
been brought into some degree of doubt, by the credit
which a contrary opinion obtained 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 to show, by the particulars of
the character of the Psalmist's king, that Solomon more
especially, but in truth every earthly monarch, is excluded.
1 might otherwise have drawn my conclusion at once,
from that portion of the first verse which I chose for my
text: " I speak of the things which I have made touching
the King, or unto the King;" or, as the original might be
still more exactly rendered, " I address my performance
to the King." It is a remark, and a very just remark, of
the Jewish expositors, — and it carries the more weight

39

because it conies from Jews, who, by their prejudices
against the Christian name, might have thought them-
selves interested to keep out of sight a principle so ser-
viceable to the Christian scheme of interpretation, — but
it is their remark, and their principle, that the appellation
of " the King," in the Book of Psalms, is an appropriate
title of the Messiah ; 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 admission, therefore, of these Jewish commenta-
tors, the Messiah is the immediate subject of this psalm.

My anxiety to settle the question of the immediate sub-
ject 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 now about to deliver: for without a
right comprehension of the general subject, it will be im-
possible that the parts should be understood. And yet
the psalm is, perhaps, one of the most important to be
well understood in all its parts, of any in the whole col-
lection. Farther, to settle_this point of the general sub-
ject of the psalm, I must observe, and desire you to bear
it in remembrance, that in the prophecies of the Old Tes-
tament, which set forth the union between the Redeemer
and his church, under the figure of the state of wedlock,
we read of two celebrations of that mystical wedding, at
very different and distant seasons ; or, to be more distinct
and particular, we read of a marriage — a separation, on
accountof the woman's incontinence, that is, on account of
her idolatry — and, in the end, of a remarriage with the
woman reclaimed and pardoned. The original marriage
was contracted with the Hebrew church, by the institu-
tion of the Mosaic covenant, at the time of the exodus, as
we are taught expressly by the prophets Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. The separation was the dispersion of the Jewish
nation by the Romans, when they were reduced to that
miserable state in which to this day they remain, — their
city laid in ruins, their temple demolished and burned,

40

and the forms of the Mosaic worship abolished. Then it
was that the sceptre of ecclesiastical sway (for that is the
sceptre meant in Jacob's famous prophecy) departed from
Judah. The Jews were no longer the depositaries of the laws
and oracles of God ; they were no longer to take the lead
in matters of religion and worship ; and the government
even of the Christian church of Jerusalem, remained but
for a very short time after this in the hands of a bishop of
the circumcision; — so strictly was the prophecy fulfilled
of the departure of the ecclesiastical sceptre from Judah,
the only remnant then visibly extant in the world of the
Jewish nation. It is the same event which is predicted in
many other prophecies, as the expulsion of the incontinent
wife from the husband's house. Her expulsion, howevei-,
was to be but temporary, though of long duration : it was
a separation, as we should say in modern language, from
bed and board, — not an absolute divorce, such as, by the
principles of the Mosaic law (which in this point, how-
ever, was not perfectly consistent with the original divine
law of marriage), set the woman at liberty to unite herself
to another man, and, in that event, prohibited her return
to her first husband. On the contrary, the same pro-
phecies that threatened the expulsion maintain the conti-
nuance of the husband's property in the separated woman,
and promise a reconciliation and final reinstatement of her
in her husband's favour. " Where is this bill of your
mother's divorcement?" saith the prophet Isaiah. The
question implies a denial that any such instrument existed.
And in a subsequent part of his prophecies, he expressly
announces the reconciliation: " Blush not," saith the Re-
deemer 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 wedded in

41

youth, but afterward rejected, saith thy God. For a small
moment have 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, proclama-
tion is made by a voice issuing from the throne, " The
marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made
herself ready;" that is, hath prepared herself, by penitence
and reformation, to be reunited to him. And one of the
seven angels calls to St. John, " Come hither, and 1 will
show thee the Lamb's wife." Then he shows him " the
lioly Jerusalem," that is, the church of the converted
Jews. These nuptials, therefore, of the Lamb are not, as
some have imagined, a marriage with a second wife, a
Gentile church, taken into the place of the Jewish, irre-
vocably discarded : no such idea of an absolute divorce
is to be found in prophecy. But it is a public reconcilia-
tion with the original wife, the Hebrew church, become
the mother church of Christendom, notified by the cere-
mony of a remarriage ; for to no other than the reconciled
Hebrew church belongs in prophecy the august character
of the Queen Consort. The season of this renewed mar-
riagre is the second advent, when the new covenant will
be established with the natural Israel; and it is this re-
marriage which is the proper subject 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 his regal office in his
care and government of his church: but the second ad-
vent is the season when his glory and majesty will be
openly manifested to the whole world, and the Jews visi-
bly reinstated in his favour. The marriage, therefore,
which is the peculiar subject of this psalm, must be that

42

reunion of the Saviour with the Jewish cliurch, which 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 of the gospel, the guests were summoned to
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 wed-
ding, he makes the general outline of its divine history
the groundwork of this highly mystic and important song;
to the exposition of which, without farther preface, I shall
now proceed.

The psalm takes its beginning in a plain, unaffected
manner, with a verse briefly declarative of the importance
of the subject, the author's extraordinary knowledge of it,
and the manner in which it will be treated :
" My heart is inditing a good matter j"

or rather,

" My heart labours with a goodly theme :"

for the word " inditing" answers but poorly, as our trans-
lators themselves appear from their margin to have been
well aware, to the emphasis of the original, which ex-
presses, that the mind of the prophet was excited and
heated, boiling over, as it were, 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 5"

that is, as hath been abundantly explained, to the great
King Messiah.

" My tongue is the pen of a ready-writer 3"
that is, of a well-instructed writer,— a writer prepared

43

and ready, by a perfect knowledge of the subject he un-
dertakes to treat.

But with what sense and meaning is it, that the Psahn-
ist compares his " tongue" to the " pen" of such a writer?
It is to intimate, as I apprehend, that what he is about to
deliver is no written composition, but an extemporaneous
eti'usion, without any premeditation 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 utterance.

After this brief preface, declaring that his subject is
Messiah, chiefly in his kingly character, — that he cannot
contain the thoughts which are rising in his mind, — that
he speaks not from himself, or from previous study, but
from inspiration at the moment, — he plunges at once into
the subject he had propounded, addressing the King Mes-
siah, as if he were actually standing in the royal presence.
And in this same strain, indeed, the whole song proceeds;
as referring to a scene present to the prophet's eye, or to
things which he saw doing.

This scene consists of three principal parts, relating to
three grand divisions of the whole 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 the gospel, and our
Lord's victory over all his enemies. This comprehends

44

the whole period from our Lord's ascension to 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, — that is, the restoration of the
converted Jews to the religious prerogative of their na-
tion.

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 j"
rather,

" Thou art adorned with beauty beyond tiie 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, and
of his physiognomy as unpleasing. It would be difficult,
I believe, to find any better foundation for this strange
notion, than an injudicious interpretation of certain pro-
phecies, in a literal meaning, which represent the humilia-
tion which the Son of God was to undergo, by clothing
his divinity with flesh, in images taken from personal de-
formity. But, from what is recorded in the gospels, of
the ease with which our Saviour mixed in what in the
modern style we should call good company, — of the re-
spectful attention shown to him, beyond any thing his
reputed birth or fortune might demand, — and the manner
in which his discourses, either of severe reproof or gentle
admonition, were received, — we may reasonably conclude,
that he had a dignity of exterior appearance, remarkably
corresponding with that authority of speech, which, upon
some occasions, impressed 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 admiration of all who heard him. " Never man spake
like this man,'" was the confession of his enemies ; and,

45

upon his first appearance in the synagogue at Nazareth,
when he had finished his exposition of a certain text of
Isaiah, which he applied to himself, "All bare him wit-
ness, and wondered at the gracious words which pro-
ceeded out of his mouth." Thus, without knowing it,
the congregation attested the completion of this prophecy
of the Psalmist, in one branch of it, — in the " grace" which
literally, it seems, was "poured upon his lips." But cer-
tainly 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, prepos-
sessing in his features, and something of dignity in person,
which, while 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 both its branches, — in
the beauty of our Saviour's person, no less than in the
graciousness of his speech.

External feature, however, is generally the impression
of the mind upon the body, and words are but the 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 were 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 powers of his mind, intellectual
and moral ; intellectual, in his comprehension of all know-
ledge ; moral, in his power of resisting all the allurements
of vice, and of encountering all the difficulties of virtue

46

and religion, despising hardship and shame, enduring pain
and death. This was the beauty with which he was
adorned beyond the sons of men. In him, the beauty of
the divine image was refulgent in its original perfection ;
in all the sons of Adam, obscured and marred, in a degree
to be scarce discernible, — the will depraved, the imagina-
tion 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 will at enmity with God ; a heart disregarding his
law, insensible of his goodness, fearless of his wrath,
swelling with the passions 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 mysterious manner of his conception, was born with-
out spot of sin; he grew up and lived full of grace and
truth, perfectly sanctified in flesh and spirit. With this
beauty he was "adorned beyond the sons of men."

Again, the gracefulness of his speech is put figuratively
for the perfection, sublimity, excellence, and sweetness of
the doctrine he delivered ; — a doctrine, in truth, intrinsi-
cally perfect ; sublime, as being far above the discovery
of human wisdom ; 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 by sense what immediately
surrounds him, but contemplating at a distance only the
objects of pure intellect ; — a doctrine sweeter to the rege-
nerate soul than honey and the honeycomb to 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 efliicacy of his inter-
cession, the constant supply of succour from the Holy

47

Spirit. This doctrine, cherishing the contrite, consoling
the afflicted, banishing despair, raising the fallen, justify-
ing sinners, giving life to the dead, — in a word, the glad-
tidings of salvation, — this is the " grace" which is poured
over the "lips' of the Son of God.

It is to be observed, that the happiness and glory to
which 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, " Therefore," — for this
reason, in reward of the holiness perfected in thy own life,
and thy gracious instruction of sinners in the ways 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 description 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 Christianity, the successful propagation of the
gospel, and our Lord's final victory over all his adversa-
ries,— a work gradually accomplished, and occupying the
whole 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 comeliness of the king's
person, and the graciousness of his speech, the Psalmist,
in the same figurative style, passes to the topic of his
prowess as a warrior, under which character 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
Revelation, as going forth upon a " white horse, with a

48
crown upon his head, and a bow in his hand, conquering
and to conquer." The Psalmist, in imagery ahnost the
same, accosts him as a warlike prince preparing to take
the field, — describes his weapons, and the magnificence of
his armour, and promises him victory and universal do-
minion.

3. " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh,

O most mighty ! with thy glory and thy majesty."

This verse, I fear, must be but ill understood by the
English reader. The words " O most mighty !" very
weakly render the original, which is a single word, one
of the titles of Christ, in its literal sense expressive of
might and valour. But the great difficulty which, in my
apprehension, must perplex the English reader, lies in the
exhortation 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 words 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 of the war-
rior's dress. They signify such sort of armour, of costly
materials and exquisite workmanship, as was worn by the
greatest generals, and by kings when they led their armies
in person ; and was contrived 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 pros]5erous, pursue.

In the cause of truth, humility, and righteousness ;"

that is, take aim w^ith thy bow and arrow at the enemy ;
be prosperous, or successful in the aim taken ; ride on in

49

pursuit of the flying foe, in the cause of reliQ;ious truth,
evangelical humility, and righteousness.

" And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things ;"

rather,

" And thy own right hand shall show thee wonderful things."

In these last words, the Saviour, effecting every thing
by his own power, is represented 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, to
attempt what might seem impracticable ; singly to attack
whole squadrons of the enemy, — to cut his way through
their embattled troops, — to scale their ramparts and their
walls, — and at last achieves what seems a wonder to him-
self, when tbe fray is over, when he is at leisure to survey
the bulwarks he has demolished, and the many carcasses
his single arm has stretched upon the plain. Such great
things he will be able to effect ; for

5. " Thine arrows," saith the Psalmist, " are very sharp
In the heart of the 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 Dis-
course. I shall close, therefore, for the present, with this
preliminary observation, as the fundamental principle of
the interpretation, which, by God's assistance I shall give,
That the war in which 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 souls.

50

SERMON VI.

I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, or unto
the King. — Psalm xlv. 1.

In my last discourse, I proceeded so far in my exposi-
tion 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.

From the commendation of the comeliness of the King's
person, and the graciousness 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 justification,
the Psalmist, persevering in the same figurative strain,
passes to the topic of his royal Bridegroom's military
prowess. He accosts the King as a warlike prince, pre-
paring to take the field,— describes his weapons and the
magnificence of his armour, and promises him victory and
universal dominion.

I shall now endeavour to open and explain to you, with
God's assistance, the true spiritual meaning of all this high-
wrought imagery. But first I must repeat, with some en-
largement and explanation, as the fundamental principle
of the interpretation I am about to give, the observation
with which I closed my last discourse,— namely, that the
war in which the Psalmist represents the Saviour as en-
gaged, is very different from the wars which the princes of
this world wage with one another : it is not for the de-
struction of the lives of men, but for the preservation of

51

their souls. ft may happen indeed, — ^it lias happened
heretofore, — in our own times it has happened, and it will
inevitably happen again, that the struggles of Christianity,
with the adverse faction, may kindle actual war between
the secular powers, taking part on one side or on the other.
This our Lord himself foretold. " Suppose ye,'' he said,
" that I am come to 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 establishments by the sword, by the sword
they may and must be defended. It is the mere cant of
puritanism to allege tlie precept of mutual forgiveness, the
prohibitions of returning evil for evil, and of resisting per-
secution, as reprobating such wars. All those injunctions
relate to the conduct of individuals with respect to one an-
other, 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 revenge in tlie retaliation of private injuries ; and least
of all is he to resist by force even the injustice, as affecting
himself, of his lawful sovereign. But when antichrist
arms his powers for the persecution of the faithful and the
extinction of the faith, if Christian princes arm their powers
to oppose him, their war is godly, and their cause is
blessed. These wars, however, are not within the pur-
view of this prophecy, as the sequel of my discourse will
show. This prophetic text of the Psalmist relates only to
that spiritual w^ar 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, accord-
ing 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,
E 2

52

It stabs and cuts, opens dreadful gaslies where it falls, se-
vers limbs, lops the head, or cleaves the body.

The arrow is a light missile weapon, 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, when it hits, so sm.all is the wound,
and so swift the passage of the weapon, that it is scarcely
felt, till it fixes its sharp point in the very heart.

Now both these weapons, the sword 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 two different images.

The word of God may be divided, indeed, into two
parts, — the word of reproof, commination, and terror ; and
the word of persuasion, promise, and hope. The former
holds up to the sinner the picture of himself, — sets forth
the turpitude of sin — the holiness of God — God's hatred
of unrighteousness, — and alarms the conscience with the
danger of a state of enmity with God, and with denuncia-
tions of implacable wrath and endless punishment.

The second, the word of persuasion, promise, and hope,
sets before the penitent the riches of God's mercy, dis-
played in the scheme of man's redemption,— points to the
cross, where man's guilt was expiated, — bids the contrite
sinner rely on the Redeemer's intercession, — 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, the word of persuasion, is
the arrow shot from his bow.

For the sense of the first metaphor, we have the autho-
rity of the sacred writers themselves. "The sword of the
Spirit," says St. Paul to the Ephesians, "is the word of

God." And ill the Epistle to the Hebrews, the full signi-
fication of the fig-ure is opened, and the propriety of the
application shown : " For the word of God," says the in-
spired author, " is quick and powerful (rather, lively and
energetic), and sharper than any two-edged sword, and
piercing to the parting of soul and spirit, and to the joints
and marrow ;" — that is, as the soldier's sword 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 of the body together ; so this spiritual
sword of God's awful word penetrates the inmost recesses
of the human mind — pierces to the very line of separation,
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 members — 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 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 analo-
gous to those figures of speech which run through all lan-
guages, by which, whatever makes a quick and smart im-
pression on the moral feelings, is represented under the
image of a pointed missile weapon, — as when we speak
of " the thrilling darts of harmony," or " the shafts of elo-
quence." The Psalmist speaks of these 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
will remember, is the only king in question. His enemies,
in the highest sense of the word, are those who are avow-
edly leagued with the apostate faction, — atheists, deists,
idolaters, heretics, perverse disputers, — those who, in any
manner, of set design oppose the gospel — who resist the
truth by argument, or encounter it with ridicule — who ex-

plain it away by sophisticated interpretations, or endeavoiu-
to crush it by the force of persecution. Of such hardened
enemies there is no hope, till they have been hacked and
hewed, belaboured, and all but slain (in the strong lan-
guage of one of the ancient prophets), by the heavy sword
of the word of terror. But, in a lower sense, all are ene-
mies till they hear of Christ, and the terms of his peace are
offered to them. Many such are wrought upon by mild
admonition, and receive in their hearts the arrows of the
word of persuasion. Such, no doubt, were many of those
Jews who were pricked to the heart, by St, Peter's first
sermon, on the day of Pentecost : 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 afterward be pierced by the arrow,
and carry about in their hearts its barbed point. And by
the joint effect of these two weapons, the sword and the
arrow, the word of terror and the word of persuasion,
"peoples," says the Psalmist, — that is, whole kingdoms
and nations in a mass, " shall fall under thee," — shall for-
sake their ancient superstitions, renounce their idols, and
submit themselves to Christ,

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 under-
stood of whatever is admirable and amiable in the external
form and appearance of the Christian religion. First, the
character of Jesus himself; his piety toward God — his
philanthropy toward man — his meekness, humility, ready
forgiveness of injuries, patience, endurance of pain and
death. Secondly, the same light of good works shining,
in a less degree, in the lives of his disciples, particularly
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 conciliate the good-will of men,
and mitigate the malice of the persecutor, are aptly repre-
sented under the image of the Messiah's defensive armour,
and had a principal share in making "peoples fall under
him."

It yet remains to be explained, what is meant, in the
Psalmist's detail of the Messiah's war, by those " wonders"
which " his own right hand was to show him :"

" Tliy own right hand shall show thee wonders."

Our public translation has it " terrible things." But
the notion of terror is not of necessity included in the
sense of the original word, as it is used by the sacred
writers : it is sometimes, indeed, applied by them to fright-
ful things ; but it is also applied, with great latitude, to
things extraordinary in their kind, — grand, admirable,
amazing, awful, — although they should not be frightful.
We have no right, therefore, to take it in the strict sense
of " frightful," unless something in the context points to
that meaning, which is not the case in this passage. And,
accordingly, instead of "terrible," we find, in some of the
oldest English Bibles, the better chosen word " wonderful."

Now the " wonderful things" which Messiah's " own
right hand" showed him, I take to be the overthrow of the
Pagan superstition, in the Roman empire, and other great
kingdoms of the world, by the mere preaching of the gos-
pel, seconded by the exemplary lives and the miracles of
the first preachers, and by their patient endurance of im-
prisonment, torture, and death, for the sake of Christ. It
was, indeed, a wonderful thing, wrought by Christ's single
arm, when his religion prevailed over the whole system of
idolatry, supported as it was by the authority of sove-
reigns, by the learning of philosophers, and most of all,
by the inveterate prejudices of the vulgar, attached to their
false gods by the gratification which their very worship
afforded to the sensual passions, and by the natural par-
tiality of mankind in favour of any system, however absurd

oG

and corrupt, sanctioned by a long antiquity. It was a
wonderful 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 and enchantments divested of their
power, the idolatrous worship which by those engines of
deceit had been universally established, and for ages sup-
ported, notwithstanding the antiquity of its institutions,
and the bewitching gaiety and magnificence of its festi-
yals, fell into neglect ; when its cruel and lascivious rites,
so long holden in superstitious veneration, on a sudden
became the objects of a just and general abhorrence ; when
the unfrequented temples, spoiled of their immense trea-
sures, sunk in ruins, and the images, stript of their gor-
geous robes and costly jewels, were thrown into the Tyber,
or into the common receptacles of filth and ordure. It
was a wonderful thing, when the minds of all men took a
sudden turn ; kings became the nursing fathers of the
church, statesmen courted her alliance, philosophy em-
braced her faith, and even the sword was justly drawn in
her defence.

These were the " wonderful things" effected by Christ's
right hand ; and in these, this part of the Psalmist's pro-
phecy has received its accomplishment. Less than this
his words cannot mean ; and to more than this they cannot
with any certainty be extended : since these things satisfy
all that is of necessity involved in his expressions.

If his expressions went of necessity to "terrible things,"
or were determined to that meaning by the context, inso-
much that the inspired author could be understood to speak
not of things simply wonderful, but wonderful in the par-
ticular 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 own right hand, in the de-
struction of antichrist, and the slaughter of his armies, in
the latter ages. The word of prophecy forewarns us, and

57

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 war against the
nations professing Christianity : and, after much suffering
of the faithful, and bloody struggles of the contending par-
ties, 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 antichristian armies with tremen-
dous slaughter. This is represented in the prophecies
under images that can be understood of nothing but the
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 Eze-
kiel summons all ravenous birds, and all beasts of prey,
" to assemble and come to the slaughter which Jehovah
should make for them, — a great slaughter on the moun-
tains 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 princes 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 which 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 with a loud voice to
all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. Come and
gather yourselves together to the supper of the great God;
that ye may eat the flesh of captains, and the flesh of
mighty men, and 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 for-

58

mer 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 allu-
sion was indeed intended to those scenes of terror, yet fu-
ture, which however, in the appointed season, must over-
take the wicked world. But as terrible things are not of
necessity included in the import of his words, which goes
not necessarily farther than " wonderful," and as he men-
tions those wonderful things before the thread of his pro-
phecy is brought down to the second 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.
It will be safer to rest in those wonderful things which
actually came to pass within the period he is yet upon,
and were undoubtedly brought about by Messiah's power,
as the true^accomplishment of this part of the prophecy.
The suppression of idolatry in the Roman empire, and the
establishment of the Christian 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 ade-
quate, 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 on the throne of his mediatorial
kingdom, and governed with perfect justice. He addresses
him as God, whose throne is everlasting, and sceptre
straight; as a monarch, whose heart is set upon righ-
teousness, whose antipathy is wickedness.

6. "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever;

A straight sceptre is tlie sceptre of thy royalty.

7. "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness j

59

Therefore God liath anointed thee, thy own God,
With the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

It was shown, in my first Discourse upon this psahn,
liow inapplicable this address is to Solomon; and it is
obvious, that it is equally inapplicable to any earthly mo-
narch : 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, it can be said, that he loves righteous-
ness with a perfect love, and hates wickedness with a per-
fect hate; of no sceptre, but the sceptre of God and of his
Christ, that it is a straight sceptre. The sceptre has been,
from the earliest ages, a badge of royalty. It was origi-
nally nothing more than a straight slender rod, studded
sometimes for ornament with little nails of gold. It was
an emblem of the perfect integrity of the monarch in the
exercise of his power, both by himself and by his minis-
ters, inflexibly adhering to the straight line of right and
justice, as a mason or carpenter to his rule. The perfec-
tion of the emblem consisted in the straightness of the
stick; for every thing else was ornament. The straight-
ness, therefore, ascribed by the Psalmist to Messiah's
sceptre, is to be understood of the invariable justice of the
administration of his government. Now, certainly, there
have been many kings, both in ancient and in modern
times, to whom the praise is due of a cordial regard in
general to righteousness, and of a settled principle of
dislike to wickedness ; many who, in the exercise of their
authority, and the measures of their government, 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, and the seductions of temptation ; inso-
much that that predominant love of righteousness and
hatred of iniquity, maintaining an absolute ascendency in
the mind, in all times, and upon all occasions, which the
Psalmist attributes to his heavenly King, has belonged to

60

none that ever wore an earthly crown: much less is the
perfect straightness of the sceptre, a perfect conformity to
the rule of right, to be found in the practice and execution
of the governments of the world. It will happen, in num-
berless instances, and from an infinite complication of
causes, all reducible to the general head of the infirmity
of human nature, 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 administered :
for, if we suppose eyery one of those who are put in au-
thority- 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 departments into which the administration
of any great government must necessarily be divided, and
the great number of persons 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 deception; 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 democratic France over the continent of
Europe, of what is profanely called " the sacred right of
insurrection;" nor to similar doctrines broached by secta-
rian teachers in our own country. It is merely the want
of perfection in human nature, of which government and
governors, with all things and with all persons 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 anarchy : and for this reason, the peaceable sub-
mission of the subject to the very worst of kings is one of
the most peremptory precepts of Christianity. But I

61

contend, that the perfect, undeviating- rectitude of inten-
tion, and the perfect justice of administration, of which
the Psalmist speaks, cannot be ascribed, without impiet)%
to any earthly monarch.

The throne oi God, whether we understand it of God's
natural dominion over the whole creation, or more parti-
cularly of his providential government of the moral world,
or, in a still more restricted sense, of Christ's mediatorial
kingdom, is everlasting ; and the government, both in the
w ill of the governor, and in the execution, is invariably
good and just. But the kingdom of the God-man is in
this place intended. This is 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 ;"'
that is, God hath advanced thee to a state of bliss and
glory above all those whom thou hast vouchsafed to call
thy fellows. It is said too, that the love of righteousness
and hatred of wickedness is the cause that God hath so
anointed him, who yet, in the sixth verse, is himself ad-
dressed as God. It is manifest, that these things can be
said only of that person in whom the Godhead and the
manhood are united, — in whom the human nature is the
subject of the unction, and the elevation to the mediato-
rial kingdom is the reward of the man Jesus : for, in his
divine nature, Christ, being equal with the Father, is in-
capable of any exaltation. Thus, the unction with the
oil of gladness, and the elevation above his fellows, cha-
racterize the manhood; and the perpetual stability of the
throne, and the unsullied justice of the government, de-
clare the Godhead. It is therefore with the greatest pro-
priety that this text is applied to Christ, in the Epistle to
the Hebrews, and made an argument of his divinity ; not
by any forced accommodation 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.

62

The Psalmist is now come down, by a regular and
complete, thougli a summary review of the principal oc-
currences of what may be called the history of the Media-
tor and his kingdom, the Redeemer's life on earth, his
exaltation to his throne in heaven, the successful propaga-
tion of the gospel after his ascension, the suppression of
idolatry, and the establishment of the Christian religion
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 introduces the
great event which has given occasion to the whole song,
— the consummation of the church's happiness and Mes-
siah'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.

SERMON VII.

I speak of the things which 1 have made touching the King, or unto
the King. — Psalm xlv. 1.

We have followed the holy Psalmist, step by step,
through his accurate, though summary prospective view
of the principal occurrences in the history of the Mediator
and his kingdom upon earth, from our Lord's first appear-
ance in the flesh to the epoch of his second advent. I
have explained to you the several images under which the
Psalmist represents 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 under the figures of comeliness of person and
urbanity of speech, the Psalmist describes the unexampled
sanctity of the life of Jesus, and the high consolations of
his doctrine : that under the figure of a warrior, clad in
dazzling armour, with his sword girt upon his thigh, and
shooting his arrows after a flying enemy, Christ is de-

G3
scribed as waging liis spiritual war against sin and Satan
by his powerful word, — represented as a sword, when it
is employed to terrify the conscience of the sinner, and
rouse him, by denunciations of wrath and punishment, to a
sense of his danger ; as an arrow, in its milder effects,
when it pricks the heart with that godly remorse which
brmgs on the sorrow that works true repentance, and ter-
minates jn hope and love. The splendid defensive armour
is an emblem of whatever is externally venerable and
lovely in Christianity, and conduces to conciliate the good-
will of men, and mitigate the malice of the persecutor.
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 em-
pire, and idolatry put down by that emperor's authority.
A few years after, the idolatrous temples were 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 second 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 throughout the whole
sequel of the psalm, which makes, indeed, the greater
part of the entire composition.

Before I enter upon the explanation of particulars in
this part of the song, it may be proper to offer a few words
upon the general propriety and significance of the image
of a marriage, as it is applied here, and in other parts of
Scripture, to Messiah and his church.

Our Lord said of himself, that he came to "preach the
gospel to the poor ;" and the same thing may be said of

G4

the word of revelation in general, — that it was given for
the instruction of all mankind, the lowest as well as the
highest, the most illiterate as well as the wise and learned ;
and, if with any difference, with a special regard to the
benefit of those who, from their condition, were the most
deficient in the means of natural improvement. It may be
reckoned, therefore, a necessary characteristic of divine
revelation, that it shall be delivered in a manner the most
adapted to what are vulgarly called the meanest capaci-
ties. And by this perspicuity, both of precept and of
doctrine, the whole Bible is remarkably distinguished:
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 expla-
nation upon 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 meaning, or that the things themselves, however 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 language, 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 em-
ployed to adapt the profoundest mysteries of religion to
the most ordinary capacities, has been, in all ages, to pro-
pound them by his inspired messengers, the prophets
under the law, and the apostles in the first ages of Chris-
tianity, in figurative expressions, in images and allusions,
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 evident, must be of
a nature not to be adequately typified by any thing in the

05

material world ; and nothing could be found in human
life which 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 Jews has received the express sanction of St
Paul, that the relation of the Saviour and the church
was typified in the union of our first parents, and m
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 of the most en-
tire affection, and the warmest mutual love, between
unequals ; contrary to the admired maxim of the heathen
moralist, that friendship was not to be found but between
equals. The maxim may be true in all human friendsliip,
except the conjugal, but fails completely in the love be-
tween Christ and the church, in which the affection on
both sides is the most cordial, though the rank of the par-
ties be the most disparate. Secondly, The union is indis-
soluble, except by a violation of the nuptial vow. But the
great resemblance of all lies in this ; the never-failing pi-o-
tection 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 circumstances
principally, but in many others also, which the time will
not permit me to recount, the propriety and significance
of the type consists. It is applied with some variety, and
with more or less accuracy, in different parts of holy writ,
according to the purpose of the writer. Where the church
catholic is considered simply in its totality, without distinc-
tion of the parts of which it is composed, the whole church
is taken as the wife : but when it is considered as consist-
ing of two great branches, the church of the natural Israel,
and the church of the Gentiles, of which two branches the
whole was composed in the primitive ages, and will be

F

GG

composed again, then tlie former is considered 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 of the prophet
Isaiah, and very remarkably in this psalm.

In the part of it which we 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 that first strikes him, and fixes his attention, is the
majesty and splendour 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, implies every thing else of elegance
and costly ornament : for among the nations of the east,
in ancient times, perfume w^as considered 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 composi-
tion of their odours, their care and nicety in the prepara-
tion 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 bedewed 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, 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 garments to be such,
as if the aromatic woods had been the very substance out
of which the robes were made :

" Thy garments are all myrrh, aloes, and cassia."

The sequel of this verse is somewhat obscure in the ori-
ginal, by reason of the ambiguity of one little w^ord, which
different interpreters have taken difierently. I shall give
you what in my judgment is the literal rendering of the

07

passag-e, and trust I shall not find it diffioidt to make tlio
meaning of it very clear.

" Thy garments are all myrrh, aloes, and cassia,
Excelling the palaces of ivory,
Excelling those uliich 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, like wood, to rot or to be worm-eaten.
Hence, it was a favourite ornament in the furniture of the
houses and palaces of great men ; and all such ornamen-
tal furniture was plentifully perfumed. The Psalmist,
therefore, says, that the fragrance of the King's garments
far exceeded any thing that met the nostrils of the visitors
in the stateliest and best furnished palaces. But this is
not all : he says, besides, that these perfumes of the royal
garments " excel those which delight thee.'' To under-
stand this, you must recollect, 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 process directed by the law. The
one was used to anoint every article of the 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 but a consecrated priest,
upon pain of death. Some, indeed, of the kings of Da-
vid's line were anointed with it ; but when this was done,
it was by the special direction of a prophet, and it was to
intimate, as I apprehend, the relation of that royal house
to the eternal priesthood, to be instituted in due season in
that family. The other was a compound of other ingre-
dients, 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 of the Psalmist's King de-
V 2

68

note the very same thing which was typified under the
law 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 ser-
vices, and his dress, was the type. The perfumed gar-
ments were typical : first, of the graces and virtues of the
Redeemer himself in his human character ; secondly, of
whatever is refreshino- encourao-ino;, consoling;, and cheer-
ing in the external ministration of the word; and, thirdly,
of the internal comforts of the Holy Spirit. But the in-
cense 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 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 their suffer-
ings, receive from him, in the example of his holy life,
the ministration of the word and sacraments, and the suc-
cours of the Spirit, are far beyond the proportion of any
thing they liave to offer in 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 our own
eyes, must sink into nothing, when they are contrasted with
the exuberant mercy of God extended to us through Christ.
Such is the fragrance breathing from the great King's
wedding garments. We proceed to other particulars in
the magnificent appearance of his court on the wedding-
day, figurative of the glory of the church in its final con-
dition of purity and peace, and of the rank and order of
particular churches.

" Kings' daughters are among thy honourable women."

You will observe, that the word " women," in the Bibles

69

of the larger size, is printed in that character which is
used to distinguish the words which have been inserted by
tlie translators, to make the sense perspicuous to the
English reader, without any thing expressly corresponding
in the original. Omitting the word " women," our trans-
lators might have given the verse, according to their con-
ceptions of the preceding word which describes the women,
thus:

" Kings' daughters are among thy honourables ;"

that is, among the persons appointed to services of honour.
But the original word thus expressed by "honourable
women," or by "honourables," is indeed applied to what-
ever is rare and valued in its kind, and, for that reason, to
illustrious persons, ennobled and distinguished by marks
of royal favour: and in this sense, it certainly is figura-
tively 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 bril-
liant gems, or precious stones. Sparkling is in all lan-
guages figuratively 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 innocence.

But who 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 which, 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 of the
good works of true holiness, will be united, at the season
of the wedding, to Messiah's kingdom. But. inasmuch

0

as Messiah's kingdom is not one of the kingdoms of the
world, and that secular kingdoms will never be immedi-
ately, and in their secular capacity, vassals of his kingdom,
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 now brought to the
perfection of beauty, by the judgments which shall have
purged every one of them of all things that oflend : 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 attention to another lady, distinguished above
them all, by her title, her place, and the superlative rich-
ness of her robes.

" Kings' daughters are among the bright beauties of thy court 3
At thy right-hand the consort has her station.
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
which that one universal is composed. But the queen
consort here, is unquestionably the Hebrew church ; the
church of the natural Israel, reunited, by her conversion,
to her husband, and advanced to the high prerogative of
the mother church of Christendom : and the kings' daugh-
ters are the churches which had been gathered out of the
Gentiles, in the interval between the expulsion of this wife,
and the taking of her home again, — that is, between the
dispersion of the Jews by the Romans, and their restora-
tion. The restoration of the Hebrew^ church to the rights
of a wife, 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 whole chapters of some of the pro-
phets, and innumerable detached passages from almost
all. In addition to those which I have already cited, in
my former Discourses upon this subject, I shall produce

71

only the latter part of the second chapter of Hosea. In
that chapter, Jehovah, after discarding- the incontinent
wife, 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 v\^ith exuberant kindness, and with
tender love. Yes ; with faithfulness, to myself I will be-
troth thee." These promises are made to the woman that
had been discarded, and cannot be understood of mercies
to be extended 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 clear up the mystery of God's
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 Gentiles to come in ; and then all Israel
shall be saved; for the gifts and calling of God are with-
out 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 to intro-
duce ambiguity and equivocation into the plainest oracles
of God.

The standard gold upon the queen's robe, denotes the
treasures of which the church is the depositary, — the
written word, and the dispensation of grace and forgive-
ness of sins, by the due administration of the sacraments.

The Psalmist, beholding the queen in her costly robes,
on the king's right hand, interrupts 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 ;
So shall the King set his heart upon thy beauty.
Truly he is thy Lord ! therefore vvorsliip thou him."

If a princess irum a JLstaal land, taken ia marriage by a
great king, were admonished to forget her ov»ti 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 customs of her native country, and to
the style of her father s court, and learn to speak the lan-
guage, and assume the dress, the manners, and the taste of
her husband s people. The '" father s house," and *' own
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. Xot that
she is tc forget Gods gracious promises to Abraham, nor
the covenant with her forefathers (the benefit of which she
will enjoy to the very end of Ume^. nor the many wonder-
ful deliverances that were wrought for them : nor is she to
forget the history of her nation, preserved in the Scriptures
of the Old Testament : nor the predictions of Mose5 and
her prophets, the full accomplishment of which she will at
this time experience : and historically, she is never to for-
get even the ceremonial law ; for the Levitical rites were
nothing less than the gospel itself in hieroglyphics : and.
rightly understood, they afibrd the most complete demon-
stration of the coherence of revelation with itself, in all its
different stages, and the best evidence of its trath : showing
that it has been the same in substance in all ages, differinor
onlv 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
thev never were of any other importance than in reference
to the g:ospel, as the shadow is of no value but as it resem-
bles the substance. Practically, therefore, the restored
Hebrew church is to abandon her ancient Jewish rites, and
become mere and pure Christian ; and thus she will secure
the conjuoral afiections of her husband, and render the
beauty of her person perfect in his eyes. And this she is
bound to do : for her roval husband is indeed her Lord :

73

Moses was uo more than his servant ; the prophets after
Moses, servants in a lower rank than lie. But the autho-
rit\' 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 his^h in the esteem of the churches of the Gentiles.

" See the daughter of Tyre, with a gift ;
TTie wealthiest of the people shall entreat thy faTonr."

The " daughter of Tyre," according to the principles of
interpretation we have laid down, must be a church esta-
blished, 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 grrossness of her idolatry. The •"'daughter
of Tyre" appearing before the queen consort " with a gift,"
is a figurative prediction, that churches will be established,
under the protection of the government, in countries which
had been distinguished for profligacy, dissipated manners,
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 mys-
tic language of prophecy, — rich in the holy lives of their
members, in the truth of their creeds, and the purity ot
their external forms of worship, and in God's favour. But
notwithstanding this wealth of their own, these churches
will pay willino- homage to the royal consort, their eldest
sister, the metropolitical 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 person that has hitherto been repre-
sented as the Kiuo-'s wife seems to be called his daughter.
This, however, is a matter upon which commentators

74

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 of the Hebrew
church ; but that this " daughter of the King" is the
Christian church in general, composed of Jews and Gen-
tiles indiscriminately, considered as the daughter of the
King Messiah by his Hebrew 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 of these explanations
are perfectly consistent with the imagery of this psalm.
Far to be preferred is the exposition of the late learned
and pious Bishop Home, who rejects the notion of the
introduction of a new personage, and observes, " that the
connexion between Christ and his spouse unites in itself
every relation and every affection." She is, therefore,
daughter, wife, and sister, all in one. The same seems to
have been the notion of a learned Dominican of the se-
venteenth century, who remarks that the Empress Julia,
in the leo-ends of some ancient coins, is called the dauohter
of Augustus, whose wife she was.

But, with much general reverence for the opinions of
these learned commentators, I am persuaded that the stops
have been misplaced in the Hebrew manuscripts, by the
Jewish critics, upon the last revision of the text, — that
translators have been misled by their false division of the
text, and expositors 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 glo-
rious in every respect —

" Daughter of a king !"

That is, she is a princess born (by which title she is sa-
luted in the Canticles) : she is glorious, therefore, for her
high birth. She is, indeed, of high and heavenly extrac-
tion ! She may say of herself, collectively, what the apos-
tle has taught her sons to say individually, " Of his own

will begat he us with the word of his truth/' Accordingly,
in the Apocalypse, the bride, the Lamb's wife, is " the
holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God."
The Psalmist goes on : —

" Her inner garment is besptUigled with gold ;
Her upper garment is embroidered with 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 en-
trusted. The embroidery of her upper garment is, what-
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 word implies the pomp and conduct of a pub-
lic procession. The greatest caution is requisite in at-
tempting to interpret, in the detail of circumstances, the
predictions of things yet remote. We may venture, how-
ever, to apply this conducting of the queen to the palace
of her lord, to some remarkable assistance which the Is-
raelites will receive from the Christian nations of the Gen-
tile 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, chap. iii. 10, and is clearly the
subject of more explicit prophecies. " Thus saith Jeho-
vah," speaking to Zion, in the prophet Isaiah, " Behold, I
will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my stand-
ard 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,
mentioned in the preceding verse) " shall bring all your
brethren, for an offering unto Jehovah, out of all nations,

76

upon liorses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon
mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jeru-
salem,"

But the P^ahnist is struck with theappearanceof a very
remarkable band which makes a part in this procession.

" 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 mo-
narch's own court : these virgins are introduced to it by
the queen ; they follow her as part of her retinue, and are
introduced as her companions. 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 Is-
rael, in whose conversion the restored Hebrew church may
have a principal share. This is that fulness of the Gen-
tiles of which St. Paul speaks as coincident in time with
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, salvation is
come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to emulation.
Now, 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 recon-
ciling 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 of the business, in the conversion
of the Whole world to Christ : First, the rejection of the
unbelieving Jev/s : 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 uncon-
verted, and immersed in the darkness and corruptions of
idolatry ; which make little less than two-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 pecu-
liar people ; and shall hold a distinguished rank and cha-
racter in the earth.

The Psalmist closes his divine song with a distich set-
ting forth the design, and predicting the effect, of his own
performance :
" I will perpetuate the remembrance of thy name to all generations ;
Insomuch that the peoples shall praise thee for ever."

By inditing this marriage-song, he hoped to be the means
of celebratino- the Redeemer's name from ao-e to ao^e, and
of inciting the nations of the world to join in his praise.
The event has not disappointed the holy prophet's expecta-
tion. His composition has been the delight of the congre-
gations of the faithful for little less than three thousand
years. For one thousand and forty, it was 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 re-
membrance of what has been done, anxious attention to
what is doing, and of the cheering hope of the second
coming of our Lord, who surely cometli to turn away
ungodliness from Jacob, and to set up a standard to the

78

nations wliich yet sit in darkness and tlie sliadow ot" death.
" He that witnesseth these things saith, Behold, 1 come
quickly. And the Spirit saith, Come ; and the bride saith,
Come ; and let every one that heareth say, Amen. Even
so. Come, Lord Jesus !"'

SERMON VIII.

Tliis is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ j — not
by water only, but by water and blood. — 1 John v. G.

For the surer interpretation of these 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 of the whole, but more particularly of the two last
chapters.

The book goes under the title of The General Epistle
of St. John. But in the composition of it, narrowly in-
spected, nothing 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 Gains,"'- — nor to any particular
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 scat-
tered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia," — nor to any principal branch of the Christian
church, like St, Paul's to the Hebrews, — nor to the Chris-
tian church in general, like the second of St, Peter's, " to
them that had obtained like precious faith with 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 inscription. It begins without salutation,
and ends without benediction. It is true, the writer some-
times speaks, but without naming himself in the first per-
son,— and addresses his reader, without naming him in the

79

second. But this colloquial style is very common in all
writings 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 composition. It should seem, that
this book hath, for no other reason, acquired the title of an
epistle, but that, in the first formation of the canon of the
New Testament, it was put into the same volume with the
didactic writings of the apostles, which, 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 whether we consider the
sublimity of its opening with the fundamental topics of
God's perfections, man's depravity, and Christ's propitia-
tion,— 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 ; whether we consider the
sanctity of its precepts, and the energy of argument with
which they are persuaded and enforced, — the dignified
simplicity of language in which both doctrine and precept
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 a fervid
zeal, which breathes throughout the whole composition, —
we shall find it in every respect worthy of the holy author
to whom the constant tradition of the church ascribes it,
" the disciple whom Jesus loved."'

The particular subject of the two last chapters is the
great doctrine of the incarnation, or, in St. John's own
words, 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 in-
carnation of our Lord, and the atonement made by him,
are not two separate doctrines : they are one; the doctrine
of atonement being included in that of the incarnation,
rightly understood, and as it is stated by St. John.

The doctrine of the incarnation in its whole amount is

so

tliis: that one of tlie tliiee persons of the Godhead was
united to a man, that is, 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 sufferings of the man so united to the Godhead.
This atonement was the end of the incarnation, and the
two articles reciprocate: for an incarnation is implied and
presupposed in the Scripture doctrine of atonement, as the
necessary means in the end. For if satisfaction was to be
made to divine justice for the sins of men, by vicarious
obedience and vicarious sulTerings, in such a way (and in
no other way it could be consistent with divine wisdom) as
might attach the pardoned offender to God's service, upon
a principle of love and gratitude, it was essential to this
plan, that God himself should take a principal part in all
that his justice required to be done and sutiiered, to make
room for his mercy; and the divine nature itself being in-
capable of suffering, it was necessary to the scheme of
pardon, that the Godhead should condescend 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 righteous-
ness,— that, like our Lord, he had been exposed to temp-
tations of Satan far more powerful than those to v.hich
our first parents yielded, and that, like our Lord, he had
baffled Satan in every attempt. Suppose this perfect man
had consented to offer up his own life as a ransom for other
lives forfeited, and to suffer in his own person the utmost
misery a creature could be made to suffer, to avert punish-
ment from Adam, and from Adam's whole posterity. The
life he would have had to offer would have been but the
life of one; the lives forfeited were many. Could one
life be a ransom for more than one? Could the sufferings
of one single man, upon any principle upon which public
justice may exact and accept vicarious punishment, ex-
piate the guilt of more than one other man? Could it

81

expiate the apostacy of millions? It is true, tliat in human
govern ments, the punishment of a few is sometimes ac-
cepted as a satisfaction for the offence of many; as in
military punishments, when a regiment is decimated. But
the cases will bear no comparison. The reo-iment has
perhaps deserved lenity by former good services, which
in the case between God and man, cannot be alleo-ed.
The satisfaction 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, who for that time escape, continue subject to its ri-
gour, and still liable to undergo the punishment, if the
offence should be repeated. But such is the exuberance
of mercy in man\s redemption, that the expiation extends
not only to innumerable offences past, but to many that
are yet to come. The severity of the law itself is miti-
gated : the hand- writing of ordinances is blotted out, and
duty henceforward is exacted upon a principle of allow-
ance for human frailty. And w^ho will have the 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 offences involving multitudes
the lenity, in many cases, arises from a policy founded on
a prudent estimation of the imperfection 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 man; 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. The dis-
obedience of our first parents was nothing less than a con-
federacy with the apostate spirit against the sovereio-n
authority of God : and if such offenders are spared by
such a sovereign, it must be in a way which shall unite
the perfection of mercy with the perfection of justice ; for
in God mercy and justice must equally be perfect.

Since, then, one mere man could make no expiation of

82

the sins of myriads, make, it' you please, another supposi-
tion. Suppose an angel had undertaken for us, — had de-
sired to assume our mortal nature, and to do and suffer for
us, what, done and suffered by a man, we have found
would have been inadequate. We shall then have the
life of one incarnate angel, still a single life, a ransom for
myriads of men's lives forfeited; and the merit and suffer-
ings of one angel to compensate the guilt of myriads of
men, and to be an equivalent for their punishment. 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 condition
upon earth to the holy angels as his superiors, what are
they in the sight of God ? They are nothing better now
than the glorified saints in heaven will 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 would have
been produced, by a pardon so obtained, in the mind of
the pardoned offender ? Joy, no doubt, for an unexpected
deliverance from impending vengeance, — love for the
person, man or angel, who had wrought the deliverance,
— remorse, that his crimes had involved another's inno-
cence in misery ; but certainly no attachment to the ser-
vice of the Sovereign. The deliverer might have been
loved : but the Being whose justice exacted the satisfac-
tion 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 repentant
sinner's bosom with 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, who in one person

83

exacts the punishment, in another, himself, sustains it;
and thus makes his own mercy pay the satisfaction to his
own justice.

So essential was the incaination 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 empowered to execute the whole business ; 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 with the doc-
trine of atonement, constitutes an essential difference be-
tween the awful mystery of the incarnation in the Chris-
tian system, and those avatars in the superstitious religion
of the Indian Brahmin, which have been compared with
it, but in which it is profanely mimicked rather than imi-
tated. Yet the comparison is not unfounded, nor without
its use, if it be conducted with due reverence and circum-
spection. In those impious, incoherent fables, as in all
the Pagan mythology, and in the very worst of the Pagan
rites, vestiges 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
we 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 insensibly reconciled to the impure
and blasphemous fictions of idolatry, — to her obscene and
savage rites, as nothing worse than elegant adumbrations
of sacred truth in significant allegory. In the numerous
successive incarnations of Veeshnu, the Deity is embodied
for subordinate and partial purposes, altogether unworthy
g2

84

of tliat manner of interference. Tlie incarnation of Christ
was for a purpose vvliich God only could accomplish, and
God himself could accomplish in no other way : it was
for the execution of a plan which divine wisdom could
alone contrive, — divine love and almighty power could
alone effect : it was 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 with great truth and reason that St. John
sets forth this as the cardinal doctrine of Christianity ;
insonmch, that he speaks of the belief of this article as
the accomplishment of our Christian warfare, — the attain-
ment at least of that faith, which, with certainty, over-
cometh the world. " This," he says, " is the victory which
overcometh the world, even our faith." Then he adds,
" Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that be-
lieveth that Jesus is the Son of God V " Son of God," is
a title that belongs to our Lord in his human character,
describing him as that man who became the Son of God
by union with the Godhead ; as "■ Son of man," on the
contrar}^ is a title which belongs to the eternal Word,
describing that person of the Godhead who was made
man by uniting himself to the 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 world,— inspiring the Chris-
tian with fortitude to surmount the temptations of the world,
in whatever shape they may assail him. On the other
hand, the denial of this great truth, so animating to the
believer's hopes, he represents as the beginning of that
apostacy which is to come to its height in the latter
ages, as one of the characters of antichrist. " Ye have
lieard," he says, "that antichrist shall come: even now
theie are many antichrists. Who is a liar, but he that
denieth that Jesus is the Christ ? He is antichrist, denying
the Father and the Son." And again, " Every spirit that
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God;

85

and every spirit that confesseth not that 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 here-
tics of the apostolic age, it was used as a name of that
Divine Being with whom we maintain, but they denied,
a union of the man Jesus. To deny, therefore, that Jesus
is the Christ, was, in their sense of the word Christ, to
deny that he is the Son of God, or God himself incarnate.
He that denieth this, says the apostle, is a liar, and is
antichrist. Two remarkable sects of these lying antichrists
arose in the apostles' days, — the sect of the Corinthian
heretics, who denied the divinity of our Saviour ; and the
sect of the Docetae, who denied his manhood, maintaining
that the body of Jesus, and every thing he appeared to
do and suffer in it, was mere illusion. Thus, both equally
denied the incarnation : both therefore equally were liars
and antichrists ; and to give equal and direct contradic-
tion 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 irre-
sistible evidence by which it is confirmed to us, which he
opens most distinctly, but still in very few comprehensive
words, in the two subsequent verses. The evidence is
such as must command the assent of all who understand
the component parts of it ; and these parts are intelligible
to all who are well 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, with much ostentation of philological learning which
they possessed, and of meteiphysical which they possessed

not, have composed laboured demon.Unitious (as they pre-
sume to call them) of natural and revealed religion, —
demonstrations which have made, I fear, more infidels than
converts. The apostle's demonstration proceeds thus : —
In the verse preceding my text, he states his proposition
(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 coming with the evidence
of the water and the blood, proving that he was the Christ,
— appears from the distinct explication which immediately
follows of the whole evidence, of which the water and the
blood make principal parts. For thus the apostle pro-
ceeds : " And the Spirit beareth witness (or more literally,
the Spirit is a thing witnessing), because the Spirit is truth."
The word spirit signifies here, as in many other places, the
gift of tongues, and other extraordinary endowments, pre-
ternatu rally conferred by the agency of the Spirit, not on
the apostles only, but on believers in general in the apos-
tolic age. When the word signifies the divine person,
the epithet 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
promise. These extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, consist-
ing in an improvement of the faculties of the 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, were 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 Spirit to lead them into all

87

truth. These gifts, therefore, the fulfihiient of that pro-
mise, were the truth making good the words ; which truth
proved the sincerity and veracity of the giver of the pro-
mise, and established his pretensions. Thus this Spirit,
because it was truth, was a thing bearing witness together
with the water and the blood.

The apostle goes on : " For there are three which bear
record in heaven (that is, 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."

J shall not enter into argument in defence of the verse
containing the testimony of the three in heaven. It has.
indeed, of late years been brought under suspicion ; and
the authenticity of it has been given up by men of great
learning and unquestioned piety, even among the ortho-
dox. But I conceive that the exposition which I shall
give of the entire passage will best vindicate the sincerity
of the text as it stands against the exceptions of an over-
subtle criticism in these late ages, contradicting the ex-
plicit testimony of St. Jerome, that critical reviser of the
Latin version, in the fourth century, or, at the latest, in
the very beginning of the 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 record," — record to this fact, that Jesus is the Christ,
— " the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost." The
Father bare witness by his own voice from heaven, twice
declaring Jesus his beloved Son ; first, after his baptism,
when he came up out of the river, and again at the trans-
figuration. A third time the Father bare witness, when
he sent his angel to Jesus in agony in the garden. The
eternal Word bare witness, by the fulness of the Godhead
dwelling in Jesus bodily, — by that plenitude of strength
and power with which he was supplied for the perform-

88

ance of his miracles, and the endurance in his frail and
mortal body of the fire of the Father's wrath. 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 rending of the
rocks, and the opening of the graves, to liberate the bodies
of the saints which appeared in the holy city after our
Lord's resurrection; for these extraordinary convulsions of
the material world must be ascribed to that poAver by which
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 were 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 servants 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
ascension 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 remarkable, however, that he describes
the unity of the testimony of the three celestial and the
three terrestrial witnesses in different terms, — I conceive
for this reason, — of the latter more could not be said with
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 testimony in terms which predicate their substantial
unity, in which the consent of testimony is necessarily
included ; lest, if he applied no higher phrase to them than
to the terrestrial witnesses, he might seem tacitly to qualify
and lower his own doctrine. He goes on : " And there
are three in earth that bear witness, — the spirit, and the
water, and the blood ; and these three agree in one."

89

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 altogether, is "the witness of God which he
hath testified of his Son."'

The Spirit here, in the eighth verse, as well as in my text,
is evidently to be understood of the gifts preternaturally
conferred upon believers. But what is the water, and
what is the blood, produced as two other terrestrial wit-
nesses ? What is their deposition, and what is its effect
and amount?

No one who recollects the circumstances of the cruci-
fixion, as they are detailed in St. John's gospel, can, for a
moment, entertain a doubt, that the water and the blood
mentioned here as witnesses, are the water and the blood
which issued from the Redeemer's side, when his body,
already dead, was pierced by a soldier with a spear. But
how were these witnesses, and what did they attest? First,
it is to be observed, that the stream, not of blood alone, but
of water with the blood, was something preternatural and
miraculous ; for St. John dwells upon it with earnest rei-
terated asseveration, as a thing so wonderful that the ex-
plicit testimony of an eye-witness was requisite to make
it credible, and yet of great importance to be accredited,
as a main foundation of faith. " One of the soldiers," the
Evangelist saith, " with a spear pierced his side, and forth-
with came there out blood and water. And he that saw
it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that
he saith true, that ye might believe." When a man ac-
companies the assertion of a fact with this declaration,
that he was an eye-witness, — that what he asserts he him-
self 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, tliat it

90

should be believed, — he certainly speaks of something-
extraordinary and hard to be believed, and yet, in his judg-
ment, of great importance. The piercing of our Saviour's
side with a spear, and the not breaking of his legs, though
that piece of cruelty was usually practised among the
Romans in the execution of that horrible punishment,
which it was our Lord's lot to undergo, had been facts of
great importance, though nothing had issued from the
wound ; because, as the Evangelist observes, they were
the completion of two very remarkable prophecies con-
cerning the Messiah's sufferings. But there was nothing
in either, in the doing of the one, or the not doing of the
other, so much out of the common course as to be difficult
of belief. The streaming of the blood from a wound in
a body so lately dead, that the blood might well be sup-
posed to be yet fluid, would have been nothing remarkable.
The extraordinary circumstance must have been, the flow-
ing of the water with the blood. Some men of learning
have imagined, that the water which issued in this instance
with 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 watery fluids ;
being neither viscous like an oil, nor inflammable like spi-
rits, nor elastic or volatile like an air or ether: it difters,
however, remarkably from plain water, as anatomists as-
sert, 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 which enclose it, as
the spear must have done before it reached the heart, had
been nothing more extraordinary than that blood by itself
should have issued at a wound in any other part. Besides,
in the detail of a fact, narrated with so much earnestness
to gain belief, the Evangelist must be supposed to speak
with the most scrupulous precision, and to call everything
by its name. The water, therefore, which he says he saw
streaming from the wound, was as truly water as the blood
was bk)od ; the pure element of water, — transparent, co-

91

lourless, insipid, inodorous water. And here is the mira-
cle, that pure water, instead of the fluid of the pericar-
dium in its natural state, should have issued with 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, whose testimony is so efficacious,
in St, John's judgment, for the confirmation of our faith.

But how do this water and this blood bear witness that
the crucified Jesus was the Christ ? Water and blood were
the indispensable instruments of cleansing and expiation in
all the cleansings and expiations of the law. " Almost all
things," saith St. Paul, " are by the law purged with blood ;
and without shedding of blood there is no remission."
But the purgation was not by blood only, but by blood
and water; for the same apostle says, "When Moses had
spoken every precept to all the people, according to the
law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water,
and sprinkled both the book and all the people." All the
cleansings and expiations of the law, by water and animal
blood, were typical of the real cleansing of the conscience
by the water 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, im-
mediately upon our Lord's death, from the wound opened
in his side, was a notification to the surrounding multi-
tudes, though at the time understood by few, that the real
expiation was now complete, and the cleansing fount set
open. O wonderful exhibition of the goodness and seve-
rity of God ! It is the ninth hour, and Jesus, strong to
tbe last in suff'ering, commending his spirit to the Father,
exclaims with a loud voice, that " It is finished !" bows 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, was

92

this day to be set open for sin and for pollution, is seen
suddenly springing from his wound !— Who, contemplating
only in imagination the mysterious, awful scene, exclaims
not with the centurion, " Truly this was the Son of God ;''
— truly he was the Christ ?

Thus I have endeavoured to explain how the water and
the blood, together with the spirit, are witnesses upon
earth, to establish the faith which overcometh the world.
Much remains untouched ; but the time forbids me to
proceed. One thing only I must add, — that the faith
which overcometh the world consists not in the involun-
tary assent of the mind to historical evidence, nor in its
assent, perhaps still more involuntary, to the conclusions
of argument from facts proved and admitted. All this
knowledge and all this understanding, the devils possess,
yet have not faith ; and, believing without faith, they
tremble. Faith is not merely a speculative, but a practi-
cal acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ, — an effort and
motion of the mind toward God, when the sinner, convinced
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
with 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.

93

SERMON IX.

The Spirit of tlie Lord is upon me, because lie hath anointed me t<>
preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-
hearted, 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.* — Luke iv. 18, 19.

It was, as it should seem, upon our Saviour's first ap-
pearance in the synagogue at Nazareth, the residence of
liis family, in the character of a public teacher, that, to the
astonishment of that assembly, where he was known only
as the carpenter's son, he applied to himself that remark-
able passage of Isaiah which the evangelist recites in the
words 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 particvdar sabbath-
day upon which he undertook to expound this prophetic
text to the men of Nazareth ; nor " your ears," of the ears
of the individual congregation assembled at the time within
the walls of that particular 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 the whole season of
his public ministry ; and " your ears," for the ears of all
you inhabitants of Judea and Galilee, who now hear my
doctrine and see my miracles. Our Lord aflfirms, that in
his works, 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 was — whom Jehovah had anointed " to preach
the gospel to the poor" — whom Jehovah had sent " to
heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the cap-

* Preached before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
June 1, 1793.

94

tives, 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 him-
self. 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 we know, any blind man
to his sight, — he delivered no captive from his chain. He
predicted indeed the restoration of the Jews from the Baby-
lonian captivity, — their final restoration from their present
dispersion, and the restoration of man from the worse cap-
tivity of sin : but he never took upon him to proclaim the
actual commencement of the season of liberation, which is
the thing properly implied in the phrase of " preaching
deliverance to the captives." To the broken-hearted he
administered no other balm than the distant hope of one
who, in future times, should bear their sorrows ; nor were
the poor of his own 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 answered by any known cir-
cumstance in the life and character 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 otherwise than
as his office bore a subordinate relation to Christ's office,
and his predictions to Christ's preaching. It is a thing
well known to all who have been conversant in 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

95

many of these speakers are introduced, and to which
speaker eacli 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 wanting for the application of
the prophecy to himself. Following the express authority
of our Lord, in the application of this prophecy to him, we
might have spared the 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 reformation, in
its affected zeal to purge the Christian doctrine of I know
not what corruptions, and to restore our creed to what it
holds forth as the primitive standard, — under that infatua-
tion which, by the just judgment of God, ever clings to
self-sufficient folly, pretends to have discovered inaccura-
cies in our Lord's own doctrine, and scruples not to pro-
nounce 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 censures of the
doctors of that impious school. This text, referred to its
original place in the book of Isaiah, is evidently the open-
ing of a prophetic dialogue ; and in the particulars of the
character described in it, it carries its own internal evidence
of its necessary reference to our Lord, and justifies his ap-
plication of it to himself, as will farther appear from a
more particular 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 pro-
secution of the work he had in hand, to the Spirit's di-
rection.

" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me." Under the law, the three great offices of
prophet, priest, and king, were conferred by the ceremony

9G

of anointing the person. The unction of our Lord was the
descent of the Holy Ghost upon him at his baptism. This
was analogous to the ceremony of anointing, as it was a
mark publicly exhibited, "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 him-
self God, should derive authority from the unction of that
Spirit which, upon other occasions, he is said to give, and
that he should be under the Spirit's direction, if it be re-
membered that our Lord was as truly man as he was truly
God, — that neither of the two natures was absorbed in the
other, but both remained in themselves perfect, notwith-
standing the union of the two in one person. The Divine
Word, to which the humanity was 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 without 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 disappointment, — to all which our Lord,
without sin, was liable. The human nature in our Lord
was complete in both its parts, consisting of a body and a
rational soul. The rational soul of our Lord's human na-
ture was a distinct thing from the principle of divinity to
which it was united ; and being so distinct, like the souls
of other men, it owed the right use of its faculties, in the
exercise of them upon religious subjects, and its uncor-
rupted rectitude 6f will, to the influence of the Holy Spirit
of God. Jesus, indeed, " was anointed with this holy oil
above his fellows," inasmuch as the intercourse was unin-
terrupted,— the illumination by infinite degrees more full,
and the consent 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 imparted from above, was exempt from sin, and ren-
dered superior to temptation. To him the Spirit was given

97

not by measure. Tlie unmeasured infusion of tlie Spirit
into the Redeemer's soul, was not the means, but the efiect,
of its union to the second person of tlie Godhead. A
union of which this had been the means, had ditiered only
in degree from that which is, in some degree, the privilege
of every true believer, — which, in an eminent degree, was
the 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 with the
unction from on high. But in him the natures were united,
and the uninlerrupted perfect commerce of his human soul
with 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 gos-
pel.— The original word, 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 com-
pound of two words, an adjective signifying good, and a
substantive which signifies a tale, message, or declaration.
But as this signification of the English word, by the gene-
ral neglect of the parent language, is pretty much forgotten,
or remembered only among the learned, it may give per-
spicuity to the text, if for the single word "gospel," we
substitute the two words " 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 captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, — to set at liberty them
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 instances
of worldly affliction, far beyond the reach of any human

H

93

aid, he literally healed the broken-heart, as in the instance
of Jairus, whose breathless daughter he revived — of the
w^idow of Nain, whose son he restored to her from the
coffin — of the family of Lazarus, whom he raised from the
grave — of the Syrophoenician woman, whose young daugh-
ter he rescued from possession — and of many other suf-
ferers, whose several cases time would fail me to recount.
We read not, however, that, during his life on earth, he
literally opened the doors of any earthly prison, for the
enlargement of the captive, or that, in any instance, he lite-
rally released the slave or the convict from the burden of
the galling chain. It is probable, therefore, that all these
expressions of " the poor, the broken-hearted, 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 imperfections ; and
that the various benefits of redemption 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 here-
after,— the whole heathen world, destitute of the light of
revelation. To them our Lord preached the glad-tidings
of life and immortality. The broken-hearted are sinners,
not hardened in their sins, but desponding under 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 reconcilia-
tion. The captives are they who were in bondage to the
law of sin, domineering in their members, and overpow-
ering 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 consciences by the galling fetters of a religion of ex-

99
ternal ordinances, wliom our Lord released by the promul-
gation of his perfect law of liberty. But notwithstanding-
that the expressions 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 accomplishment in our
Lord's miracles, the literal meaning is, by no means, to be
excluded. Indeed, when of both meanings of a prophet's
phrase, the literal and the figurative, either seems clearly
and equally admissible, the true rule of interpretation seems
to be, 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, were actions distinctly
symbolical of one or other of the spiritual benefits of the
redemption: as such, they were literal completions of the
prophecies, taking the place, as it were, of the prophecies
so completed, pointing to another latent meaning, and to
a higher completion, and thus forming a strict and won-
derful union between the letter and the spirit of the pro-
phetic language.

This text is not the only passage in the prophetic writ-
ings, in which the preaching of glad-tidings to the poor is
mentioned as a principal branch of the Messiah's ofiice.
That, in the exposition of these prophecies, the figurative
sense of the expression is not to exclude the literal, is evi-
dent from this consideration, that the discoveries of the
Christian revelation are, in fact, emphatically glad-tidings
to the poor, in the literal acceptation of the word, — to
those who are destitute of worldly riches. To those who,
from their present condition, might be 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 own toil, — to persons in this low con-
dition, and under these gloomy apprehensions, was it not
glad-tidings to be told that they had a hope, beyond the
infidel's expectation, of a perpetual cessation of sorrow in
h2

100

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, without regard to the distinctions
of this transitory life, each man shall receive his proper
portion of honour or shame, enjoyment or misery, accord-
ino- to the deo;ree of his moral and religious worth ! — 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 which are at God's right hand !

Again, the discoveries of Christianity were made in a
manner the most suited to popular apprehension; and, for
that reason, they were emphatically glad-tidings to the poor.
Its duties are not delivered in a system built on abstract
notions of the eternal fitness of things, ^ — of the useful and
the fair, — notions not void of truth, but intelligible only to
minds highly improved by long habits of study and reflec-
tion. In the gospel, the duties of man are laid down in
short, perspicuous, comprehensive precepts, delivered as
the commands of God, under the awful sanctions of eternal
rewards and punishments. The doctrines of the Christian
revelation are not encumbered with a long train of argu-
mentative proof, which is apt to bewilder the vulgar, no
less than it gratifies the learned ; they are propounded to
the faith of all, upon the authority of a teacher who came
down from heaven, " to speak what he knew, and testify
what he had seen.''

Again, the poor are they on whom the Christian doctrine
would most readily take effect. Christ's aton-ement, it is
true, hath been made for all. The benefits of redemption
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 who pro-
claimed it, "glad-tidings of great joy which should be to
all people." Every situation of life hath its proper temp-

101

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 attain-
ment 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 with-
out religion, which was the deplorable situation of the world
when Christianity made its first appearance, the poor were
the class of men among whom the new doctrine was likely
to be, and actually was, in the first instance, the most effi-
cacious. The riches of the world, and the gratifications
they afford, are too apt, when their evil tendency is not op-
posed by a principle of religion, to beget that friendship
for the world which is enmity with God. The poor, on the
other hand, excluded from the hope of worldly pleasure,
were likely to listen with the more attention to the promise
of a distant happiness; and, exposed to much actual suf-
fering 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 publication, 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 state of mankind at the time of its publication, was
in fact, in a peculiar sense, " glad-tidings to 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 the divine mercy in the Christian dispensation.
And this sense of such prophecies, v»diich so much claims
the attention both of rich and poor, receives a farther con-
firmation from our Lord's appeal to his open practice of
preaching to the poor, as an evidence to his cotemporaries

102

of his divine mission. " Go ye/' he said to the Baptist's
messengers, " and show Johnf again those things which ye
do hear and see : The blind receive their sight, and the lame
walk ; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead
are raised up, and the pooi^ have the gospel preached to
themr Here " the preaching of the gospel to the poor,"
is mentioned by our Lord among the circumstances of his
ministry, which so evidently corresponded with the pro-
phecies of the Messiah, as to render any more explicit
answer to the Baptist's inquiries unnecessary. This, there-
fore, must be a preaching of the gospel to the poor lite-
rally ; for the preaching of it to the figurative poor, the poor
in religious knowledge, to the heathen world, 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 prophetical characters of the Messiah of the Jews.

Assuredly, therefore, our Lord came " to preach glad-
tidings to the poor." " To preach glad-tidings to the poor,"
was mentioned by the prophets as one of the especial objects
of his coming. To preach to them, he clothed himself with
flesh, and in his human nature received the unction of the
Spirit. And since the example of our Lord is, in every par-
ticular in which it is at all imitable, a rule to our conduct, it
is clearly our duty, as the humble followers of our merciful
Lord, to entertain a special regard for the religious inte-
rests of the poor, and to take care, what we 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 unchris-
tian than it is inconsistent with the genuine feelings of the
home-bred Briton, — a policy which pretends to foresee,

103

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, and were more
tender of its security and peace, than many, perhaps, of
our modern theorists. Our Lord and his apostles certainly
never saw this danger, that the improvement of the poor in
religious knowledge might be a means of confounding
civil subordination. They were never apprehensive that the
poor would be made the worse servants by an education
which should teach them to serve their masters upon earth,
from a principle of duty to the great Master of the whole
family in heaven. These mean suggestions of a wicked po-
licy are indeed contradicted by the experience of mankind.
The extreme condition of oppression and debasement, the
unnatural 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 of the human character.
Its natural tendency is certainly to fetter the genius and
debase the heart: but some brave spirits, of uncommon
strength, have at diiferent times surmounted the disadvan-
tages of that dismal situation. And the fact which I would
offer to your attention is this, that these men, eminent in
taste and literature, were not rendered by those accom-
plishments the less profitable slaves. Where, then, is the
danger, that the free-born poor of this country should be the
worse hired servants, for a proficiency in a knowledge
by which both master and servant are taught their respec-
tive duties, by which alone either rich or poor may be made
wise unto salvation?

Much serious consideration would indeed be due to the
objection, were it the object, or the ordinary and probable
eifect of these charitable seminaries for the maintenance and
education of the infant poor, to qualify them for the occu-
pations and pursuits of the higher ranks of society, or to
give them a relish for their pleasures and amusements.

104

But this is not the case. Nothing more is attempted, nor
can more, indeed, be done, than to give them that instruc-
tion in the doctrines and duties of religion, to which a
claim of common right is in some sort constituted in a
Christian comitry, by the mere capacity to profit by it;
and to furnish them with those first rudiments of what may
be called the trivial literatvire of their mother- tongue, with-
out which they would scarce be qualified to be subjects
even of the lowest class of the free government under which
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 with a considerable
share of the management of himself. It is the peculiarity,
— and this peculiarity is the principal excellence of such
governments, — that as the great have no property in the
labour 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 mainte-
nance, except under some particular covenant, as an ap-
prentice, a journeyman, 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 fa-
mily, from the voluntary exertions of his own industry,
under the direction of his own genius, his own prudence,
and his own conscience. Hence, in these free govern-
ments, some considerable improvement of the understand-
ing 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
government that the common people are to be ruled as

105
more animals, it might indeed be impolitic to suffer them
to acquire the moral discernment and tlie spontaneity of
man; but in free states, whether monarchical, or of what-
ever form, the case is exactly the reverse. The schemes
of Providence and Nature are too deeply laid to be over-
thrown by man's impolicy. It is contrary to the order of
Nature, it is repui^nant to the decrees of Providence, and
therefore the thing shall never be, that civil liberty should
long- maintain its ground among any people disqualified by
ignorance and profligacy for the use and enjoyment of it.
Hence the greatest danger threatens every free constitution,
when, by a neglect of a due culture of the infant mind,
barbarism and irreligion are suffered to overrun the lower
orders. The barriers which civilized manners naturally
oppose against the encroachments of power, on the one
hand, and the exorbitance of licentiousness, on the other,
will soon be borne down; and the government will dege-
nerate either into an absolute, despotic monarchy, or, what
a subsisting example proves to be by infinite degrees a
heavier curse, the capricious domination of an unprincipled
rabble. Thus would ignorance and irreligion, were they
once to prevail generally in the lower ranks of society, ne-
cessarily terminate in one or the other of these two dread-
ful evils, — the dissolution of all government, or the en-
slaving of the majority 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 happiness
of the people ; and by necessary consequence, co-operates
with religion in the two great purposes of exalting
the general character, and of bettering the general con-
dition 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 liearts of men, it affords the best security for the
permanence of that degree of orderly, definite liberty, which
is an essential principle in every such constitution. The

106

Christian religion fosters and protects such 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 that kings are the
servants of their people, — not by releasing the conscience
of the subject from the obligations of loyalty, in every sup-
posed case of the sovereign's misconduct, and maintaining
what, in the new vocabulary of modern democracy, is named
the sacred rig/it of insurrection, — not by all, or by any of
these detestable maxims, Christianity supports that rational
liberty which she approves and cherishes ; but by planting
in the breast of the individual powerful principles of self-
government, which render greater degrees of civil freedom
consistent with the public safety.

The patrons, therefore, of these beneficent 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 cha-
rity hath suggested. Thousands of children of both 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 preserved as sheep of Christ's fold.
Fear not, therefore, to indulge the feelings of benevolence
and charity which this day's spectacle awakens in your
bosoms.

It is no weakness to sympathize in the real hardships of
the inferior orders : it is no weakness to be touched with
an anxiety for their welfare, — to feel a complacency and
holy joy in the reflection, that, by the well-directed exer-
tions of a godly charity, their interests, secular and eternal,
are secured : it is no weakness to rejoice, that, withoutbreak-
ing the order of society, religion can relieve the condition
of poverty from the greatest of its evils, from ignorance and
vice : it is no weakness to be liberal of your worldly trea-
sures, in contribution to so good a purpose. The angels in
heaven participate these holy feelings. Our Father, which

107

is in heav^en, accepts and will reward the work, provided it
be well, done, in the 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 1"

SERMON X.

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. — Mark vii. 37.

It is matter of much curiosity, and affording no small
edification, if the speculation be properly pursued, to ob-
serve the very different manner in which the various spec-
tators of our Lord's miracles M^ere affected by what they
saw, 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 was gone out, the dumb spake ;" and the popu-
lace 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
thousfhts 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, whose 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 ac-
cording as they are more or less frequent. They are neither
excited, by any scientific curiosity, to inquire after the esta-
blished causes of the most common things, nor, by any pious
regard to God's providential government of the world, to in-
quire after him in the most uncommon. Day and night suc-
ceed each other in constant vicissitude : the seasons hold

108

tlieir unvaried course ; tlie sun makes liis annual journey
through the same regions of the sky ; the moon runs the circle
of her monthly changes, with a motion ever varying, yet sub-
ject to one constant law and limit of its variations ; the tides
of the ocean ebb and flow ; heavy waters are suspended at
a great height in the thinner fluid of the air, — they 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, whence 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 who are now before
us : they excite not even their wonder, though in themselves
most wonderful ; 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 or-
derly in its complications, is carried on. They say to them-
selves, " These are the common occurrences of nature,"
and they are satisfied. These same sort of people, if they
see a blind man restored to sight, or the deaf and dumb
suddenly endued, without the use of physical means, with
the faculties of hearing and of speech, wonder; that is, 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 mi-
racle. They seem hardly to come within that definition of
man which was given by some of the ancient philosophers,
— that he is an animal which 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 difliculties. They
wonder for a while; but they presently dismiss the subject
of their wonder from their thoughts. Wonder, connected
with a principle of rational curiosity, is the source of all

109

knowledge and discovery, and it is a principle even of piety ;
but w^onder, which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with
wondering, is the quality of an idiot.

This stupidity, so common in all ranks of men, — for what
I now describe is no peculiarity of those who are ordinarily
called the vulgar and illiterate, — this stupidity is not na-
tural to man : it is the eftect of an over-solicitude about the
low concerns of the present world, which alienates 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, except what may be the
speediest means to increase a man's v/ealth and advance
his worldly interests.

When the stupidity arising from this attachment to the
world is connected, as sometimes it is, with a principle of
positive infidelity, or, which is much the same thing, with
an entire negligence and practical forgetfulness of God, it
makes the man a perfect savage. When this is not the
case, when this stupid indifference to the causes of the or-
dinary and extraordinary occurrences of the world, and some-
thing 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 man s spiritual state, because it exposes him
to be the easy prey of every impostor. The religion of
such persons has always a great tendency toward super-
stition ; for, as their uninquisitive temper keeps them in a
total ignorance about secondary causes, they are apt to
refer every thing which is out of what they call the common
course of nature,— that is, which is out of the course of their
own daily observation and experience, — to an immediate
exertion of the power of God : and thus the common sleight-
of-hand tricks of any vagabond conjurer maybe passed off
upon such people for real miracles. Such persons as these
were they who, when they saw a dumb demoniac endued
with speech by our Lord, were content to wonder at it.

The Pharisees, however, a set of men improved in their
understandino's, but wretchedly hardened in their hearts,

no

were not without some jealousy even ot" tliis stupid won-
derment. They knew that the natural effect of wonder, if
it rested on the mind, would be inquiry after a cause ; and
they dreaded the conclusions to v/hich inquiry in this case
might lead. They would not, therefore, trust these peo-
ple, as perhaps they might have done with perfect secu-
rity, to their own stupidity ; but they sug-gested a prin-
ciple 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 consideration in its
proper place.

We read again, in St. Matthew, that our Lord, upon ano-
ther occasion, restored a dumb demoniac to his speech ;
and the multitude assembled upon this occasion marvelled,
saying, "It was never so seen in Israel." These people
came some small matter nearer to the ancient definition of
man, than the wondering blockheads in St. Luke, who had
been spectators of the former miracle. They not only won-
dered, but they bestowed some thought upon the subject
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 of the ancient
prophets : they compared this performance of our Lord
with those, and perhaps with things that they had seen
done in their own times by professed exercisers ; and
the comparison brought them to this conclusion, that " it
was never so seen in Israel," — that our Lord's miracle sur-
passed any thing that ever had been seen even in that
people which was under the immediate and peculiar go-
vernment of God, and among whom extraordinaiy inter-
positions of power had, for that reason, been not unfrequent.
They seem, however, to have stopped short at this conclu-
sion. They proceeded not to the obvious consequence,
that this worker of greater miracles was a greater perso-
nage, and of higher authority than Moses and the prophets.
The Pharisees, however, as might be expected, again took

Ill

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 person was brought to our Lord,
" possessed with a devil, and blind and dumb." Our Lord
healed him, " insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake
and saw." The populace, upon this occasion, were amazed.
But they were not only amazed, — they said not only that it
never was so seen in Israel, but they went much farther; they
said, " Is not this the Son of David?" Of these people, we
may assert that they were not far from the kingdom of God.
They looked for the redemption of Israel by a son of David :
they believed, 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 was increased,
and they had recourse to their former suggestion.

The manner in which these people treated the miracles
which were done under their eyes, comes now under con-
sideration.

They were impressed with wonder, it seems, no less than
the common people ; but their wonder was connected with
the pretence at least of philosophical disquisition upon the
phenomena which excited it. They admitted that the things
done, in every one of these instances, were beyond the na-
tural powers of man, and must be referred to the extraordi-
nary agency of some superior being ; but they contended,
that there was no necessity to recur to an immediate exer-
t'on of God's own power, — that the power of the chief of
the rebellious spirits was adequate to the effect.

This suggestion of the Pharisees proceeded upon an as-
sumption, which, considered generally, and in the abstract,
without an application to any specific case, cannot be de-
nied : they supposed that beings superior to man, but still
created beings, whose powers fell short of the Divine, might
possess that degree of power over many parts of the universe
which might be adequate to effects quite out of the com-

112

mon course of nature ; und tliat, by a familiarity with some
of these superior beings, a man might perform miracles.
Some of the philosophizing divines of later times, who,
under the mask of zeal for religion, have done it more dis-
service than its open enemies, — some of these, anxious, as
they would pretend, for the creditof 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 actof God\s own power. The
assertion in itself is absurd, and in its consequences dan-
gerous ; and nothing is to be found in reason or in Scripture
for its support, — much for its confutation. Analogy is the
only ground upon which reason, in this question, can
proceed ; and analogy decides for the truth of the general
principle of the Pharisees. Not, certainly, in their appli-
cation 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 immediate agents in many preternatural
eifects, analogy is clearly on their side. It is a matter of fact
and daily experience, that mere man, in addition to the na-
tural dominion of the mind of every individual over the body
which he animates, has acquired 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 we can look
from an eminence into a city at the distance of a few miles ;
we can form a judgment of the materials of which they are
composed; we can measure their distances; we can
assign the quantity of matter they severally contain, —
the density of the matter of which they are made ; we can
estimate their mechanical powers : we know the weight
of a given quantity of matter on the surface of the sun, as
well as we know its weight upon the surface of the earth :
we can break the compound light of day into the constituent
parts of which it is composed. But this is not all : our ac-
c[uired power goes to practical eftects. We press the elements
into our service, and can direct the general principles of the

113

mechanism of the universe to the pin-poses of man ; we can
employ the buoyancy of the waters and the power of the
winds to navigate vast unwieldy vessels to the remotest re-
gions of the globe, for the purposes of commerce or of war;
and we animate an iron pin, turning 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 which 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 elements, — a power which produces effects which
might seem preternatural to those who have no knowledge
of the means. And shall we say that beings superior to
man may not have powers of a more considerable ex-
tent, which they may exercise in a more summary way, —
which produce effects far more wonderful, such as shall be
truly miraculous 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, that the
holy angels are employed upon extraordinary occasions in
the affairs of men, and the management of this sublunary
world.

But the Pharisees went farther: their argument sup-
posed that even the apostate spirits have powers adequate
to the production of preternatural effects. And, with re-
spect to this general principle, there is nothing either in
reason or Scripture to confute it.

Reason must recur again to analogy. And we find not
that the powers which men exercise over the natural ele-
ments, 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,

114

the rudder, and tlie oar, — and in the exercise of the electrical
machine. Since, then, in our own order of being, the power
of the individual over external bodies is not at all propor-
tioned to his piety or his morals, but is exercised indiscrimi-
nately, and in equal degrees, by the good and by the bad, we
have no reason from analogy to suppose but that the like in ■
discrimination may obtain in higher orders, and that both the
good and evil angels may exercise powers far transcending
any we possess, the effects of which to us will seem preterna-
tural : for there is nothing in this to disturb the established
order of things, since these powers are, no less than our
own, subject to the sovereign control of God, who makes tlie
actions of evil angels, as of bad men, subservient to the ac-
complishment 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 principle. 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 exercise of miraculous powers,
in which the magicians were 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 performed some
miracles; but Moses performed many more, and much
greater. When the wands of the magicians were 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 was 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 was 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 inti-
mation of any imposture in these performances of the magi-

115

cians; it only exhibits the circumstances in which Moses's
miracles exceeded those of the magicians; and marks the
point where the power of the magicians, by their own con-
fession, stopped, wlien Moses's went on, as it should seem,
without limits. Now, whoever will allow that these things
done by the magicians were miraculous, — that is, beyond
the natural powers of man, — must allow that they were done
by some familiarity of these magicians with the devil : for
they were done in express defiance of God's power ; they
were done to discredit his messenger, and to encourage the
king of Egypt to disregard the message.

It was not, therefore, in the general principle, that mi-
racles may be wrought by the aid of evil spirits, that the
weakness 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 king-
dom, than the feats of Pharaoh's magicians, or any other
wonders that have at any time been exhibited by wicked
men in compact with the devil, 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 per-
mitted to exercise over them ; and the general end and inten-
tion of them all, was the utter demolition of the devil's king-
dom, and the establishment of the kingdom of God upon its
ruins. And to suppose that the devil lent his own power for
the furtherance of this work, was, as our Lord justly argued,
to suppose that the devil was waging war upon himself.

There is, however, another principle upon which the truth
1 2

IIG

of our Lord's miracles, as evidence of his mission from tlie
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 ow^n, and those which
after his ascension were performed by his disciples, in his
name, in the primitive ages. To this principle we are led,
by considering the manner in which the particular miracle
to which my text relates atiected the spectators of it, who
seem to have been persons of a very different complexion
from any that have yet come before us.

"They were beyond measure astonished;"' — so we read
in our English Bibles ; but the better rendering of the Greek
words of the evangelist would be, " They were superabun-
dantly 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 w^as 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 astonishment which
the evangelist describes, not taxing it with extravagance. It
was not the astonishment of ignorance: it was an astonish-
ment upon principle and upon knowledge. It was not the
astonishment of those who saw a thing done which they
thought utterly unaccountable. They knew how to account
for it: they knew that the finger of God himself was the
efficient cause of what they saw ; and to that cause, they,
without hesitation, yet not hastily and in surprise, but upon
the most solid principles of belief, referred it. It vv'as not
the astonishment of those who see a thing done which they
thought would never come to pass: it was 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 extraordinary thing,
which they expected to take place some time or other, but

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knew not exactly when, accomplished in their own times,
and under their own inspection : it was that sort of astonish-
ment 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 put in his own power, look not for
it at any definite time, — it was that sort of astonishment
which we should feel, if we saw 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 well, is a sort
of commendation which we bestow, not upon a man that
performs some extraordinary feat, which 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 we have a right to expect and
demand of him who pretends and professes to be a master
in that particular 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 which we had a right to expect that
he should do, who should come to us assuming the character
of our Messiah.

The ancient prophecies had described all the circum-
stances of our Saviour's birth, life, and death; and, with
other circumstances, had distinctly specified the sort of
miracles which he should perform. This is the circum-
stance which, I say, is peculiar to our Lord's miracles, and
puts the evidence of diem beyond all doubt, and supersedes
the necessity of all disputation concerning the general evi-
dence of miracles. Our Lord, and of all persons who
have ever appeared in the world, pretending to work mira-
cles, or really working miracles in proof of a divine mis-
sion, our Lord alone, could appeal to a body of recorded
prophecy, delivered many hundred years before he came
into the world, and say, " Li these ancient oracles it is
predicted that the Messiah, appearing among you at a

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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, /come ; those specific works,
I do; and /exhibit the character of the Messiah, deli-
neated in those prophecies, in all its circumstances."

It is remarkable, that our Lord, in reply to the Pharisees,
condescended not to resort to this summary and overbear-
ing proof. But he answered their objection by an argu-
ment, just indeed, and irresistibly conclusive, but of more
refinement. This, I conceive, was in resentment of the
insincerity of these uncandid adversaries. It is indispu-
table, 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 disown
him, — just as Judas knew him to be the Messiah, and yet
he was carried by motives of worldly interest to betray him.
Thus, disowning the Messiah, whom they knew, they
were deliberate apostates from their God ; and they were
treated as they deserved, when our Lord rather exposed
the futility of their own arguments against him, than
vouchsafed to offer that sort of evidence, which, to any
that were not obstinate in wilful error, must have been
irresistible, and which had indeed to the godly multitude
offered itself. But when John the Baptist sent his disci-
ples to inquire of Jesus if he was the person who was to
come, or whether they were to look for another (they were
sent, you will observe, for their own conviction, not for
John's satisfaction; for he at this time could have no
doubt), our Lord was pleased to deal with them in a very
different manner. He made them eye-witnesses of many
of those miracles which were a literal completion of the
prophecies, 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 we
cleanse the leper, cure the lame, the blind, the deaf, and
the dumb ; you have seen wf liberate the possessed ; you

no

have snen mc raise the dead; and you have heard )iic
preach the gospel to the poor. He will connect these
things with the prophecies that have gone before concern-
ing 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 subject, nor farther
pursue the interesting meditations which it might suggest,
in order to apply the whole to the particular occasion
which has brought me hither.

You will recollect, that the miracles which are specified
in the prophecies as works that should characterize the
Messiah when 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 mira-
culous powers, so long as they subsisted in the church,
were exercised by the first disciples chiefly in acts of
mercy of the same kind. Now that the miraculous powers
are withdrawn, we act in conformity to the spirit of our
holy religion, and to our Lord's own example, when we
endeavour what we can to extend relief, by such natural
means as are within our power, to the like instances of dis-
tress. It was prophesied of our Lord, that when he should
come to save those that were of a fearful heart, " the eyes
of the 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 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 mentioned in the prophecies, among the
works of mercy the most characteristic of man's great de-
liverer: and accordingly, when he came, there was, I think,

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no one species of miracle which he so frequently performed,
which may justify an attention even of preference in us to
this calamity.

It is now some years since a method has been found out,
and practised with considerable success, of teaching per-
sons, 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 discovery was extended in any de-
gree 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, 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 lamentable state is much greater than
might be imagined.

In this Asylum, as many as the funds of the charity can
support, are taught, with ^le 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 calamity of the want
of the sense of hearing is much alleviated, — comparatively
speaking, it is removed, by giving the use of letters and of
speech, by which they are admitted to the pleasure of
social conversation, — are made capable of receiving both
amusement and instruction from books, — are qualified to
be useful both to themselves and the community, — and,
what is most of all, the treasures of that knowledge which
maketh wise unto salvation are brought within their 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 washing; 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
* Preached for the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, 1/96.

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November, 1792, exceeds the most sanguine expectations
of their benefactors; and tlie progress of those who have
been admitted at subsequent periods, is in full proportion
to the time. The number at present exceeds not twenty.
There are at this time at least fifty candidates for admission,
the far greater part of whom, the slender finances of the
society will not permit to be received.

I am persuaded that this simple statement of the object
of the charity, the success with which the good providence
of God has blessed its endeavours, within the narrow 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 this excellent insti-
tution, and the furtherance and extension of its views. 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 now at the right hand of God, sends down his bless-
ing upon those who follow his steps, and accepts the good
that is done to the least of those whom he calls his brethren,
as done unto himself.

SERMON XI.

A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another 3 as I
have loved you, that ye also love one another. — John xiii. 34.

In 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 accomplishment, 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 with the food of everlasting life, the
body and blood of the crucified Redeemer ;— when all this

122

was finished, 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 was to be permitted to
display on him its last and utmost effort, Jesus gave it so-
lemnly 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),— -to 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 interpreted, in after ages, as an
injunction in which the apostles only were concerned, im-
posed upon them in their peculiar character of the governors
of the church, our great Master, to obviate any such wilful
misconstruction of his dying charge, declared it to be his
pleasure and his meaning, that the exercise of mutual love,
in all ages, and in all nations, among men of all ranks,
callings, and conditions, should be the general badge and
distinction of his disciples. " By this shall all men know
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 new commandment I
give unto you, that ye love one another."

It was, indeed, in various senses, a new commandment.
First, as the thing enjoined was too much a novelty in the
practice of mankind. The age in which our Saviour 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 war 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

123

class of the necessitous, had universally induced that
churlish habit of the mind in which every feeling is consi-
dered 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 suppressed, as dis-
turbers 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 is unhap-
pily taken root. It renders every man selfish upon princi-
ple. The first symptom of this fatal corruption is the ex-
tinction 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 counterfeit, which, assum-
ing 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 am-
bition and rapacity of the demagogue. The next stage of
the corruption, is a perfect indifference and insensibility, in
all ranks of men, to everything but the gratification of the
moment. An idle peasantry subsist themselves by theft and
violence ; and a voluptuous nobility squander, on base and
criminal indulgences, that superfluity of store which 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 extinguished,
what is far beyond ordinary philanthropy, the religious love
of our neighbour, rarely, if ever, will be found.

Nor was 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 between the
two sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sad-
ducees were 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

124

the possibility of a resurrection. Their disciples were
numerous among the great and voluptuous, but they never
had any credit with the body of the people. The popular
religion was that of the Pharisees ; and this, as all must
know who read the New Testament, was a religion of
form and show, — if that indeed may be called a religion,
of which the love of God and man made no essential part.
Judge whether they taught men to love one another, who
taught uup-rateful children to evade the fifth command-
ment, 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 circumstances, that it prescribed what was neglected
in the practice of mankind, and what was omitted in the
sermons of their teachers, our Lord's injunction to his dis-
ciples, to love one another, was a new commandment. But
the novelty of it consisted 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 also love one another." Chris-
tians are to adjust their love to one another to the measure
and example of Christ's love to them. Christ's love was
perfect as the principle from whence it flowed, the origi-
nal benignity of the divine character. The example of
this perfect love in the life of man was a new example ;
and the injunction of conformity to this new example
might well be called a new commandment. Otherwise, the
commandment that men should love one another, consi-
dered 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 which seems to be generally mistaken.
Men are apt, upon all occasions, to run into extremes ;
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.

125

to heighten tlie encomium ot'the Clivistian system, by de-
preciating, not only the lessons of the heatlien moralists,
but the moral part of the Mosaic institution. They con-
sider not that the peculiar excellence of the Christian sys-
tem lies much more in doctrine than in precept. Our
Saviour, indeed, and his apostles after him, took all occa-
sions of reproving the vices of mankind, and of inculcating
a punctual discharge of the social duties ; and the mora-
lity which they taught, was of the purest and the highest
kind. The practice of the duties enjoined in their pre-
cepts, is the end for which their doctrines were 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 of the doctrine without the practice,
as the end is always more excellent than tlie means. Nay,
the knowledge of the doctrines, without 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 jus-
tice 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 the judge of human
actions, — the establishment of this practical religion, is an
end common to Christianity with all the earlier revelations
— with the earliest revelations to the patriarchs — with the
Mosaic institution, and with the preachings of the pro-
phets ; and the peculiar excellency of Christianity cannot
be placed in that which it hath in common with all true
religions, but rather in the efficacy of 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 re-
velation is, that, by the large discovery which it makes of

126

the principles and plan of God's moral government of the
world, it furnishes sufficient motives to the practice of
those duties which its precepts, in harmony with the na-
tural suggestions of conscience, and with former revela-
tions, recommend. This is the true panegyric of the glo-
rious revelation we enjoy, — that its doctrines are more
immediately and clearly connected with its end, and more
effectual for the attainment of it, than the precarious con-
clusions of human philosophy, or the imperfect discoveries
of earlier revelations, — that the motives by which its pre-
cepts are enforced, are the most powerful that might with
propriety be addressed to free and rational agents. It is
commonly said, and sometimes strenuously 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, without 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 observation afford daily proof how easily
a sound judgment is misled by the exuberance even of 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 Christians, to make
the avowed enemies of Christianity the objects of their
prayers and of their love, arises out of the peculiar nature
of Christianity, considered as the work of reconciliation.
Our Saviour, too, Avas the fiist who showed to what ex-
tent 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 re-
ligion of the Jews. The two maxims to which our Sa-
viour refers the whole of the law and the prophets, were
maxims of the Mosaic law itself. Had it, indeed, been
otherwise, our Saviour, when he alleged these maxims in
answer to the lawyer's question, " Which is the chief

127

commandment of the law?" would not have answered
with 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 law
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, indispensable duty ; insomuch, that no-
thing can become an act of duty to God, or to our
neighbour, otherwise than as it is capable of being re-
ferred to the one or the other of these two general topics.
They might be said, therefore, 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
subordinate, and in which all others are contained as parts
in the whole. All this would have been true, though
neitlier of these maxims had had a place in the law of
Moses. But it would not have been a pertinent answer
to the lawyer's question, nor would it have taken the
effect which our Lord's answer actually took, with the
subtle disputants with whom he was engaged, " that no
man durst ask him any more questions." The lawyer's
question was not, what thing might, in its own nature, 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 expressly mentioned either.
But the question was, " Which is the great commandment
in the law?" — that is, in Moses's law; for 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, notwithstanding the confessed natural
excellence of the things ; because the question was not
about natural excellence, but what was to be reckoned the
first in authority and importance among the written com-
mandments. Those masters of sophistry, with whom our

128

Saviour had been for some hours engaged, felt themselves
overcome, w^hen he produced from the books of the law
two maxims, which, forming a complete and simple sum-
mary of the whole, — and not only of the 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 commandments. 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 nineteenth chapter of Levi-
ticus, at the eighteenth verse.

The injunction, therefore, of conformity to his own
example, is that which is chiefly new in the command-
ment of our Lord. As it is in this circumstance that the
commandment 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 under-
stand 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. Lifinite in its comprehension, his love embraced his
enemies ; intense in its energy, it incited him to assume a
frail and mortal nature, — to undergo contempt and death ;
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 wonder-
ful part of all is the character of Christ, — a character not
exempt from those feelings of the soul and infirmities of

129

the body vvhicli rciider 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 the
whole. This character, in which piety and benevolence,
upon all occasions, and in all circumstances, overpowered
all the inferior passions, is more incomprehensible to the
natural reason of the carnal man than the deepest mys-
teries,— 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; but of all thino-s
the most important and the most necessary to be well un-
derstood and firmly believed, — the most efficacious for the
softening of the sinner's heart, for quelling the pride of
human wisdom, and for bringing every thought and ima-
gination of the soul into subjection to the righteousness of
God. "Let this mind," says the apostle, "be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus ;" — that mind which incited
him, when he considered the holiness of God, and the guilt
and corruption of fallen man, to say, "I come to do thy
will, O God r' — that is, according to the same apostle's
interpretation, to do that will by which we are sanctified,
to make the satisfaction for the sinful race which divine
justice demanded. Being in the form of God, he made
himself of no reputation; he divested himself of that ex-
ternal form of glory in which he had been accustomed to
appear to the patriarchs in the first ages, in which he ap-
peared to Moses in the bush, and to his chosen servants
in later periods of the Jewish history, — that form of glory
in which his presence was manifested between the cheru-
bim in the Jewish sanctuary. He made himself of no
reputation, and, uniting himself to the holy fruit of Mary's
womb, he took upon him the form of a slave — of that
fallen creature who had sold himself into the bondage of
Satan, sin, and death ; and, being found in fashion as a
man, he humbled himself, — he submitted to the condition

130

of a man in its most humiliating circumstances, and car-
ried his obedience unto death — the death even of the cross
— the painful, ignominious death of a malefactor, 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 sentence which the dastardly
judge who pronounced 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 executioners, and the insulting rabble, — made no re-
sistance when his body was fastened to the cross by the
Roman soldiers, — endured the reproaches of the chief
priests and rulers — the taunts and revilings of the Jewish
populace ; and this not from any consternation arising
from his bodily sufferings, which might be supposed for
the moment to deprive him of the knowledge of himself.
He possessed himself to the last. In the height of his
agonies, with a magnanimity not less extraordinary than
his patient endurance of pain and contumely, he accepted
the homage, which, in that situation, was oiiiered 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 power for the deliverance of him-
self and the destruction of his enemies? — Evidently that
which he avows upon his coming first into the world; " I
come to do thy will, O God f 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 humility, and of love, we are called
upon to imitate.

The sense of our inability to attain to the perfection of
Christ's example, is a reason for much humility, and for

131

much mutual forbearance, but. no excuse for the wilful
neglect of his command. It may seem tliat it is of little
consequence to inculcate virtues which 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 few to make themselves conspicuous as
benefactors of mankind, by such actions as are usually
called great, because the effect of them on the welfare of
various descriptions of the human race is immediate and
notorious, the principle of religious philanthropy, influ-
encing the whole 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 laws may restrain
men from flagrant crimes, but it is this principle alone that
can make any man a useful member of society. This re-
strains him, not only from those violent invasions of an-
other's right which are punished by human laws, but it
overrules the passions from which those enormities pro-
ceed ; and the secret effects of it, were it but once uni-
versal, would be more beneficial to human life than the
most brilliant actions of those have ever been to whom
blind superstition has erected statues and devoted altars.
As this principle is that which makes a man the most use-
ful to others, so it is that alone which 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.

K 2

132

SERMON XII.

Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing iierc, uliicli shall not
taste of death till tliey see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. —
Matt. xvi. 28.

These remarkable words stand in the conclusion of a
certain discourse, with the subject of which, as they have
been generally understood, they seem to be but little con-
nected. It must therefore be ray business to establish
what I take to be their true meaning, before I attempt to
enlarge upon the momentous doctrine which I conceive 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
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 pre-
tends to be my disciple, " let him take up his cross and
follow me." To enforce 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 assures them of the cer-
tainty of a day of retribution ; and to that assurance he
subjoins the declaration of the text, as a weiglity 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 be-
speaking 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 discourse of our Lord's, that they

133

" should not taste of death" before a certain lime; which
time is described as that when " the Son of man should
be seen coming- in bis kingdom."' Observe, it is not simply
the time when the Son of man should come, but the time
when he should come in his kingdom, and when he should
be seen so comino-. In order to ascertain the meanino; of
this assertion, the first point must be, to determine, if pos-
sible, what may be the particular time which is thus de-
scribed. From the resolution of this question, it will pro-
bably appear in what sense, figurative or literal, it might
be affirmed of any who were present 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 concerning them, it is
likely w^e shall then discern for what purpose of general
edification the particular destiny of those persons was thus
publicly declared.

Many expositors, both ancient and modern, by " the
coming of the Son of man," in this text, have understood
the transfiguration. This notion probably takes its rise
from the manner in which St. Peter mentions that memo-
rable transaction, in the first chapter of his second catholic
epistle ; v/here, 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 manifestation 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 to the phrase of
" the coming of the Son of man," considered 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

134

time of the transfiguration, what will be the amount of the
solemn asseveration in the text ? Nothing more than this,
— that in the numerous assembly 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,
who vvere not to die within a week ; for so much was the
utmost interval of time between this discourse and the
transfiguration. Our great Lord and Master was not ac-
customed to amuse his followers with any such nugatory
predictions.

The like argument sets aside another interpretation, in
which our Lord's ascension 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 par-
ticular, but to the whole multitude, as we learn from St.
Mark, that this discourse was addressed), — to what pur-
pose, I say, covdd it be, to tell them that there were
some among them who were destined to live half a
year?

Both these interpretations have given way to a third,
in which "the coming of 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 hatli been generally imagined, by the usual import of
the phrase of the " coming of the Son of man," in other
passages of holy writ. There is no question but that the
coming of our Lord, taken literally, signifies his coming
in person to the general judgment; and, if the time per-
mitted me to enter upon a minute examination of the se-
veral texts wherein the phrase occurs, it might perhaps
appear, that, except in the book of Revelations, the figu-
rative 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 coming in person to the

135

general judgment ; and the close connexion of the words
of the 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 terms that necessarily limit the notion of
his coming to that of his last coming to the general judg-
ment. " For the Son of man shall come in the glory of
his Father, with his angels; and then he 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 pre-
sent should see him coming. To what purpose is this
second declaration, but as a repetition of the first, with
the addition of a circumstance which might interest the
audience in the event, and awaken their serious attention
to it ? "I will come, and some of you shall see me
coming." Can it be supposed, that in such an assevera-
tion, the word to come may bear two different senses ; and
that the coming, of which it was said that it should be
seen, should not be visible? But what then? Did our
Lord actually aver that any of those who upon this occa-
sion were his hearers, should live to the day of the general
judgment? It cannot be supposed: that were to ascribe
to him a prediction which the event of things hath fal-
sified. Mark his words : " There be some standing here,
who shall not taste of death." He says not, "who shall
not die,'' but " who shall not taste of death." Not to taste
of death, is not to feel the pains of it — not to taste its bit-
terness. In this sense was the same expression used by
our Lord upon other occasions, as was, indeed, the more
simple expression of not dying. " If a man keep my say-
ing, he shall never taste of death.'' The expression is to
be understood with reference to the intermediate state be-
tween death and the final judgment, in which the souls,

13G

both of the righteous and the wicked, exist in a conscious
state,' — the one comforted with the hope and prospect of
their future glory, — the other mortified with the expecta-
tion of torment. The promise to the saints, that they shall
never taste of death, is without limitation of time; — in the
text, a time being set, until which the persons intended
shall not taste of eath, it is implied that then they shall
taste it. The departure of the wicked into everlasting
torment, is, in Scripture, called the second death. This
is the death from which Christ came to save penitent sin-
ners; and to this the impenitent remain obnoxious. The
pangs and horrors of it will be such, that the evil of na-
tural death, in comparison, may well be overlooked ; and
it may be said of the wicked, that they shall have no real
taste of death till they taste it m the burning lake, from
whence the smoke of their torment shall ascend for ever
and ever. This is what our Lord insinuates in the alarm-
ing 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 with the scope and occasion of the
whole discourse. "Whosoever," says our Lord, ''will
lose his life, shall find it,"'^shall find, instead of the life
he loses here, a better in the world to come; "and who-
soever will save his life shall lose it,"— shall lose that life
which alone is worth his care: "for what is a man pro-
fited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ;
or what shall a man give in exchanoe for his soul?" For
there will come a day of judgment and retribution; — the
Son of man, — he who now converses with you in a human
form, — shall " come in the glory of the Father, with his
angels; and then he shall reward every man according to
his works." On them who, by patient continuance in
well-doing, have sought for life and immortality — on them
he shall bestow glory and happiness, 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

137

of the sufferings of the present life, from the consideration
of the better enjoyments and of the heavier snfferings of
the life to come; and because the discourse was occa-
sioned 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 consideration its
full effect, the hearers are told that there were those
among themselves who stood in this dangerous predica-
ment. " There be some standing here, who shall not
taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his
kingdom;" and then will they be doomed to endless suf-
ferings, in comparison with which the previous pangs of
natural death are nothing. " Flatter not yourselves that
these threatenings will never be executed, — that none will
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 now
perhaps hear these warnings with incredulity and con-
tempt: but the time will come, when they will see the
Son of man, whom they despised — whom they rejected —
whom they persecuted, coming to execute vengeance on
them who have not known God, nor obeyed the gospel;
and then will they be doomed to endless sufferings, in
comparison with which the previous pangs of natural
death are nothing."

It will be proper, however, to consider, whether, among
the hearers of this Discourse, there might be any at whom
it may be probable that our Lord should point so express
a denunciation of final destruction.

" There are some standing here." — The original words,
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 ex-

138

pression certain persons hath just the same definite sense
as a certain person, the force of the phiral number being
only that it is a more reserved, and, for that reason, a
more alarming, way of pointing at an individual. Now,
in the assembly to which our Lord was speaking, a cer-
tai?i person, it may well be supposed, was present, whom
charity herself may hardly scruple to include among the
miserable objects of God's final vengeance. The son of
perdition, Judas the traitor, was standing there. Our
Saviour's first prediction of his passion was that which
gave occasion to this whole discourse. It may reason-
ably be supposed, that the tragical conclusion of his life
on earth was present to his mind, with all its horrid cir-
cumstances ; and, among these, none was likely to make
a more painful impression than the treason of his base dis-
ciple. His mind possessed 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 understood, — the forethought of the fallen
apostle's punishment could not but present itself; and this
drew from our divine instructor that alarming menace,
which must have struck a chill of horror to the heart of
every one that heard it, and the more because the par-
ticular application 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 magni-
tude of those evils — the sharpness of those pains, which
none but the ungodly shall ever feel, and from which none
of the ungodly shall ever escape.

Nor in this passage only, but in every page of holy writ,
are these terrors displayed, 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 sufficient to overcome the most power-
ful 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

139

devil and his angels, where the worm dieth not, and the
lire is not quenched; there they sliall 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 of the wicked will be a state of ex-
quisite 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 three different passions by which they are severally
ovei-come, — ambition, avarice, and sensuality. Personal
consequence is the object of the first class ; wealth, of the
second ; pleasure, of the third. Personal consequence is
not to be acquired but by great undertakings, bold in the
first conception, difficult in execution, extensive in conse-
quence. Such undertakings demand great abilities. Ac-
cordingly, we commonly find in the ambitious man a su-
periority of parts, in some measure proportioned to the
magnitude of his designs : it is his particular talent to
weigh 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 away. Again, your avaricious money-
getting m.an is generally a character of wonderful discre-
tion. It might be expected that he would be exact to
count his gains, and would be the last to barter posses-
sions which he might hold for ever, for a wealth that shall
be taken from him, and shall not profit him in the day of
wrath. Then, for those servants of sin, the effeminate

140

sons of sensual pleasure, these are a feeble, timid race.
It might be expected that these, of all men, v»^ould 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 slirinks 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 threatenings
of wrath upon the impenitent, than in general assertions of
God's forbearance and mercy. These assertions are con-
firmed by the voice of nature, which loudly proclaims the
goodness as well as the powder 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 ap-
pointment of Providence, is short. " He hath made our
days as it were a span long." " Is it, then, to be sup-
posed, that this good, this merciful, this long-sutTering
God, should doom his frail, imperfect 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, that 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 con-
dition of the wicked, is prophecy ; and prophecy, we know,
deals in poetical and exaggerated expressions." Such,
perhaps, is the language which the sinner holds within
himself, when he is warned of the wrath to come ; and
such language he is taught to hold, in the writings and
the sermons of our modern sectaries. He is taught, that
the punishment threatened is far more heavy than will be
executed : he is told, theit the words which, in their literal

141

meaning, denote endless duration, are, upon many occa-
sions, 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 writings, not
of infidels, but of men who, with 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 resist their dan-
gerous innovations.

The question concerning tlie eternity of punishment
(like some others, which, considered 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 with argument, would impartially
consider how far reason, in her natural strength, may be
competent to the inquiry. I do not mean to affirm gene-
rally that reason is not a judge in matters of religion : but
I do maintaiil, that there are certain points concerning the
nature of the Deity, and the 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 con-
cerning the eternal duration of the tarments of the wicked
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 punishment is unworthy 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 pro-
perty,— the love of virtue for its own sake. The definition
is good, as far as it goes ; but is it complete ? Does it
comprehend the whole of the thing intended ? Perhaps
not. Virtue and vice are opposites : love and hate are
opposites. A consistent character must bear opposite
affections toward opposite things. To love virtue, there-
fore, for its own sake, and to hate vice for its own sake,
may equally belong to the character of essential goodness ;

142

and thus, as virtue 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 own sake, nun/ be the object of his hatred
and persecution.

Again, it cannot be proved that the scheme of eternal
punishment is inconsistent with the relative perfections of
the Deity — with 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 attri-
butes 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 incon-
sistent with the schemes of God's moral government : for
who can define the extent of that government? Who
among the sons of men hath an exact understanding of its
ends — a knowledge 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 not
fall, we have the comfortable assurance of God's word. But
by what means is the security of their state to be effected ?
Unquestionably by the influence of moral motives upon
the minds of free and rational agents. But who 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
wicked, if the preservation of the righteous should call
for the perpetual example of their punishment ? — Since,
then, no proof can be deduced, from any natural know-
ledge that we have of God, that the scheme of eternal pu-
nishment is unworthy of the Divine character, — since there
is no proof that it is inconsistent either with the natural
perfections of God, or with his relative attributes, — since
it may be necessary to the ends of his government, — upon

143

what grounds do we proceed, when we pretend to inter-
pret, to qualify, and to extenuate the threatenings of holy
writ ?

The original frailty of human nature, and the provi-
dential 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 pro-
portion it may bear to eternity (which would be equally
none at all, though it were protracted to ten thousand
times its ordinary length), but according as the space of it
may be more or less than may be just sufficient for the
purposes of such a state as our present life is, of discipline
and probation. 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 thrcatenings of
the gospel, joined with the experience which every man's
life affords of God s power and providence — of the insta-
bility 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 state of experience, joined with
future hopes and fears, must produce certain degrees of
improvement in moral wisdom and in virtuous habit. If,
in all that time, no effect is wrought, the impediment can
only have arisen from incurable self-will and obstinacy.
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 incorrigibly
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
duration : 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 narrowness of the limits,

J44

either of time or place, vvitliin 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 wicived may have an end, it would be
upon the principle adopted by the great Origen, and by
other eminent examples of learning and piety which our
own times have seen, — that the actual endurance of pu-
nishment in the next life will produce effects to which the
apprehension of it in this had been insufficient, and end,
after a long course of ages, in the reformation of the worst
characters. But, the principle that this effect is possible —
that the heart may be reclaimed by force, is at best pre-
carious ; and the only safe principle of human conduct is
the belief, that unrepented sin will suffer endless punish-
ment hereafter.

Perhaps, the distance at which imagination sets the
prospect of future punishment, may have a more general
influence in diminishing the effect of God's merciful warn-
ings, than any sceptical doubts about the intensity or the
duration of the sufferings 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 declara-
tions, to remind every man that his particular doom is
near : for, whatever may be the season appointed in the
secret counsels of God, for " that great and terrible 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
oriiis own life. In the grave there will be no repentance ;
no virtues can be acquired — no evil habits thrown off.
With that character, whether of virtue or of vice, with
which a man leaves the world, with that he must appear
before the judgment-seat of Christ. In that moment, there-

145

tore, in which his present life ends, every man's future con-
dition 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," — watch 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 vigilance and prayer be
ineffectual. On the incorrigible and perverse, — on those
who mock at God's threatenings, and reject his promises,
— on these only the severity of wrath will fall. But, for
those who lay these warnings seriously to heart — who
dread the pollution of the world, and flee from sin as from
a serpent — who 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 with 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.

SERMON XIII.

I 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.* —
Matt. xvi. 18, 19.

It is much to be lamented, that the sense of this im-
portant text, in which our Lord for the first time makes
explicit mention of his church, declaring, in brief but
comprehensive terms, the ground-work of the institution,
the high privileges of the community, and its glorious
hope, — it is much to be lamented, that the sense of so

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

146

important a text should have been brought under doubt
and obscurity, by a variety of forced and discordant expo-
sitions, which prejudice and party-spirit have produced ;
while writers in the Roman communion have endeavoured
to find in this passage a foundation for the vain preten-
sions of the Roman pontiff, ^md Protestants, on the other
hand, have been more solicitous to give it a sense which
might 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 of the various interpretations that
have been offered, we take the text itself in hand, and try
whether its true meaning may not still be fixed with 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.

Among the divines of the reformed churches, especially
the Calvinists, it hath been a favourite notion, that St.
Peter himself had no particular interest in the promises
which seem in this passage to be made to him. The
words were addressed by our Lord to St. Peter, upon the
occasion of his prompt confession of his faith in Jesus as
the Christ, the son of the living God ; and this confession
of St. Peter's was his answer to a question which our Lord
had put to the apostles in general, " Whom say ye that I
am?''— which question had arisen out of the answers they
returned to an antecedent question, " Whom say men that
I am?"

Now, with respect to this confession of St. Peter's, two
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 what motives

147

it is not easy to divine, these two ancient commentators
have taken upon them to assert that St. Peter, upon this
occasion, was 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 expositors of the
Calvinistic school proceed to a conclusion which must
stand or fall with the assumption upon which it is founded.
They say, since St. Peter's confession of his faith was 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 individually, but as the representative
of the twelve ; insomuch, that whatever the privileges may
be which are described in my text as the custody of the
keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the authority to bind
and loose on earth, with an effect that should be ratified
in heaven, — whatever these privileges may be, St. Peter,
according to these expositors, is no otherwise interested in
them than as an equal sharer with the rest of the apostolic
band.

But we may be allowed to demand of these apt disci-
ples of St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome, what right they
can make out for St. Peter to be the spokesman of the
company, and, without any previous consultation 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 pur-
pose 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 pre-
L 2

148

sent case, have we any such evidence of the thing sup-
posed ; any indication of it in the apostle's words ; any
assertion of the historian ? — Quite the contrary. To our
Lord's first question, "Whom say men that I am?" the
answer, we are told indeed, was general. '' They said — '"
says the sacred historian. The question was 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 who
alone replied,' — as if, upon this point, no one else was
ready with an answer. " 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 re-
corded 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 who replied to the
second question? And whence is it that not the most
distant hint of any general concurrence of the apostles
in St. Peter's sentiments is given by any one of these three
writers ?

Again, let the manner of our Lord's reply to St. Peter
be remarked. I would ask, in what way any one person
of a numerous company can be more pointedly addressed,
— in what way can a discourse be more expressly con-
fined 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 dis-
tinct compellation these express words, " I say unto thee?"
But this was the 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 what was thus particularly said to Simon, son of
Jonah, was equally said to another Simon, who was not
the son of Jonah — to James, the son of Alpheus — to the

149

sons of Zebedee, or any other persons present who were
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 compellation was St.
Peter marked as the individual object of oiu' Lord's dis-
course upon another occasion, upon which no man in his
senses ever doubted that St. Peter individually was ad-
dressed? By the same mode of compellation which is
used here;— he was spoken to by his name and by his
patronymic — " Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me?'
Clearly, therefore, Peter individually was upon this occa-
sion blessed by our Lord; — clearly, therefore, the confes-
sion which obtained the blessing was St. Peter's own.

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 sub-
sequent occasion; when, it may well be supposed, the
satisfaction which our Lord upon this occasion had ex-
pressed in St. Peter's confession, had made a deep impres-
sion upon the minds of the apostles, and had brought them
to a general concurrence in St. Peter's sentiments. But it
is particularly to be remarked, that St. Peter, upon this
occasion, making a confession for himself, as I contend,
obtains a blessing ; afterward, when the same confession
was made by him in the name of all, no blessing follows
it. The reason is obvious. The blessing due to 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, spake singly for himself; the force of which,
however it hath passed unnoticed, is nothing short of de-
monstration. It is to be drawn from those words of our
Lord, " I say unto thee, thou art Peter." Proper names,

150

in the Hebrew language, were titles rather than names —
words expressive of some peculiar adjunct of the persons
by whom they were first borne. This was more particu-
larly 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 pecu-
liarity in the character, the life, the achievements, or the
destiny, of the person on whom it was imposed. When
Simon, son of Jonah, first became a follower of our Lord,
our Lord gave him the name of Cephas, or the rock, which
passed into the equivalent word 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 which
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 pro-
perly 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 was it that this now ap-
peared? Nothing had passed which could discover any
peculiarity of St. Peter, unless it was the confession which
he had made of his faith in Jesus. This confession, there-
fore, was, by our Lord's own judgment, that which evinced
the singular propriety of the name. But how should this
confession evince the propriety 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 common confession of all the apostles, made only by
St. Peter's mouth, the inevitable consequence will be, that
the name might have been imposed with equal propriety
upon any one of the twelve, Judas Iscariot perhaps alone
excepted;— which is in effect to say, that it was imposed

15i

upon Simon, ttie son of Jonah, by the Omniscient Discerner
of the hearts of men, with no propriety at all.

Standing- upon this firm ground of argument, we may
now 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 him-
self singly, the reward of his being foremost in the faith
which he confessed,* — that, to be the carrier of the keys
of the kingdom of heaven — to loose and bind on earth, in
any sense which the expressions may bear in this passage
— were personal distinctions of the venerable primate of
the apostolic college, appropriated to him in positive and
absolute exclusion of all other persons, — in exclusion of
the apostles, his cotemporaries, and of the bishops of
Rome, his successors. We need not scruple to assert, that
any interpretation of this passage, or of any part of it,
founded upon a notion that St. Peter, upon this occasion,
spake or was spoken to as the representative of the apostles,
is groundless and erroneous.

Having laid this foundation, let us now endeavour to
fix the sense, first of the promise to St. Peter, and, in the
next place, of the promise to the church.

The promise to St. Peter consists of these two articles,
— that the keys of the kingdom 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 ex-
position of this text, must be something quite distinct from
that with which it hath generally been confounded — the

* 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 se-
quel, that this last fell far short of St. Peter's ; and the same remark
would apply to Nathaniel's. St. Peter was unquestionably foremost in
the full, distinct confession now made.

152

power of the remission and retention of sins, conferred by
our Lord, after his resurrection, upon the apostles in ge-
neral, and transmitted through them to the perpetual suc-
session of the priesthood. This is the discretionary power
lodged in the priesthood of dispensing 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 whom it is exercised, ac-
cording 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 withholds 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 was quite another thing.
It was a temporary, not a perpetual authority: its object
was not individuals, but the whole human race. The
kingdom of heaven upon earth is the true church of God.
It is now, therefore, the Christian church ; — formerly the
Jewish church was 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 persons only could obtain admittance, —
Israelites by birth, or by legal incorporation. The locks
of these gates were the rites of the Mosaic law, which
obstructed the entrance of aliens. But, after our Lord's
ascension, and the descent of the Holy Ghost, the keys of
the city were given to St. Peter, by that vision which
taught him, and authorised him to teach others, that all
distinctions of one nation from another w^ere at an end.
By virtue of this special commission, the great apostle ap-
plied the key, pushed back the bolt of the lock, and threw
the gates of the city open for the admission of the whole
Gentile 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.

153

With this, the second article of the promise, the autho-
rity 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 occa-
sion to the church in general, in the same figurative terms.
St. Peter was the first instrument of Providence in dis-
solving the obligation of the Mosaic law in the ceremo-
nial, and of 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, un-
der .the direction of the Holy Ghost; but the Holy Ghost
moved the apostles to this great business by the sugges-
tion and the persuasion of St. Peter, as we read in the
fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And this was
his particular and personal commission to bind and loose.

I must not quit this part of my subject without observ-
ing, 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 its 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 v/ould be selected to be the first instrument in a
great work of Providence, which was 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 back the
lock, — he loosed and he bound. The gates of the king-
dom of heaven are thrown open, — the ceremonial law is
abrogated — 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 like-
wise of two articles, — that it should be built upon a rock ;
and that, being so built, the gates of hell should not pre-
vail against it.

154

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 better rendered, " up-
on 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 which hath in it the
likeness of a rock ; and upon this self-same rocky thing I
will build my church/' We have already seen, that the
reason of the name of Peter, given to Simon, lay in the
confession which he now made. In that confession, there-
fore, we must seek the rocky thing to which the name al-
luded. Of all natural substances, a rock, though not
perhaps the most dense, is certainly the most durable, the
least liable to internal decay, and the least obnoxious to
destruction 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, unadulte-
rated truth, — in its nature, than adamant more firm — more
permanent — 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 will be necessary, 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, confessing a faith in Jesus as the Son
of God, obtained no blessing. I speak not now of that
confession which, upon a subsequent occasion, was made
by St. Peter, in the name of all ; but of a confession made
before, by the apostles in a body, for any thing that ap-
pears, without St. Peter's intervention. We read, in the

155

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 equivalent, 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,^ — more, therefore,
than in a bare confession of Jesus as a Son of God.

What that more was, will easily be understood, if we
take St. Peter's answer in connexion with our Lord's
question, paying 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 answers, " 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 of the living God." St. Peter, therefore, asserts
these three things of Jesus : that he was Christ, — that he
was 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 to
him as man. The former characterises him as that one of
the three persons of the ever-blessed Trinity which was
made man ; — the other characterises him as that man which
was united to the Godhead. St. Peter's confession, there-
fore, amounts to a full acknowledgment of the great mys-
tery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, to destroy the
works of the devil ; and the truth of this faith is the rock
upon which Christ promises to build his church.

Upon the second article of the promise to the church,

156

"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 were
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 Jews 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
not prevail against his church, our Lord promises not only
perpetuity to the church, to the last moment of the world's
existence, notwithstanding the successive mortality of all
its members in all ages, but, what is much more, a final
triumph over the power 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 would allow, though more
briefly than the greatness of the subject might deserve.
To apply the whole to the more immediate concerns of this
assembly, I shall conclude with two remarks :

The first is. That the church, to which our Lord pro-
mises 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 commissioned by him, acting
under his directions, and assisted by his Spirit, upon the
solid rock of the truth of St. Peter's faith. That faith was
a faith in the mediatorial oflSces 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 build-
ing, 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 propagation

157

of the gospel. By those who have the appointment of
itinerant missionaries for the conversion of the heathen,
it should be particularly attended to, in the choice of per-
sons 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 difficulty
of giving a right apprehension of the mysteries of our reli-
gion 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 him that worketh with us, must be encoun-
tered, or the whole 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, where he hath not laid this foun-
dation. For those who presume to build upon other
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 perpetual stability, in the text, is to
the church catholic : it aftbrds no security to any particular
church, if her faith or her works should not be found per-
fect 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 illus-
trious, planted by the apostles, watered with the blood of
the first saints and martyrs, which are now no more.
Where are now the seven churches of Asia, whose praise
is in the Apocalypse ? Where shall we now find the succes-
sors of those earliest archbishops, once stars in the Son of
man's right hand ? Where are those boasted seals of Paul's
apostleship, the churches of Corinth and Philippi ? Where
are the churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria? — But is
there need that we resort, for salutary warning, to the ex-
amples of remote antiquity ? Alas ! where, at this moment,

158

is the church of France ? — her altars demolished — her
treasures spoiled — her holy things profaned — her perse-
cuted clergy, and her plundered prelates, wanderers on the
earth ! Let us take warning by a visitation that is come
so near our doors. Let 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 own. Let us not
place a vain confidence in the purer worship, the better
discipline, and the sounder faith, which, for two centuries
and a half, we have enjoyed. These things are not our
merit : they are God's gifts ; and the security we may de-
rive from them will depend upon the use we make of them.
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
concerns. Let us all — but let the younger clergy, more
especially, beware 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 charac-
ter, abstaining from the gross scandal of open riot and
criminal dissipation, but giving no farther attention to their
spiritual duties than may be consistent with the pursuits
and pleasures of the world, and may not draw them from
a fixed residence in populous cities, at a distance from
their cures, or a wandering life in places of public resort
and amusement, where they have no call, and where the
grave, dignified character of a parish-priest is ill exchanged
for that of a fashionable tritler. We know the charms of
improved and elegant society. Its pleasures in themselves
are innocent ; but they are 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 mi-
nistry, in the places to which we are severally appointed,

159
because our lot may have chanced to fall in the retirement
of a country town, or perhaps in the obscurity of a villacre,
the time may come, sooner than we think, when it shall be
said, Where is now the church of England ? Let us be-
times 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."

SERMON XIV.

For I have determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus
Christ, and him crucified.* — 1 Cor. ii. 2.

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 were idle to inquire.
They were run after in their day, but their names have
been long since forgotten ; nor is any thing remembered
of them, but the mischief which they did. The general
character of the men, and the complexion of their doc-
trine, may easily be collected from this and the subsequent
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 com-
missioned, was not any genuine zeal for the propagation
of the truth, or any charitable desire to reclaim the profli-
gate, and to instruct the ignorant ; but the love of gain —
of power and applause, — the desire, in short, of those

* Preached in the Cathedral Church of Gloucester, at a Public Ordi-
nation of Priests and Deacons.

160

advantages which ever attend popularity in the character
of a teacher, A scrupulous adherence to the plain doc-
trine of the gospel had been inconsistent with these views,
since it could only have exposed them to persecution.
Whatever, therefore, the Christian doctrine might contain
offensive to the prejudice of Jew or Gentile, they endea-
voured to clear away by figurative interpretations, by which
they pretended to bring to light the hidden sense of mys-
terious expressions, which the first preachers had not ex-
plained. While they called themselves by the name of
Christ, they required not that the Jew should recognise
the Maker of the world, the Jehovah of his fathers, in the
carpenter's reputed son; nor would they incm* 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 studied orna-
ments of eloquence. To these arts they trusted, to gain
credit for their innovations with the multitude. Not that
the Corinthian multitude, more than the multitude of any
other place, were qualified to enter into abstruse questions
— to apprehend the force, or to discern the fallacy of a
long chain of argument — or to judge of the speaker's elo-
quence ; but they had the art to persuade the people that
they excelled in argument and rhetoric. They told the
people, 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 them-
selves. 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 which
he was the minister, or had not the talents of a teacher in
a sufficient degree to carry his disciples any considera-
ble length, and, through his inability, had left untouched

161

those treasures of knowleda^e which they pretended to dis-
close.

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 disparagement of wisdom, learning, and elo-
quence, as qualifications of little significance in a preacher
of the gospel, and as instruments unfit to be employed in
the service of divine truth. In all these passages, a par-
ticular reference is intended to the arrogant pretensions of
the false teachers, — to their affected learning, and counter-
feit 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 the strange conclusions which ignorance
and enthusiasm, in these later ages, have drawn from the
apostle's words : but he justly reprobates the folly of that
pretended wisdom, which, instead of taking the light of
revelation for its guide, would interpret the doctrines of
revelation by the previous discoveries of human reason ;
and he censures the ignorance of that learning, which ima-
gines that the nature of the self-existent Being, and the
principles of his moral government of the world, 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
how little is the amount, and how 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 influence of the
Divine Spirit, the fountain of truth and knowledge, on his
mind.

That this is the true interpretation of what the apostle

162

says, or liath 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 of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, which
were nine, it seems, in number. In a subsequent part of
the same chapter, we have an enumeration of ecclesiasti-
cal offices, — nine also in number. The nine gifts, and the
nine offices, taken in the order in which they are men-
tioned, 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 inferior offices
is included in the superior, so the higher and rarer gifts
contained the lower and more common. At the head of
the list of offices, as the first in authority, stand apostles
and prophets ; by which last word are meant expounders
of the Scriptures ; — for, that the exposition of Scripture
was the proper office of those who were called prophets in
the primitive church, is a thing so well understood, and
so generally acknowledged, 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 word 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 holding learned arguments from the an-
cient prophecies, and other writings of the Old Testament,
to silence the objections of Jewish adversaries, and to
demonstrate the consistency of the gospel with former
revelations. This was the proper gift of those who were
appointed to expound the Scriptures in congregations of
the faithful, once formed by the preaching of the apostles.
* Vide Appendix.

163

These persons, by the way, bore the name of prophets,
because their office in the church stood in the same rela-
tion to the office of the apostles, as that of the prophets
under the law to the office of Moses. The Jewish pro-
phets were only guardians and expounders of the law
prescribed by Moses, and of the revelation which he pub-
lished. The prophets in the primitive church were not
the publishers of the gospel, but expounders of what the
apostles had previously taught. The apostolic gift, the
word of wisdom, consisted, it should seem, in an intuitive
knowledge of philosophic truth, and an insight into the
harmony of the faith which the apostles taught, with
what are called the principles of natural religion. The
prophetic gift, the word of knowledge, consisted in a
prompt recollection of all parts of the sacred writings, and
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 edu-
cation, "that the excellency of the power might be of
God — not of them." But it is evident, that these gifts,
with which he was pleased to adorn the two first offices in
the Christian church, were to those first preachers instead
of education : for the qualities of a penetrating judgment
in abstruse questions, and a ready recollection of written
knowledge, which the first preachers enjoyed by the im-
mediate influence of the Holy Spirit, are in kind the very
same which 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 un-
questionably in the minds of the first inspired preachers,
in a degree in which, by the mere industry of study, they
cannot be attained. The apostles were, by infinite degrees,
the best informed of all philosophers ; and the prophets
of the primitive church were the soundest of all divines :
but yet the light of inspiration and the light of learning,
M 2

164

however ditlerent in degree, as the difterence indeed is
inexpressible, are nevertheless the same in kind ; for rea-
son is reason, and knowledge is knowledge, in w^iatever
manner they may be produced, — the degree of more and
less being the only difference of which the things are ca-
pable. As the word of wisdom, therefore, and the word
of knowledge, were to the first preachers instead of learn-
ing, so in these later ages, when the Spirit no longer im-
parts his extraordinary gifts, leartiing is instead of them.

The importance and the necessity of it, to a Christian
preacher, evidently appears from God's miraculous inter-
position, in the first ages, to infuse learning into the minds
of those who by education were unlearned ; for, if the at-
tainments 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 dark-
ness, by an exertion of the same almighty power, light up
the lamp of knowledge in the minds of uneducated men?
The reason of this extraordinary interposition, in the early
ages, was, that, for the first promulgation of the gospel,
no abilities to be acquired by education were sufficient for
the teacher's office : and the reason that this extraordinary
interposition 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 our
natural talents, are now 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 blaspheming
Jews are to be repelled, and their misinterpretations of
their own books confuted ; if we are to be " ready," that
is, if we are to be qualified and prepared " to give an an-
swer 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 familiar acquaintance with the

165

Jewish history, and with all parts of the sacred writings ;
a sound judgment, a faithful memory, and a prompt elo-
cution,— are talents without which the work of an evano-e-
list will be but ill performed. When they are not infused
by inspiration, they must be acquired by diligence in
study, and fervency in prayer. And if any in the present
age imagine, that, wanting the advantages of education,
they may be qualified for preachers of the gospel, they are
to be considered as enthusiasts, unless, like the apostles,
they can appeal to a confirmation of their word by " signs
and wonders following." Inspiration is the only means
by which they may be qualified for the business in which
they presume to meddle ; and of a real inspiration, the
power of miracles is the proper sign and inseparable
concomitant.

It is the usual plea of these deluded men, when they
would assert their sufficiency, while they confess their
ignorance, that, however deficient they may be in other
knowledge, they know Christ. i\.nd God forbid, that, in
a country professing Christ's religion, Christ should not
be known by every one, in the degree necessary to his
own salvation, — that any one should not so know Christ,
as to have a right apprehension of the necessary articles
of the Christian faith; right notions of his duty to God,
and to his neighbour ; a steadfast faith in God's promises
through Christ; such views, in short, of the Christian
doctrine, 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
knowledge, without which no one's condition is secure, is
not 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
individual, of his own pure motion, in a business of such

166

serious concern to the community ; tor, if it be allowed
ill any society, that mere ability constitutes a right to act
in any particular capacity, the consequence will be, that
every man will be justified in the usurpation of any office
in the state, by his own opinion of his own sufficiency.
The extravagance and the danger of this principle, applied
in the civil departments, would be readily perceived. A
man who, from a conceit of his own abilities, should take
upon him to play the magistrate, the general, or the privy
counsellor, without a commission regularly obtained 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 him-
self. The reason that the extravagance and danger of the
same principle is not equally perceived, when it is applied
in the ecclesiastical polity, and that disturbers of the eccle-
siastical constitution are suffered to go loose, while other
madmen are confined, is only this, — that the interests of the
church are not so seriously considered as those of the state,
because its oood o-overnment and its disorders come not so
immediately home to the particular interests of each mem-
ber of the community.

I mean not, however, at present to enter into the ques-
tion, what more than mere sufficiency may be requisite to
give a man authority to set up as a public teacher of what
he really knows ; 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 written ; and that, by the
consent of the most learned in ecclesiastical chronology,
this epistle was written so early as the 57th year of our
Lord ; it should seem that the formation of a church — the
constitution of an hierarchy, composed of difterent orders,
which orders were appointed to distinct duties, and in-

167
vested with distinct rights, — was a thing of so great anti-
quity, as may leave no doubt remaining with any reason-
able man of the divine authority of the institution.

But what I at present insist upon is this, — that that
knowledge of Christ, by which a man may be qualified to
bear the office of a teacher, cannot be separated from other
branches of knowledge, to which uneducated 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, con-
sisted not in a knowledge 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 which are con-
nected with theology and morals.

They were, perhaps, not knowing in the details of na-
tural 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 ana-
tomists; because they had the power of curing diseases
and healing wounds without medicine or art. But they
were profound metaphysicians — the best of moralists —
well-informed historians — accurate logicians — and excel-
lent in that strain of eloquence which is calculated 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, who possessed them all in an eminent
degree, not from education, but from a higher source.

►St. Paul, indeed, says of himself, that when he first
preached the gospel to the Corinthians, "he came not
unto them with excellency of speech, or of wisdom ;" —
that is, he came not, like the false teachers, making an
ostentatious display of studied eloquence, nor boasting liis
proficiency in philosophy : he required not that the Co-

168

rinthians 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 argument, nor did he think to persuade by mere
eloquence ; for argument alone, although it might indeed
evince the consistency and reasonableness of the doctrine,
could never amount to a proof of its heavenly origin ; and
the apostle had means of persuasion more powerful than
eloquence, which, by the way, no modern teacher hath :
his knowledge and eloquence, however necessary, were
still in him but secondary qualifications ; and so little was
he ambitious of the fame of learning, that he determined
not " to know any thing among them, save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified."

But consider what this knowledge of the apostle really
contained. " To know Jesus Christ, and him crucified,"
was to know, — not simply to believe, but to know in such
a manner as to be able to teach others, that Jesus of Na-
zareth was the Messiah announced by the prophets from
the beginning of the world, and to understand that the
sufferings of the Messiah were the means appointed by
God for man's deliverance from sin and damnation. This
knowledge, therefore, of Jesus Christ, and him crucified,
to which St. Paul laid claim, contained an accurate know-
ledge of the ancient prophecies — 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 expiation
of the actual sins of men, and the cleansing of man's sinful
nature, by the shedding of the blood of Christ.

And who is sufficient for 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 ima-
gines that Christ may thus be known by men uninformed
both by inspiration and education, or imagines that, when

1G9

inspiration is wanting, education- may contribute nothing at
all in aid of the 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 extrava-
gant opinion upon the terms in which the apostle speaks of
the knowledge of Christ, as the only knowledge to which
he himself made pretensions, only proves, that more learn-
ing is necessary than he is aware of to the right appre-
hension of this sinole text.

o

Inferences naturally flow from the doctrine which hath
been asserted, of high concern to every one in this as-
sembly. We, who, with however weak ability, fill the
high station of the prophets in the primitive 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 we 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 ministry of
those who have been rightly separated to that holy ser-
vice, 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 illiterate preachers, is of all fallacies the
grossest. Originally, perhaps, they were men of little
learning — fishermen — tent-makers — excisemen : but when
they began to preach, they no longer were illiterate ; they
were rendered learned in an instant, without previous
study of their own, by miracle. The gifts, which we find
placed by an apostle himself at the head of their quali-
fications, were evidently analogous to the advantages of
education. Whatever their previous character had been,
the apostles, when they became preachers, became learned.
They were of all preachers the most learned. It is, there-
fore, by proficiency in learning, accompanied with an un-
reserved submission of the understanding to the revealed

170

word, — but it is by learning, 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.

APPENDIX TO SERMON XIV.

I Cor. xii. 8—10.

The word of ivisdom, — the talent of arguing, from the
natural principles of reason, for the conversion of philo-
sophical infidels. The ivord of knowledge, — the talent of
holding learned arguments from the ancient prophecies,
and the writings of the Old Testament, for the conversion
of Jewish infidels, Faith, — a depth and accuracy of un-
derstanding, in the general scheme of the Christian reve-
lation, for the improvement and edification of believers.
The gifts of healing, and the ivor^king of 7niracles,—iov the
purpose of making new converts, and displaying the extent
of the power of Christ. Prophecy, or the talent of fore-
seeing future events, — for the purpose af providing against
the calamities, whether worldly or spiritual, that miglit
threaten particular churches, — such as famines, pestilence,
wars, persecutions, heresies. Discerning of spirits, — for
the better government of the church ; and the gift of
tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, which seem to
have been very generally dispersed, ^ — that every Christian
might be qualified to argue with the learned Jews in the
synagogues, from the original Scriptures, especially M'hen
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 extra-
ordinary kind. In the twenty-eighth verse, he enumerates
just as many ecclesiastical offices. The gifts and the of-
fices, taken in the order in which they are mentioned, seem
to correspond.

171

GIFTS. OFFICKS.

J . The word of wisdom Apostles.

, , , , , -) Prophets, that is, exi)ouiKler3 of the

2. The word of knowledge. . > c • ^ r 4.1 /-ki i rp . ^

° J Scriptures of the Old Icstament.

3. Faith Teachers of Christianity.

4. Miracles Workers of miracles.

5. Healing Healers.

, „ , . ... -) Helps — AvTiXri-^in;, such as Mark, Ty-

0. Prophecies, or predictions > , ■ r^ ■ d

^ * J chicus, (Jnesimus, &c.

7. Discerning of spirits Governments — Ku*£^mo-EK.

8. Tongues 1 ^.^ , . ,

n r . . .- r . > Gifted with tongues in various ways.

9. Interpretation of tongues J ° ^

The fourth and fifth gifts, miracles and healing, seem to
have changed places in the ninth and tenth verses. Mi-
racles, I think, must take place as the gc/nis, and healing
must rank below it, as the species. Accordingly, in the
twenty-eighth verse, miracles, or powers, are mentioned
before healings. With this slight alteration, the list of
gifts in the eighth, ninth, and tenth verses, seems to an-
swer exactly to the list of offices in the twenty-eighth :
only, it is to be supposed, that as all inferior offices are
included in the superior, so all the higher and rarer gifts
contain the lower and more common.

Dr. Lightfoot, if I mistake not, hath remarked this pa-
rallelism of gifts and offices, in his HorcE Hebraicce.

SERMON XV.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private
interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time — (or, as it
is in the margin, came not at any time) — by the will of man 5 but
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. —
2 Peter i. 20, 21.

In the verse which immediately precedes my text, the
apostle mentions a "sure word of prophecy," which he
earnestly commends to the attention of the faithful. This
word of prophecy, I conceive, is to be understood, not of

172

that particular word of tlie Psalmist,* nor of that other of
Isaiah, t to which the voice uttered from heaven at the
baptism, and repeated from the shechinah at the transfigu-
ration, hath by many been supposed to allude; — not of
either of these, nor of any other particular prediction, is
St. Peter's prophetic word, in my judgment, to be under-
stood ; but of the entire volume of the prophetic writings
— of the whole body of the prophecies which were extant
in the Christian church at the time when the apostle wrote
this second epistle. You are all, I doubt not, too well ac-
quainted with your Bibles, to be told by me, that this
epistle was written at no long interval of time before the
blessed apostles martyrdom. He tells you so himself, in
the fourteenth verse of this first chapter. The near pros-
pect of putting ofi^his mortal tabernacle, was the occasion
of his composing this epistle, which is to be considered as
his dying charge to the church of God. Now, the mar-
tyrdom of St. Peter took place in Nero's persecution, when
his fellow-labourer St. Paul had been already taken off.
St. Paul, therefore, we may reasonably suppose, was dead
before St. Peter wrote this epistle, which, by necessary
consequence, must have been of later date than any of St.
Paul's. Again, three of the four gospels, St. Matthew's,
St. Mark's, and St. Luke's, were all published some
years before St. Peter's death ; for St. Luke's, which is
beyond all controversy the latest of the three, was written
about the time when St. Paul was released from his first
imprisonment at Rome. It appears from these circum-
stances, that our Saviour's prophecy of the destruction of
Jerusalem and his last advent, which is recited in the gos-
pels of the three first Evangelists, and St. Paul's predic-
tions of antichrist, the dreadful corruptions of the latter
times, and the final restoration of the Jewish people, de-
livered in various parts of his epistles, must have been
current among Christians at the time when this Second
Epistle of St. Peter was composed. These prophecies,

* Psalm ii. 7. t Isa. xiii. 1.

173

therefore, of the Christian church, together with the pro-
phetic writings of the Old Testament, the books of the
Jewish prophets, the book of Psalms, and the more ancient
oracles preserved in the books of Moses, make up that
system of prophecy which is called by the apostle " the
prophetic word,'' to which, as it were, with his last breath,
he gives it in charge to the true believer to give heed. If
I seem to exclude the book of the Apocalypse from that
body of prophecy which I suppose the apostle's injunction
to regard, it is not that I entertain the least doubt about
the authenticity or authority of that book, or that I esteem
it less deserving of attention than the rest of the prophetic
writings; but for this reason, that, not being written till
many years after St. Peter's death, it cannot be understood
to make a part of the writings to which he alludes. How-
ever, since the sentiments delivered by St. Peter are to be
understood to be the mind of the Holy Spirit which inspired
him, — since the injunction is general, prescribing what
is the duty of Christians in all ages, no less than of those
who were the cotemporaries of the apostle, — since the
Apocalypse, though not then written, was nevertheless an
object of the Spirit's prescience, as a book which, in no
distant time, was to become a part of the oracular code,
we will, if you please, amend our exposition of the apos-
tle's phrase : we will include the Apocalypse in the word
of prophecy ; and we will say that the whole body of the
prophecies, contained in the inspired books of the Old
and New Testament, is that to which the Holy Spirit, in the
admonition which he dictated to St. Peter, requires all who
look for salvation to give heed, " as to a lamp shining in
a dark place ;" — a discovery from heaven of the schemes
of Providence, which, however imperfect, is yet sufficient
for the comfort and support of good men, under all the
discouragements of the present life ; as it furnishes a de-
monstration— not of equal evidence, indeed, with that
which the final catastrophe will afford, but a certain de-
monstration— a demonstration drawn from fact and expe-

174

rience, rising in evidence as the ages of the world roll on,
and, in every stage of it, sufficient for the passing genera-
tion of mankind, " that the Most High ruleth in the king-
doms of the earth," — that his providence directeth all
events for the final happiness of the virtuous, — that " there
is a reward for the righteous, — that there is a God who
will judge the earth." In all the great events of the world,
especially in those which more immediately concern the
true religion and the church, the first Christians saw, and
we of these ages see, the extended arm of Providence by
the lamp of the prophetic word, which justly, therefore,
claims the heedful attention of every Christian, in every age,
"till the morning dawn, and the day-star arise in our
hearts," — till the destined period shall arrive, for that
clearer knowledge of the Almighty, and of his ways,
which seems to be promised to the last ages of the church,
and will terminate in that full understanding of the justice,
equity, and mercy of God's dealings with mankind, which
will make a chief part of the happiness of the righteous
in the future life, and seems to be described in Scripture
under the strong metaphor of seeing the incorporeal God.

This is the sum of the verse which precedes my text.
It is an earnest exhortation to all Christians to give atten-
tion to the prophecies of holy writ, as what will best obviate
all doubts that might shake their faith, and prevent their
minds from being unsettled by those difficulties which the
evil heart of unbelief will ever find in the present moral
constitution, according to those imperfect views of it which
the light of nature by itself affords.

But to what purpose shall we give attention to prophecy,
unless we may hope to understand it ? And where is the
Christian who is not ready to say, with the treasurer of
the Ethiopian queen, " How can I understand, except
some man shall guide me ?" The Ethiopian found a man
appointed and empowered to guide him : but in these days,
when the miraculous gifts of the Spirit are withholden,
where is the man who hath the authority or the ability to

175

be another's guide ? — Truly, vain is the help ol' man, whose
breath is in his nostrils ; but, blessed be God, he hath not
left us without aid. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
To his exhortation to the study of prophecy, the inspired
apostle, apprized of our necessities, hath, in the first of the
two verses which I have chosen for my text, annexed an
infallible rule to guide plain men in the interpretation of
prophecy ; and in the latter verse, he explains upon what
principle this rule is founded.

Observe me : I say the apostle gives you an infallible
rule of interpretation. I do not tell you that he refers
you to any infallible interpreter ; which perverse meaning,
the divines of the church of Rome, for purposes which I
forbear to mention, have endeavoured to fasten upon this
text The claim of infallibility, or even of authority to
prescribe magisterially to the opinions and the consciences
of men, whether in an individual or in assemblies and col-
lections of men, is never to be admitted. Admitted, said
I ? It is not to be heard with patience, unless it be sup-
ported by a miracle : and this very text of Scripture is mani-
festly, of all others, the most adverse to the arrogant pre-
tensions of the Roman pontiff. Had it been the intention
of God, that Christians, after the death of the apostles,
should take the sense of Scripture, in all obscure and
doubtful passages, from the mouth of an infallible inter-
preter, whose decisions, in all points of doctrine, faith,
and practice, should be oracular and final, this was the
occasion for the apostle to have mentioned it — to have
told us plainly whither we should resort for the unerring
explication of those prophecies, which, it seems, so well
deserve to be studied and understood. And from St.
Peter, in particular, of all the apostles, this information
was in all reason to be expected, if, as the vain tradition
goes, the oracular gift was to be lodged with his succes-
sors. This, too, was the time when the mention of the
thing was most likely to occur to the apostle's thoughts ;
when he was about to be removed from the superintend-

170

ence of the church, and was composing an epistle for the
direction of the flock which he so faithfully had fed, after
his departure. Yet St. Peter, at this critical season, when
his mind was filled with an interested care for the welfare
of the church after his decease, upon an occasion which
might naturally lead him to mention all means of instruc-
tion that were likely to be provided, — in these circum-
stances, St. Peter gives not the most distant intimation of
a living oracle to be perpetually maintained in the suc-
cession of the Roman bishops. On the contrary, he over-
throws their aspiring claims, by doing that which super-
sedes the supposed necessity of any such institution ; he
lays down a plain rule, which, judiciously applied, may
enable every private Christian to interpret the written ora-
cies of prophecy, in all points of general importance for
himself.

The rule is contained in this maxim, which the apostle
propounds as a leading principle, of which, in reading the
prophecies, we never should lose sight, " That no prophecy
of Scripture is of any private interpretation." " Knowing
this first," says he, " that no prophecy of the Scripture is
of any private interpretation." And the reason is this, —
that the predictions of the prophets did not, like their own
private thoughts and sentiments, originate in their own
minds. The prophets, in the exercise of their office, were
necessary agents, acting under the irresistible impulse of
the omniscient Spirit, who made the faculties and the
organs of those holy men his own instruments for convey-
ing to mankind some portion of the treasures of his own
knowledge. Futurity seems to have been delineated in
some sort of emblematical picture, presented by the Spirit
of God to the prophet's mind, which, preternaturally filled
and heated with this scenery, in describing the images
obtruded on the fantasy, gave pathetic utterance to wis-
dom not its own. " For the prophecy came not at any
time by the will of man ; but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

177

Some Olio, perlinps, will be apt to say, " It had been well
if the apostle had delivered his rule for the explication of
prophecy, as clearly as he hath expressed what he al-
legeth as the principle from which his rule is derived.
This principle is indeed propounded with the utmost per-
spicuity : but how this principle leads to the maxim which
is drawn from it, or what the true sense of that maxim
may be, or how it may be applied as a rule of interpreta-
tion, may not appear so obvious. It may seem that the
apostle hath rather told us negatively how the prophecies
mai/ 7iot, than affirmatively how they maij be interpreted :
and since, in most cases, error is infinite, and truth single,
it may be presumed that innumerable modes of interpreta-
tion will mislead, while one only will carry us to the true
sense of the prophecies ; and surely it had been more to the
purpose, to point out that single true path, than to guard
us against one out of a great number of deviations. Nor,
it may be said, is this erroneous path, which we are admo-
nished to avoid, very intelligibly defined. Private inter-
pretation, it seems, is that which is never to be applied.
But what is private interpretation ? Is it the interpreta-
tion of the private Christian ? Is it forbidden that any
private member of the church should endeavour to ascer-
tain the sense of any text of prophecy for himself? — The
prohibition would imply, that there must be somewhere,
either in some great ofiicer of the church, or in assemblies
of her presbyters and bishops, an authority of public inter-
pretation,— of which the contrary seems to have been
proved from this very passage."

It must be confessed, that all this obscurity and incohe-
rence appears in the first face of the passage, as it is ex-
pressed in our English Bibles. The truth is, that the
English wovd private does but very darkly, if at all, con-
vey to the understanding of the English reader the ori-
ginal word to which it is meant that it should answer.
The orio-inal word denotes that peculiar appropriation of

178
the thing with which it is joined, to something else pre-
viously mentioned, which is expressed in English by the
word own subjoined to the pronouns of possession : Our
own power — his own blood — a prophet of their own. In
all these places, the Greek word which is rendered by the
words, our own — his own — their own., is that same word
which in this text is rendered by the word private. The
precise meaning, therefore, of the original, may be thus
expressed : " Not any prophecy of Scripture is of self-
interpretation.'' This compound word, "self-interpreta-
tion," contains the exact and full meaning of the two Greek
words, which our translators have rendered by " private
interpretation," and with which no two separate words
can be found in our language exactly to correspond. The
meaning is just the same as might be thus expressed : " Not
any prophecy of Scripture is its own interpreter." It is in
this sense that the passage is rendered in the French Bible
of the church of Geneva ; and, what is of much impor-
tance to observe, it is so rendered in the Latin translation,
called the Vulgate, which the church of Rome upholds
as the unerring standard of the sacred text.

This, then, is the rule of interpretation prescribed by the
apostle, in my text : and though it is propounded in a
negative form, and may, therefore, seem only to exclude
an improper method of interpretation, it contains, as I shall
presently explain to you, a very clear and positive defini-
tion of the only method to be used with any certainty of
success.

The maxim is to be applied, both to every single text of
prophecy, and to the whole.

Of any single text of prophecy, it is true that it cannot
be its own interpreter ; for this reason, — because the Scrip-
ture prophecies are not detached predictions of separate,
independent events, but are united in a regular and en-
tire system, all terminating in one great object— the pro-
mulgation of the gospel, and the complete establishment

179

of the Messiah's king-dom. Of lliis system, every par-
ticular prophecy makes a part, and bears a more imme-
diate or a more remote relation to that which is the ob-
ject of the vvhole. It is, therefore, very unlikely, that the
true signification of any particular text of prophecy shoidd
be discovered from the bare attention to the terms of the
single prediction, taken by itself, without considering it as
a part of that system to which it unquestionably belongs,
and without observing how it may stand connected with
earlier and later prophecies, especially with those which
might more immediately precede or more immediately
follow it.

Again, of the whole of the Scripture prophecies, it is
true that it cannot be its own interpreter. Its meaning
never can be discovered, without a general knowledge of
the principal events to which it alludes ; for prophecy was
not given to enable curious men to pry into futurity, but to
enable the serious and considerate to discern in past events
the hand of Providence.

Thus you see, the apostle, while he seems only to guard
against a manner of interpretation which would perpetu-
ally mislead, in etfect directs us to that which will seldom
fail. Every particular prophecy is to be referred to the
system, and to be understood in that sense which may
most aptly connect it with the whole ; and the sense of
prophecy in general is to be sought in the events which
have actually taken place, — the history of mankind, espe-
cially in the article of their religious improvement, being
the public, infallible interpreter of the oracles of God.

I shall now proceed, in this, and some other Discourses,
to explain these rules somewhat more distinctly, — to il-
lustrate the use of them by examples of their application,

and to show you how naturally they arise out of that

principle which is alleged by the apostle as their founda-
tion, and how utterly they overthrow the most formidable
objection that the adversaries of our holy faith have ever
been able to produce against that particular evidence of
N 2

180

our Lord's pretensions, which the completion of tlie Scrip-
ture prophecies affords.

In the first place, for the more distinct explication of
the apostle's maxim, nothing, I conceive, is requisite, but
to mark the limits within which the meaning of it is to be
restrained.

And, first, the subject of the apostle's negative proposi-
tion, prophecy. — Under this name is not to be included
every thing that might be uttered by a prophet, even under
the Divine impulse; but the word is to be taken strictly
for that which was the highest part of the prophetic ofliice
— the prediction of the events of distant ages. The pro-
phets spake under the influence of the Spirit, upon various
occasions, when they had no such predictions to deliver.
They were, in the Jewish church, the ordinary preachers
of righteousness ; and their lessons of morality and reli-
gion, though often conveyed in the figured strains of poe-
try, were abundantly perspicuous. They were occasionally
sent to advise public measures, in certain critical situations
of the Jewish state. Sometimes they gave warning of
impending judgments, or notice of approaching mercies ;
and sometimes they were employed to rebuke the vices,
and to declare the destiny of individuals. What they had
to utter upon these occasions had sometimes, perhaps, no
immediate connexion with prophecy, properly so called ;
and the mind of the prophet seems to have been very dif-
ferently affected with these subjects, and with the visions
of futurity. The counsel he was to give, or the event he
was to announce, were presented naked, without the dis-
guise of imagery, to his thoughts, and he gave it utterance
in perspicuous phrases, that carried a definite and obvious
meaning. There are even predictions, and those of very
remote events, and those events of the highest moment,
which are not pioperly to be called prophecies. Such are
those declarations of the future conditions of the righteous
and the wicked, which make a principal branch of general
revelation, and are propounded in such clear terms, that

181

none can be at a loss to appreliend tlie treneral purport of
tbem. These are, indeed, predictions, because the events
whicli they declare are future ; yet they do not seem to
answer to the notion of prophecy, in the general accepta-
tion of the word. What then, you will ask me, is the
distinction between these discoveries of general revelation
and prophecy, properly so called? — The distinction, I
think, is this: an explicit declaration of the final general
event of things, and of whatever else may be the imme-
diate effect of the will and power of the First Cause, or the
purport of any original decree of God, is revelation. Pro-
phecy is a disguised detail of those intermediate and sub-
ordinate events which are brought about by the regular
operation of second causes, and are in part dependent upon
man's free agency. Predictions of these events are pro-
phecies, in the proper meaning of the word ; and of these
prophecies alone, St. Peter's maxim, " that no prophecy is
its own interpreter," is to be understood.

Again, the word '' interpretation" is not to be understood
without much restriction. Interpretation, in the largest
sense, consists of various branches, the greater part of
which it were absurd to include in the negation of the
text. Such are all grammatical interpretations of an au-
thor's language, and logical elucidations of the scope,
composition, and coherence of his argument. Such inter-
pretations may be necessary for prophecies, in common
with every other kind of writings ; and the general rules
by which they must proceed are the same in all : but the
interpretation of which the apostle speaks is that whicli
is peculiar to prophecy ; and it consists in ascertaining the
events to which predictions allude, and in showing the
agreement between the images of the prediction, and the
particulars of the history ; and this particular sort of inter-
pretation, distinct from any other, is expressed by that
word which we find in this place in the original text of
the apostle. The original word hath not the extensive
signification of the English word "interpretation," but it

182

is the specific name of" that sort of" exposition which ren-
ders the mystic sense of parables, dreams, and prophecies.

Having thus defined in what sense the apostle uses the
word " prophecies," and what that particular sort of inter-
pretation is, which, he says, no prophecy can furnish for
itself, his maxim is reduced to a perspicuous proposition,
too evident to need farther proof or explication. Of pro-
phecies, in the strict acceptation of the word, that is, of
disguised predictions of those events which are brought
about by the intervention of second causes, and do in great
part depend upon the free agency of man, — of such pre-
dictions, the apostle affirms, that the mystic interpretation
— that interpretation which consists in ascertaining the
events with w^hich the predictions correspond — is never to
be drawn from the prophecy itself. It is not to be struck
out by any process of criticism applied to the words in
which a prediction is conceived ; — it is not to be so struck
out, because, without a knowledge of the event foretold,
as well as a right understanding of the terms of the pre-
diction, the agreement between them cannot be perceived.
And, among different events which may sometimes seem
prefigured by the same prophetic images, those are always
to be esteemed the true completions, which, being most
connected with the main object of prophecy, may most
aptly connect any particular prediction with the system.

It is of importance, however, that I show you, that the
apostle's maxim, in the sense in Vv^hich I would teach you
to understand it, arises naturally from the principle which
he alleges as the foundation of it, — that the origin of pro-
phecy, its coming from God, is a reason why it should not
be capable of self-interpretation: for, if I should not be
able to make out this connexion, you would do wisely to
reject the whole of my interpretation ; since it is by infinite
degrees more credible that error should be in my exposi-
tion, than incoherence in the apostle's discourse.

But the connexion, if I mistake not, is not difficult to be
made out: for, since the prophecies, though delivered by

183

various persons, were dictated to all by one and the same
Omniscient Spirit, the different books, and the scattered
passages of prophecy, are not to be considered as the works
or the saying-s of different men, treating a variety of sub-
jects, or delivering various and contradictory opinions
upon the same subject; but as parts of an entire work of
a single author — of an author, who, having a perfect com-
prehension of the subject which he treats, and at all times
equally enjoying the perfection of his intellect, cannot but
be always in harmony with himself We find, in the
writings of a man of any depth of understanding, such re-
lation and connexion of the parts of any entire work —
such order and continuity of the thoughts — such conse-
quence and concatenation of arguments, — in a word, such
unity of the whole, which, at the same time that it gives
perspicuity to every part, when its relation to the whole
is known, will render it difficult, and in many cases im-
possible, to discover the sense of any single period, taken
at a venture from the first place where the book may chance
to open, without any general apprehension of the subject,
or of the scope of the particular argument to which the
sentence may belong. How much more perfect, is it rea-
sonable to believe, must be the harmony and concert of
parts, how much closer the union of the thoughts, how
much more orderly the arrangement, how much less un-
broken the consequence of argument, in a work which
hath for its real author that Omniscient Mind to which
the universe is ever present, in one unvaried, undivided
thought ! — the universe, I say, — that is, the entire compre-
hension of the visible and intelligible world, with its in-
effable variety of mortal and immortal natures — of sub-
stances, accidents, qualities, relations, present, past, and
future ! — that Mind, in which all science, truth, and know-
ledge, is summed and compacted in one vast idea ! How
absurd were the imagination, that harmony and system,
while they reign in the works of men, are not to be looked
for in the instruction which this great Mind hath delivered,

184

in separate parcels indeed, by the diti'erent instruments
which it hath at different times employed ; or that any de-
tached part of his sacred volume may be safely expound-
ed, without reference to the whole ! The Divine know-
ledge is indeed too excellent for man, and could not other-
wise be imparted to him than in scraps and fragments :
but these are then only understood, when the human mind,
by just and dexterous combinations, is able to restore them,
in some imperfect degree, to the shadow and the semblance
at least of that simplicity and unity in which all truth ori-
ginally exists in the self-furnished intellect of God.

But, farther. As there cannot but be harmony and
connexion in the knowledge and the thoughts of God, so
there cannot but be unity and consistency of design in all
his communications with mankind. The end, indeed, of all
that extraordinary intercourse which the great God who
made heaven and earth hath vouchsafed to hold with the
inhabitants of this lower world, is the moral improvement
of the human character, the improvement of man's heart
and understanding, by the establishment and propagation
of the Christian religion. All instruction from Heaven,
of which the prophecies make a part, is directed to this
end. All the promises given to the patriarchs, the whole
typical service of the law, the succession of the Jewish pro-
phets,— all these things were means employed by God to
prepare the world for the revelation of his Son ; and the
later prophecies of our Lord himself, and his inspired
apostles, are still means of the same kind for the farther
advancement of the same great design, — to spread that
divine Teacher's doctrine, and to give it full effect upon
the hearts of the faithful. The great object, therefore, of
the whole word of prophecy, is the Messiah and his king-
dom ; and it divides itself into two general branches, as it
regards either the first coming of the Messiah, or the va-
rious fortunes of his doctrine and his church, until his
second coming. With this object, every prophecy hath
immediate or remote connexion. Not but that in many

185

predictions, in many large portions of the proplietic word,
the Messiah and the events of his kingdom are not imme-
diately brought in view as the principal objects ; yet in
none of the Scripture prophecies are those objects set
wholly out of sight, inasmuch as the secular events to
which many parts of prophecy relate, will be found, upon
a close inspection, to be such as either in earlier times
affected the fortunes of the Jewish people, or in later ages
the state of Christendom, and were of considerable effect
upon the propagation of the true religion, either as they
promoted or as they obstructed it. Thus, we have pre-
dictions of the fall of the old Assyrian empire, and the
desolation of Nineveh, its capital ; of the destruction of
Tyre, and the ravages of Nebuchadnezzar in the neigh-
bourhood of Palestine ; of the overthrow of the Babylo-
nian empire, by Cyrus — of the Persian, by Alexander; of
the division of the eastern world, after the death of Alex-
ander, among his captains ; of the long wars between the
rival kingdoms of Syria and Egypt ; of the intestine quar-
rels and court intrigues of those two kingdoms ; of the
propagation of Mahomet's imposture ; of the decline of
the Roman empire ; of the rise and grov/th of the papal
tyranny and superstition. Such events as these became
the subject of prophecy, because their consequences touched
the state of the true religion; and yet they were of a kind
in which, if in any, the thoughtless and inconsiderate
would be apt to question the control of Providence.
Read the histories of these great revolutions : you will find
they were effected by what you might the least guess to
be the instruments of Providence, — by the restless ambition
of princes, by the intrigues of wicked statesmen, by the
treachery of false sycophants, by the mad passions of aban-
doned or of capricious women, by the frenzy of enthu-
siasts, by the craft of hypocrites. But, although God hath
indeed no need of the v/icked man, yet his wisdom and his
mercy find frequent use for him, and render even his vices
subservient to the benevolent purposes of providence.

186

The evidence of a vigilant providence, thus mercifully ex-
erted, arises from the prediction of those events, which,
while they result from the worst crimes of men, do yet
in their consequences affect the state of religion and the
condition of the virtuous. If such events lay out of the
control of God's providence, they could not fall within
the comprehension of his prescience : but, what God hath
predicted, he foreknew, — what he foreknew, he predeter-
mined,— ^what God liath predetermined, whatever bad
action he permits to be done, must no less certainly, though
less immediately than the good actions which he approves,
operate, by the direction of his universal providence, to
the final benefit of the virtuous. This comfortable assur-
ance, therefore, "that all things work together for good to
them that love God," is derived from prophecy, especially
from those parts of prophecy which predict those crimes
of men by which the interests of religion are affected ;
and, to afford this comfort to the godly, such crimes are
made the subject of the sacred oracles.

Thus you see, that, in all prophecy, the state of reli-
gion is the object, and the interests of religion are the
end. Hence it is, that as a man, whose mind is bent upon
the accomplishment of some great design, will be apt,
upon every occasion of discourse, to introduce allusions
to that which is ever uppermost in his thoughts, and
nearest to his heart, so the Holy Spirit of God, when
he moved his prophets to speak of the affairs of this low
world, was perpetually suggesting allusions to the great
design of Providence, the uniting of all things under
Christ. And whoever would edify by the prophetic word,
must keep this great object constantly in view, that he may
be ready to catch at transient hints and oblique insinua-
tions, which often occur where they might be the least
expected.

Nor is an active attention to the events of the world less
necessary. That prophecy should fetch its interpretation
from the events of history, is a necessary consequence of

187
its divine origiiiul: it is a part of the contrivance, and a
part without which prophecy would have been so little
beneficial — rather, indeed, pernicious to mankind — that,
seeing God is infinitely wise and good, this could not but
be a part of his contrivance. This is very peremptorily
declared in the original of my text ; where the expression
is not, as in the English, " no prophecy is,'' but " no pro-
phecy is )?ia(k of self-interpretation," No prophecy is to
be found in Scripture, which is not purposely so framed
as not to be of self-interpretation. It was undoubtedly
within the power of the Almighty, to have delivered the
whole of prophecy in terms no less clear and explicit than
those in v/hich the general promises of revelation are con-
veyed, or particular deliverances of the Jewish people
occasionally announced : but his wisdom reprobated this
unreserved prediction of futurity, because it would have
enlarged the foresight of man beyond the proportion of
his other endowments, and beyond the degree adapted to
his present condition. To avoid this mischief, and to at-
tain the useful end of prophecy, which is to afford the
highest proof of Providence, it was necessary that pro-
phecy should be delivered in such disguise as to be dark
while the event is remote, to clear up as it approaches,
and to be rendered perspicuous by the accomplishment.
And in this disguise prophecy hath actually been deli-
vered, because it comes from God, who is good and wise,
and dispenses all his blessings in the manner and degree
in which they may be truly blessings to his creatures.
Knowledge were no blessing, were it not adjusted to the
circumstances and proportioned to the faculties of those
to whom it is imparted.

I trust that it appears to you, that the apostle's maxim,
" that no prophecy can be its own interpreter," does ne-
cessarily follow from the matter of fact alleged as its foun-
dation, that " all prophecy is from God."

You will reap a rich harvest of improvement from these
disquisitions, if, now that you understand the apostle's

188

rule of interpretation, you will learn (o use it when you
read or hear the prophecies of holy writ. In my next
Discourses, I shall endeavour, with God's assistance, to
teach you the use of it, by examples of its application.

SERMON XVI.

Kuovviiig this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private
interpretation. For tlic prophecy came not at any time by the will
of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost.— 2 Pktek i. 20, 21.

This period hath already been the subject of one Dis-
course, in which it hath been my endeavour to explain its
meaning-, and to show the coherence of its parts. Its
meaning, — that it propounds a maxim for the interpreta-
tion of the prophecies of holy writ, which is this negative
proposition, that no prophecy is its own interpreter; and
alleges the principle upon wdiich that maxim is founded,
that all prophecy came from God. The coherence of its
parts, — inasmuch as the maxim, by necessary and obvious
consequence, rises out of the principle alleged as the foun-
dation of it.

I now proceed, as I proposed, to instruct you in the
use of the apostle's maxim, by examples of its application.
I would not fatigue your attention with unnecessary repe-
tition ; but it is of importance that you should recollect
that the aposde's negative maxim, " that no prophecy is
of self-interpretation," has been shown in effect to contain
two affirmative rules of exposition, — that every single text
of prophecy is to be considered as a part of an entire
system, and to be interpreted in that sense wdiicli may best
connect it with the whole; and that the sense of prophecy
in general is to be sought in the events which have ac-
tually taken place.

To qualify the Christian to make a judicious applica-
tion of these rules, no skill is requisite in verbal criticism

189

—no proficiency in the subtleties of the loo-ician's art —
no acquisitions of recondite learning. That deoree of
understanding with which serious minds are ordinarily
blessed — those general views of the schemes of Provi-
dence, and that general acquaintance with the prophetic
language, which no Christian can be wanting in, who is
constant, as every true Christian is, in his attendance on
the public worship, and gives that serious attention which
every true Christian gives to the word of God, as it is
read to him in our churches, and expounded from our
pulpits,- — these qualifications, accompanied with a certain
strength of memory and quickness of recollection, which
exercise and habit bring — and with a certain patience of
attention in comparing parallel texts,- — these qualifications
will enable the pious, though unlearned Christian, to suc-
ceed in the application of the apostle's rules, so far at least
as to derive much rational amusement — much real edifica-
tion— much consolation — much confirmation of his faith —
much animation of his hopes — much joy and peace in be-
lieving, from that heedful meditation of the prophetic
word, which all men would do well to remember an in-
spired apostle hath enjoined.

The first instance to which I shall apply the apostle's'
rules, is the very first prediction which occurs in the Bible
— the prophetic curse upon the serpent, which we read in
the third chapter of the Book of Genesis. " Thou art
cursed above all cattle of the field. Upon thy belly shait
thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed : it" (or rather ) "he shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." To
judge of the illustration that this prophecy may receive
from the apostle's rules, it will be proper previously to
settle what may be the full meaning of the words, taken
by themselves. For this purpose, let us suppose that the
passage were recited to some uninstructed heathen, who
should be totally unacquainted with the Bible, and with

190

every part of its contents : sup}3o.-;e liim quite ignorant of
the story of the fall — ignorant upon what occasion the
words were spoken, or by whom: suppose that he were
only told, that once upon a time these'words were spoken
to a serpent; — think ye he would discern in them any
thing prophetic ? — He must have more than the serpent's
cunning, if he did. He would tell you they contain a few
obvious remarks upon the condition of the serpent kind,
upon the antipathy which nature has established between
men and serpents, and upon the natural advantages of
man over the venomed reptile. " The serpent," says he,
" is told, that, for the extent of his natural powers and
enjoyments, he holds his rank with the lowest of the brute
creation, — that serpents, by the make of their bodies are
necessitated to crawl upon the ground, — that, although
they have a poison in their mouths, the greatest mischief
they can do to men is to bite them by the heels ; whereas
men, by the foresight of their danger, and by their erect
posture, have greatly the advantage, and knock serpents
on the head wherever they chance to lind them."' This
would be our heathen's exposition ; nor could the most
subtle criticism draw any farther meaning from the terms
of this denunciation.

But now, let our heathen be made acquainted with the
particulars of the story of the fall ; and let him understand
that these \vords vv^ere addressed to the individual serpent
which had tempted Eve, by the omnipotent Creator, when
he came in person to pronounce the dreadful doom upon
deluded, ruined man; — our heathen will immediately per-
ceive that this was no season for pursuing a useless spe-
culation on the natural history of the serpent ; nor was
so obvious a remark upon the comparative powers of the
serpent kind and man better fitted to the majesty of the
great Being to whom it is ascribed, than to the solemnity
of the occasion upon which it was introduced: and he
could not but suspect that more must be meant than meets
the ear. He would observe, that the words were addressed

191

to the serpent, in the character of the seducer of our first
parents, — that the dciuuiciation made a part of a judicial
procedure, in which a striking- regularity appears in the
distribution of the several branches of the business. —
Three delinquents stand before the Maker of the world,
to answer for a crime in which each had borne a part.
Adam, as first in rank, is first questioned. He acknow-
ledges his crime, but imputes the blame to Eve's persua-
sions. Eve is next examined. She confesses the truth
of her husband's accusation, but she taxes the serpent as
her seducer. The Creator proceeds to judgment. And
in this part it is remarkable, that the person who had been
first interrogated is the last condemned : for the first words
spoken by the Judge, after he has received the confession
of the human pair, are those in which he accosts the ser-
pent; then he addresses himself to Eve, — to Adam last.
The words addressed to Eve are the sentence of the Judge,
denouncing the penalties to be sustained by her, for having
listened to the serpent, and made herself the instrument of
the man's seduction. The words addressed to Adam are
the sentence of the Judge on him, for having yielded to
Eve's solicitation. — From the plain order of the business
our heathen would conclude that these words, addressed
to the serpent, are a sentence upon him as the first seducer.
He would observe, that as, in the narrative of the tempta-
tion, contrivance, design, and speech, are ascribed to the
serpent, so, in these words, he is accosted as the object of
animadversion and punishment. He would say, "This
was no common serpent of the field, but some intelligent
and responsible agent, in the serpent form; and, in the
evils decreed to the life and condition of the serpent, this
individual serpent solely is concerned. The enmity which
is mentioned, between the serpent and mankind, must ex-
press some farther insidious designs on the part of this
deceiver, with resistance on the part of man ; and in the
declaration, that, while serpents should have no power
but to wound the heels of men, men should bruise the

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heads of serpents, it is certainly intimated, by meta-
phors taken from the condition and powers of the na-
tural serpent, that the calamities which the stratagems
of this enemy in disguise should bring on man, would
prove light, in comparison of the greater mischiefs which
man shall inflict on him. It is intimated, that man's
wound, although, like the serpent's bite, it might be fatal
in its consequences if it were neglected, was however
curable. The reptile's tooth had lodged its malignant
poison in the heel. Considerable time must pass, before
the blood and juices could be mortally infected ; — in the
interval, remedies might be applied to prevent the threa-
tened mischief. Again, the declaration that God him-
self puts this enmity between the serpent and mankind,
implies, that the merciful, though offended God, will yet
take an interest in the fortunes of man, and will support
him in his conflict with the adversary."

\ ou see, that, by considering this denunciation of the
serpent's doom in connexion only with that particular
story of which it is a part, without any knowledge of later
prophecies and revelations, our heathen has been able to
dive into the prophetic meaning of words, which, taken by
themselves, he did not know to be at all prophetic. The
particular events, indeed, which may correspond to the
images of the prediction, he hath not yet been able to
assign; but of the general purport of the prophecy he has
formed a very just notion. He is besides aware, that
mysteries are contained in it, more than he can yet unra-
vel. He is sensible that it cannot be without some impor-
tant meaning, that either the whole or some remarkable
part of Adam's posterity, contrary to the general notions
of mankind, and the common forms of all languages, is
expressed under the image of the woman's seed rather
than the man's. I must here observe, that Adam, with
respect to the insight he may be supposed to have had
into the sense of this curse upon the serpent, was probably
for some time much in the situation of our supposed hea-

193

then, — aware that it contained a general intimation of an
intended deliverance, but much in the dark about the par-
ticular explication of it. This prophecy was, therefore, to
Adam, when it was first delivered, so far intelligible as to
be a ground of hope, — at the same time that the darkness
of the terms in which it was conceived must have kept
him anxiously attentive to every event that might seem
connected with the completion of it, and to any new light
that might be given him by succeeding predictions or pro-
mises. And, by the way, this points out one important
secondary use of the original obscurity and gradual elu-
cidation of prophecy, by succeeding prophecies and by
events, — this method of prediction awakens the curiosity
of mankind.

But let us give our heathen, whose curiosity is keen
upon the subject, farther lights. Let us carry him, by
proper steps, through the whole volume of the sacred ora-
cles ; and let us instruct him in that great mystery of god-
liness, which from the beginning of the world was hidden
with God, but in these later ages hath been made manifest
by the preaching of the blessed apostles and evangelists ;
and, when his heart is touched with a sense of the mercies
conferred on him through Christ — when he has taken a
view of the whole of the prophetic word, and has seen its
correspondence with the history of Jesus, and the begin-
nings of his gospel, let him then return to the curse upon
the serpent. Will he now find in it any thing ambiguous
or obscure? Will, he hesitate a moment to pronounce,
that the serpent who received this dreadful doom could be
no other than an animated emblem of that malignant spi-
rit, who, in the latest prophecies, is called the Old Dragon?
Or rather, will he not pronounce, that this serpent was that
very spirit, in his proper person, dragged, by some unseen
power, into the presence of Jehovah, to receive his doom
in the same reptile form which he had assumed to wreck
his spite on unsuspecting man; for which exploit of
wicked and dishonourable cunning, the opprobriou.s names

194

of tlie serpent and the dragon have ever since been fixed
upon him in derision and reproach 1 Will not our en-
lightened and converted heathen understand the circum-
stances which are mentioned of the serpent's natural con-
dition, as intimations of something analogous in the de-
graded state of the rebellious angel ? B)^ the days of the
serpent's life, will he not understand a certain limited
period, during which, for the exercise of man's virtue, and
the fuller manifestation of God's power and goodness, the
infernal dragon is to be permitted to live his life of malice,
to exercise his art of delusion on the sons of men ? — while,
in the adjuncts of that life, the grovelling posture and the
gritty meal, will he not read the condition of a vile and
despicable being, to whom all indulgence but that of
malice is denied — to whom little freedom of action is
intrusted ? Will he have a doubt that the seed of this
serpent are the same that in other places are called the
devil's angels ? Will he not correct his former surmises
about the seed of the woman, and the wound to be inflicted
by the serpent in the heel ? Will he not perceive, that the
seed of the woman is an image, not generally descriptive
of the descendants of Adam, but characteristic of an indi-
vidual— emphatically expressive of that person, who, by
the miraculous manner of his conception, was peculiarly
and properly the son of Eve, — that the wound to be suf-
fered by this person in the heel, denotes the sufferings
with which the devil and his emissaries were permitted to
exercise the Captain of our salvation ? And will he not
discern, in the accomplishment of man's redemption, and
the successful propagation of the gospel, the mortal blow
inflicted on the serpent's head ; — when the ignorance
which he had spread over the world was dispelled by the
light of revelation, — when his secret influence on the hearts
of men, to inflame their passions, to debauch their imagi-
nations and mislead their thoughts, was counteracted by
the graces of God's Holy Spirit, aiding the external admi-
nistration of the word, — when, with much of its invisible

195

power, his kingdom lost the whole of its external pomp
and splendour? Silence being imposed on his oracles, and
spells and enchantments being divested of their power, the
idolatrous worship which by those engines of deceit he
had universally established, and for ages supported, not-
withstanding the antiquity of its institutions, and the be-
witching gaiety and magnificence of its festivals, fell into
neglect. Its cruel and lascivious rites, so long holden in
superstitious veneration, on a sudden became the object of
a just and- general abhorrence ; and the unfrequented tem-
ples, stripped, no doubt, of their rich ornaments and costly
oflerings, sunk in ruins. These were the early effects of
the promulgation of the gospel, — effects of the power of
Christ exalted to his throne, openly spoiling principalities
and powers, and trampling the dragon under foot. When
these effects of Christianity began to be perceived, which
was very soon after our Lord's ascension,' — when magi-
cians openly forswore their ruined art, and burned their
useless books, — when the fiend of divination, confessing
the power by which he was subdued, ceased to actuate his
rescued prophetess, — when the worshippers of the Ephe-
sian Diana avowed their apprehensions for the tottering
reputation of their goddess, — then it was that the seed of
the woman was seen to strike and bruise the serpent's head.

Thus you see, that as the general purport of this pro-
phecy was readily opened by an attention to the circum-
stances of the memorable transaction which gave occasion
to it, so a comparison of it with later prophecies, and with
events (which, to whatever cause they may be referred,
have confessedly and notoriously taken place), naturally
leads to a particular and circumstantial explication.

It is remarkable that this, which is of all the most ancient
prophecy of the general redemption, is perhaps, of any single
prediction that can be produced, upon many accounts the
most satisfactory and convincing. For, in the first place,
although it be conveyed in the most highly figured language,
the general meaning of it, though less obvious, is no less
o 2

I9G

single and precise than the most plain and simple expres-
sions might have made it. It was uttered by the voice of
God himself; therefore two different and unequal intellects
were not, as in every instance of prophecy uttered by a
man, concerned in the delivery of it. The occasion upon
which it was delivered was of such importance as neces-
sarily to exclude all other business : its general meaning,
therefore, must be connected, which is not the case of every
prophecy, with the occasion upon which it was spoken ;
and with that occasion one meaning only can possibly con-
nect it. The serpent accosted could be no other serpent
than Eve's seducer, — the curse, no other curse than such
as might be adapted to that deceiver's nature, — the enmity,
no other enmity but what might be exercised between beings
of such natures as man and his seducer,— and the bruises
in the heel and in the head, no other mischiefs to either
party than that enmity might produce. So that the gene-
ral meaning to which the occasion points, is no less certain
than if our enemy had been accosted in some such plain
terms as these : ^' Satan ! thou art accursed beyond all the
spirits of thy impious confederacy. Short date is granted
to the farther workings of thy malice ; and all the while
thou slialt heavily drag the burden of an unblessed exist-
ence,— fettered in thy energies, cramped in thy enjoyments ;
and thy malevolent attempts on man, though for a time they
may affect, and perchance, through his own folly, endanger
his condition, shall terminate in the total extinction of thine
ov/n power, and in the aggravation of thy misery and abase-
ment ; and, to gall thee more, he who shall undo thy deeds,
restore the ruined world, and be thy conqueror and avenger,
shall be a son, though in no natural way, of this deluded
woman."

Again, no less certain than the general meaning derived
from the occasion of this prophecy, is the particular expo-
sition of it by the analogy of prophecy, and by the event.
The images of this prediction, however dark they might
be when it was first delivered, carry, v»'e find, in the pro-

197

phetic language, a fixed, unvaried meaning. The image
of the serpent answers to no being in universal nature but
the devil. Prophecy knows no seed of the woman — it
ascribes the miraculous conception to which this name
alludes to none but the Emanuel ; nor shall we find, in the
whole progeny of Eve, a person to whom the character
may belong, but the child in the manger at Bethlehem,
the holy fruit of Mary's unpolluted womb.

Lastly, the event which answers to the image in the
conclusion of this prophecy, the bruise upon the serpent's
head, is in its nature single ; for the universal extirpation
of idolatry, and the general establishment of the pure wor-
ship of the true God, is a thing which must be done once
for all, and being done, can never be repeated. A pro-
phecy thus definite in its general purport, conveyed in
images of a fixed and constant meaning, and correspond-
ing to an event in its nature single — a sudden and univer-
sal revolution of the religious opinions and practices of all
the civilized nations of the known world, — such a prophecy,
so accomplished, must be allowed to be a proof that the
whole work and counsel was of God, if in any case it be
allowed that the nature of the cause may be known by the
ejffect.

I mean hereafter to apply the apostle's rules to instances
of prophecy of another kind, in which we find neither the
same settled signification in the imagery, nor the same
singularity of completion.

198

SERMON XVII.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scriptures is of any private
interpretation. — 2 Peter i. 20.

I PROCEED in the task I have undertaken, to exemplify
the use of those rules of interpretation which the maxim
of my text contains ; which are these two, — to refer par-
ticular predictions to the system, and to compare prophe-
cies with events. In my last Discourse, I showed you
with what certainty and facility they lead to the explica-
tion of the first prophecy that was ever given — that which
was uttered by the voice of God himself, in the foi-m of a
curse upon the serpent, the adviser of Adam's disobedi-
ence. I shall now try them in an instance of a very dif-
ferent kind, where the occasion of the prediction does not
so clearly ascertain its general purport, — ^where the images
employed are less fixed to one constant meaning, — and
where, among the events that have happened since the
prophecy was given, a variety may be found to correspond
with it, all in such exactness, that every one of the num-
ber may seem to have a right to pass for the intended com-
pletion.

The first prophecy uttered by the voice of God, fur-
nished an example of a prediction in which the general
meaning was from the first certain, and the imagery of the
diction simple, and of which the accomplishment hath been
single. The earliest prophecy recorded in the sacred vo-
lume, of those which were Uttered by men, furnishes the
example that we now seek, of a prediction originally
doubtful in its general meaning, comprehensive in its
imagery, various in its completion. Such was the prophecy
in which Noah, awakened from his wine, and inflamed
with resentment at the irreverent levity of his younger
son, denounced the heavy curse on his posterity, and de-
scribed the future fortunes of the three general branches
of mankind. " Cursed be Canaan ; — a servant of servants

199

shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be Jehovah, God
of Shem! — and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall
enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem,
and Canaan shall be his servant."

The only explicit part of this prophecy is the curse upon
Canaan, Ham's youngest son ; of whose descendants it is
openly foretold that they should live in a state of the
lowest subjection to nations which should issue from the
two other sons of Noah. And yet here we find some ob-
scurity ; for how was Canaan to be in slavery both to Shem
and Japhet? The evangelic maxim, "that no man can
serve two masters," seems applicable here in a literal sense.
This difficulty, the apostle's maxim, of applying for the
explication of the sacred oracles to the occurrences of the
world, readily removes. It appears from sacred history,
that so early as in the time of Abraham, the Canaanites
were governed by petty princes of their own, who were
the tributary vassals of the Assyrian monarchy, then newly
arisen under princes of the family of Ashur, Shem's se-
cond son. And from profane history we learn, that when
the Canaanites fled from the victorious arms of Joshua,
and when the remainder of them were expelled by David,
they settled in those parts of Africa which first fell under
the dominion of the Romans, the undoubted descendants
of Japhet. Thus Canaan in early ages was the slave of
Shem, and in later times of Japhet.

But this is neither the most difficult nor the most in-
teresting part of the prophecy. Let us turn our attention
to the blessings pronounced upon the two other branches.
And we will first consider Japhet's part, because it seems
of the two the most explicit. " God shall enlarge Japhet,
and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem." The most ob-
vious meaning of the words, I think, is this, — that the
gracious purpose of Providence was to bless Japhet with
a numerous progeny, which should spread over an ample
tract of country; and that, not satisfied, or not sufficiently
accommodated with their own territory, they would be apt

•200

to encroacli upon Sliem's descendants, and make settle-
ments within their borders. And as this is the most ob-
vious sense of the words, so it is justified by the apostle's
rules ; for history supports it. The whole of Europe, and
a considerable part of Asia, was originally peopled, and
hath been ever occupied by Japliet's oifspring, who, not
contented with these vast demesnes, have been from time
to time repeatedly making encroachments on the sons of
Shem ; as was notoriously the case, when Alexander the
Great, with a European army, attacked and overthrew the
Persian monarchy — when the Romans subjugated a great
part of the East, — and still more notoriously, when the
Tartar conquerors of the race of Genghis Khan demolished
the great empire of the Caliphs, took possession of their
country, and made settlements and erected kingdoms in all
parts of Asia and the East — and again, when Tamerlane
settled his Moguls, another branch of Japhet's progeny, in
Indostan, whose descendants gradually got possession of
that immense country, a part of Shem's original inheri-
tance, which forms the present empire of the Great Mo-
gul. These events, not to mention other less remarkable
incursions of Scythians into Shem's parts of Asia, may well
be deemed an accomplishment of the patriarch's prophetic
benediction; not only because they answer to the natu-
ral import of the terms of it, but because every one of them
had great consequences upon the state of the true religion,
and the condition of its professors n various parts of the
world, and some of them have been the subjects of later
prophecies. So that, in this interpretation, we find the two
circumstances which, according to the apostle, are the best
characteristics of a true interpretation, — an agreement with
the truth of history, and a connexion of this particular
prediction with the system of the prophetic word.

It may seem, however, that some amicable intercourse
between certain branches of the two families, some peace-
able settlements of descendants of Japhet in nations
arisen from the other stock, may be no less conveniently

201

denoted, by the expression of " Japhet's dwelling in the
tents of Shem," than the violent encroachments of con-
querors of the line of Japhet. And this interpretation
does not ill agree with history, or, to speak more properly,
with the present state of the two families. The settlements
of Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French — all of ns de-
scended from the loins of Japhet, made within the three
last centuries in different parts of India — all of it a part of
Shem's inheritance, have given the prophecy in this sense
a striking accomplishment. Nor, in this interpretation,
is the necessary connexion wanting of this particular pre-
diction with the prophetic system ; for consequences can-
not but arise, although they have not yet appeared, of
great moment to the interests of the true religion, from
such numerous and extensive settlements of professed
Christians, in countries where the light of the gospel hath
for many ages been extinguished.

Thus, you see, history leads us to two senses of this pro-
phecy, of which each may contain an unlimited variety of
particular accomplishments ; since every settlement of
Europeans or of Asiatic Tartars in the Lower Asia and the
East, whether gained by war or procured by commercial
treaties, connects with the prophecy in one or other of these
two senses.

A third sense is yet behind : but, to bring it the more
readily to light, it will be proper previously to consider
the sense of Shem's blessing, a blessing obliquely conveyed
in this emphatic ejaculation, " Blessed be Jehovah, God of
Shem !" — an ejaculation in which this assertion is evi-
dently implied, that " Jehovah should be Shem's God ;"
and this is the whole of Shem's blessing, a blessing, in-
deed, which could receive no addition or improvement.
It can admit of no dispute, that Jehovah is here styled the
God of Shem, in the same sense in which in later times he
vouchsafed to call himself the God of a particular branch
of Shem's progeny — of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob,
and of their descendants the Jewish people. — Jehovah is

202

indeed the God of all the nations of the earth — the Uni-
versal Father, whose tender mercies are over all his works ;
but, to a particular branch of Shem's family, he was for
a time more peculiarly a God, inasmuch as he chose them
to be the depositaries of the true religion, while the rest
of mankind were sunk in the ignorance and abomination
of idolatry. Their temporal concerns he condescended to
take under the visible direction of his special providence,
— to them he revealed his sacred, incommunicable name, — ■
among them he preserved the knowledge and worship of
himself, by a series of miraculous dispensations, till the
destined season came for the general redemption ; and then
he raised up, among the offspring of that chosen stock,
that Saviour, whose divine doctrine hath spread the know-
ledge and worship of the true God among all nations, and
whose meritorious sacrifice of himself hath made atone-
ment for the sins of the whole world. These were the
privileges in store for a select branch of Shem's family,
when this prophecy was delivered ; privileges by which
they were put in a condition to attain the highest blessings
both in this world and in the next — the height of national
prosperity, and the sum of future bliss; and Shem being
yet alive, and his family not split into its branches, it was
natural, and agreeable to the usage of the prophetic style,
that the future blessings of the offspring should be referred
to the ancestor. This, therefore, is the oracular sense of
the patriarch's emphatic compellation of Jehovah as the
God of Shem. " Thou, O Jehovah ! shalt be the God of
Shem, — the object of his worship and the guardian of his
fortunes ; while the progeny of his brethren shall place
their foolish trust in those v/hich are no gods."
• This exposition of Shem's blessing will naturally lead
to a new sense of Japhet's, if we only recollect what ex-
ternal means were used by Providence to preserve the
knowledge of the true God in the chosen branch ofShem's
family. These means were — the call of Abraham; the
personal intercourse holden with him and his two next

203
descendants; and, in due time, tlie institution of the
Mosaic religion ; of which religion, you will particularly
observe, the tabernacle and the service performed in it
were the chief external instruments. The magnificence of
the tabernacle ; its stately support of upright pillars rest-
ing on their silver sockets, and transverse beams overlaid
with gold ; its gorgeous hangings within, of purple, linen,
blue, and scarlet, with the buttons of gold ; its noble co-
vering without, of the shaggy skins of goats ; its rich fur-
niture, the seven-branched candlestick, the altars, and the
implements of sacrifice, all of brass or gold, pure or over-
laid ; the ark, containing the tables of the law, with the
mercy-seat overshadowed by the wings of the cherubim ;
but above all, the glorious light which filled the sacred
pavilion, the symbol of Jehovah's presence, this glory of
the tabernacle in ancient times, and of the temple after-
ward, was probably what most caught the admiration of
the Jewish people, and attached them to a religion which
had so much splendour in 'its externals, and in which
something of what is visible of the majesty of the Divine
Being met the senses of the worshippers.

Bearing this remark in mind, let us now turn again to
that part of the prophecy which concerns Japhet's family,
especially the latter clause of it — " he shall dwell in the
tabernacles of Shem." The blessing promised to Shem,
we have found to be the miraculous preservation of the
true religion in a chosen branch of Shem's family. Might
not the prediction of this merciful design of Providence
naturally introduce an allusion to the external means by
which it was to be effected ? Among the external means,
we have seen reason to think that the Jewish tabernacle
was the most generally efficacious : but under what de-
scription is it likely that the tabernacle, not erected till the
days of Moses, should be mentioned in prophecy so early
as the days of Noah, — and in this prophecy in particular,
in which Jehovah, for the intention of maintaining the true
religion in a branch of Shem's family, is characterized as

204

tlie God of Shem ? A beautiful consistency of imagery
will be maintained, if the tent which Jehovah was to pitch
for this purpose among men, should be called Shem's ta-
bernacle, or Shem's tent ; for a tent and a tabernacle are
one and the same thing, and the word in the Hebrew is
the same. This holy tent or tabernacle was Shem's taber-
nacle, because it was erected among the sons of Shem,
and because none might bear a part in the whole service
of it, who did not incorporate with the chosen family.

But, farther. This tabernacle, and the service per-
formed in it, were emblems of the Christian church and
of the Christian service. When all these circumstances
are put together, can any doubt remain, that, in the men-
tion of the tents of Shem, the Holy Spirit made allusion to
the Jewish tabernacle as an emblem of the Christian
church ; and that the dwelling of Japhet in these tents of
Shem, took place when the idolatrous nations of Japhet's
line, converted to the faith of Christ, became worshippers
of the God of Shem in Shem's tabernacles — worshippers
of the true God, in the modes of worship prescribed by
revealed religion.

And this interpretation well agrees with the apostle's
maxim, being supported both by the harmony of the pro-
phetic system and the truth of history.

For the harmony of the prophetic system. This inter-
pretation brings this particular prediction to bear directly
upon the general object of prophecy, the uniting of all na- .
lions in the faith of Christ ; and it is worthy of particular
remark, that, from the delivery of this prediction, the con-
version of the Gentiles made a standing part of all the
prophecies of the Saviour. Now, that nothing of variation
might appear in the schemes of Providence, it should seem
tbat it was requisite that the first intimation of the design
of selecting a peculiar people, which is contained in Shem's
blessing, should be accompanied with an intimation of the
general mercies of which that measure was to be produc-
tive to all mankind : but of the general benefit intended

205

we have in this place no intimation, if it be not conveyed
in Japhet's benediction, — in which benediction it is not
conveyed, unless this sense of that benediction be admitted.
This interpretation," therefore, of the prophetic blessing
pronounced on Japhet, most of all connects it with the
great object of prophecy, and best maintains the harmony
of the prophetic system.

Then for history. The fact is notorious, that the gos-
pel, from the beginning to the present times, hath made
the greatest progress in Europe, and in those parts of Asia
which were first peopled by the posterity of Japhet. Among
the uncivilized descendants of Ham, and the degenerate
sons of Shem, it hath not been so generally spread, or hath
not so deeply taken root.

Beside this evident agreement with history and the pro-
phetic system, another circumstance is much in favour of
this interpretation, which is this, — that the images of this
prediction bear a near affinity to those under which later
prophets have described the same event. Hear in what
language the prophet Isaiah announces the conversion of
the Gentiles, in words addressed to the Jewish church, as
the emblem of the Christian : " Enlarge the place of thy
tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habi-
tations." Or, as the words are more significantly ren-
dered in a late translation : " Let the canopy of thy habi-
tation be extended. Spare not : lengthen thy cords, and
firmly fix thy stakes. For on the right hand and on the
left thou shalt burst forth with increase, and thy seed shall
inherit the Gentiles." Here, you see, Isaiah's allusion is
to the tabernacle ; and the image presented to him is an
enlargement of the sacred tent, to contain new crowds of
worshippers; and the stakes are to be driven deep and
firm, the cords are to be lengthened and drawn tight, that
the sides of the tent may be able to sustain the pressure of
the multitudes within it. Noah's allusion is also to the
tabernacle; and the image presented to him is the ad-
mission of foreign worshippers. It is, therefore, one and

206

the same scene which the patriarch and the younger pro-
phet have before them ; and, except in the distinct mention
of that particular circumstance, that the new worshippers
should be chietly of Japhet's stock, Noah's prophecy dif-
fers not from Isaiah's, otherwise than as an outline differs
from a more finished drawing of the same objects.

Thus, by the apostle's rules, prophecy, in that part of
it which regards the family of Japhet, is brought to three
senses, in each of which it hath been remarkably verified,
• — in the settlements of European and Tartarian conquerers
in the Lower Asia aixl in the East, — in the settlements of
European traders on the coast of Indostan, — but especially
in the numerous and early conversions of the idolaters of
Japhet's line (among whom it is fit that we of this island
should remember our own ancestors were included) to the
worship of the one true God, and to the faith of Christ.

I am sensible that this variety of intent and meaning
discovered in a single prophecy, brings on a question. of
no small difficulty, and of the first importance. It is this,
— What evidence of a providence may arise from predic-
tions like the one we have now been considering, in which
a variety of unconnected events, independent, to all ap-
pearance, of each other, and very distant in times, seem to
be prefigured by the same images? And, although it be
a digression from my main subject, yet as the inquiry is of
the highest importance, and spontaneously presents itself,
it is to this that I shall devote the remainder of the present
Discourse.

I shall not wonder, if, to those who have not sifted this
question to the bottom (which few, I am persuaded, have
done), the evidence of a providence, arising from prophe-
cies of this sort, should appear to be very slender, or none
at all. Nor shall I scruple to confess, that time was when
I was myself in this opinion, and was, therefore, much in-
clined to join with those who think that every prophecy,
were it rightly understood, would be found to carry a pre-
cise and single meaning, and that, wdierever the double

207

sense appears, it is because the one true sense hatli not yet
been detected. I said, " Either the images of the pro-
phetic style have constant and proper relations to the
events of the world, as the words of common speech have
proper and constant meanings, — or they have not. If
they have, then it seems no less difficult to conceive that
many events should be shadowed under the images of one
and the same prophecy, than that several likenesses should
be expressed in a single portrait. But, if the prophetic
images have no such appropriate relations to things, but
that the same image may stand for many things, and va-
rious events be included in a single prediction, then it
should seem that prophecy, thus indefinite in its meaning,
can afford no proof of providence : for it should seem pos-
sible, that a prophecy of this sort, by whatever principle
the world were governed, whether by providence, nature,
or necessity, might owe a seeming completion to mere ac-
cident." And since it were absurd to suppose that the
Holy Spirit of God should frame prophecies by which the
end of prophecy might so ill be answered, it seemed a just
and fair conclusion, that no prophecy of holy writ might
carry a double meaning.

Thus I reasoned, till a patient investigation of the sub-
ject brought me, by God's blessing, to a better mind. I
stand clearly and unanswerably confuted, by the instance
of Noah's prophecy concerning the family of Japhet;
which hath actually received various accomplishments, in
events of various kinds, in various ages of the world, — in
the settlements of European and Tartarian conquerors in
the Lower Asia, in the settlements of European traders on
the coasts of India, and in the early and plentiful con-
version of the families of Japhet's stock to the faith of
Christ. The application of the prophecy to any one of
these events bears all the characteristics of a true interpre-
tation,— consistence with the terms of the prophecy, con-
sistence with the truth of history, consistence with the pro-

208

plietic system. Every one of these events must therefore
pass, with every believer, for a true completion.

A plain instance, therefore, being found in holy writ,
of a prophecy which bears more than a double meaning,
the question, what evidence such prophecies may aflbrd
of a divine providence, becomes of the highest moment.
I enter upon the discussion of it with this preliminary ob-
servation,— that if our suspicion that such prophecies may
receive a seeming accomplishment by chance, or by the
natural and necessary course of the world, should appear,
upon a strict examination, unreasonable and ill founded,
the consequence will be, that the evidence arising from
this sort of prophecy is of the highest kind ; since the
greater the variety of events may be to which a single
combination of images shall be found to correspond, the
more of art and contrivance is displayed in the framing of
the prophecy, and the more of power (if accident be clearly
excluded) in bringing about the completion. Our whole
inquiry, therefore, is reduced within a narrow compass,
since the whole is brought to rest upon this single ques-
tion, May the accomplishment of such predictions be, or
may it not be accidental ? If it may, then such prophecies
are frivolous, and the Deity is blasphemed when they are
ascribed to him. If it may not, then such prophecies are
most complete and wonderful demonstrations of the abso-
lute foreknowledge and universal providence of God.
The negative of this great question, which leads to these
comfortable and glorious consequences, I purpose to sus-
tain. I mean to show you, that, amidst all the compre-
hension and variety of meaning which is to be found in
any prophecies of holy writ, and which, in the instance
before us, of Noah's prophecy, is indeed wonderful, cer-
tain restrictions and limitations will always be found, by
which the power of accident, or any other but an intelli-
gent cause, is no less excluded from any share in the com-
pletion, than it is in other instances, where the prediction,

209

like the curse upon tlie serpent, points direct and lull at
a single event. The method which I shall pursue to make
this appear, shall be to argue upon Noah's prophecy,
which I have so particularly expounded, as an instance ;
and my method of arguing upon this instance shall be, to
contrast it, in every circumstance, with a pretended pre-
diction, which, for the propriety of its images, and the
exactness of its completion, hath been compared and set
in competition with the prophecies of holy writ.

A heathen poet, whose subject leads him to speak of a
certain voyage, which, if it was ever really performed, was
the first attempt of any European nation to cross the main
seas in a large ship with masts and sails, describes, in ele-
gant and animated strains, the consequences which the
success of so extraordinary an undertaking might be ex-
pected to produce upon the state of mankind, the free
intercourse that was likely to be opened between distant
nations, and the great discoveries to be expected from
voyages in future times, when the arts of ship-building
and navigation, to which this expedition, if a real one,
gave rise, should be carried to perfection. This is his
general argument, and verses to this effect make the con-
clusion of his song : —

" Distant years

Shall bring the fated season, when Ocean,
Nature's prime barrier, shall no more obstruct
The daring search of enterprising man.
The earth, so wide, shall all be open, —
The mariner explore new worlds ;
Nor Shetland be the utmost shore."*

" Now give me," says the infidel,! " a prophecy from
your Bible, which may be as clearly predictive of any

* " Venient annis

Ssecula seris, quibus Oceanus
Vincula rei'um laxat, et ingens
Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos
Detegat orbes ; nee sit terris
Ultima Thule." — Seneca, Medea, 374, &c.
t Anthony Collins.

•210

event wliich you may choose to allege tor the accomplish-
ment, as these verses have by mere accident proved to be,
of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
Give me such a prophecy from your Bible, as I have pro-
duced to you from a heathen poet, who yet was no pro-
phet, nor claimed the character, and I will turn believer."
We cheerfully accept this arrogant defiance ; — we are
thankful to the adversary that he hath invited us to meet
him on such advantageous ground, by comparing what
may justly be deemed the most indefinite of the Scripture
prophecies, with the best specimen of the power of acci-
dent for the completion of prophecy which his extensive
reading could produce.

These verses of his Latin poet are, indeed, a striking
example of a prediction that might safely take its chance
in the world, and, happen what might, could not fail at
some time or other to meet with its accomplishment. In-
deed, it predicts nothing but what was evidently within
the ken of human foresight, — that men, being once fur-
nished with the means of discovery, would make disco-
veries,— that, having ships, they would make voyages, —
that, when improvements in the art of ship-building should
have furnished larger and better ships, men would make
longer and more frequent voyages, — and that, by longer
and more frequent voyages, they would gain more know-
ledge of the surface of the globe which they inhabit.
What peasant of Thessaly but might have uttered such
prophecies as these, who saw the Argo bring her heroes
home, and observed to what degree the avarice and cu-
riosity of his countrymen were inflamed, by the wealth
which the adventurers had amassed, and the stories which
they spread ? What restriction do we find of the genera-
lity of these prognostications, which may seem to put the
exact completion out of the reach of accidental causes ?
None. Neither the parts of the world are specified from
which expeditions of discovery should be fitted out, nor
the quarters in which they should most succeed : or, if

211

any particular intimation upon the latter article be couched
in the mention of Shetland as an island that should cease
to be extreme, it is erroneous, as it points precisely to that
quarter of the globe where discovery hath been ever at a
stand,—where the ocean, to this hour, opposes his eter-
nal barrier of impervious, unnavigable ice.

So much for our infidel's prophecy. Let us now com-
pare the patriarch's. Of this, indeed, the topics are most
general,— -the increase of mankind— empire and servitude
— varieties of religion — conquests — migration — foreign
settlements. The increase of mankind was to be foreseen
from physical causes ;— that mankind, being increased,
some part would govern, might be probably conjectured \
—that one part governing, another part must serve, was of
necessity to be concluded :— that a part of mankind would
fall from the worship of the one true God, was to be feared,
from the example of the antediluvian world ;— that con-
querors would plant colonies, and merchants make settle-
ments in foreign countries, the same example might per-
suade. So far the comparison may wear a promising
aspect on our adversary's side : but let him not exult be-
fore his victory is complete. Let him tell me by what
natural sagacity the patriarch might foresee— by what
analogy of antediluvian history he might conjecture, that
Japhet's line would have so greatly the advantage over
Shem's, in the rate of increase by propagation, and in the
extent of territory, that when he speaks of God's enlarging
Japhet, he should esteem the enlargement of Shem in either
instance unworthy to be mentioned. Did blind causes
bring about the agreement, which all history proves, be-
tween the patriarch's conjecture and the event of thino-s ?
'' Unquestionably," the adversary will reply, " blind causes
brought this about. Physical causes determine the rate
of propagation, and with the rate of propagation the grov/th
of empire is naturally connected." It is granted. But
was it within the natural powers of the patriarch's mind to
ascertain in which line these physical causes should be the
p2

212

most efficacious, while the nations to arise from either of
his sons lay yet unissued in the loins of their progenitors ?
If not, to what may the agreement be ascribed between
the thoughts of the patriarch's mind, which did not com-
mand those physical causes, and the effects of causes
which could not influence his thoughts, but the energy of
that Supreme Mind which hath the thoughts of men and
the motions of matter equally in its power ?

Again. I ask, by what natural sagacity did the patriarch
foresee that Shem's family, rather than any branch of the
other two, should retain the knowledge and worship of
Jehovah ? — that the condition of slavery should be fixed
upon a particular branch of Ham's descendants ? — that the
masters of those slaves should be of the stock of Shem or
Japhet, rather than of the collateral branches of their own
family ? By what natural sagacity did the patriarch fore-
see the distinct genius and character of whole nations yet
v.iiVcrn '{■ — tat the spirit of migration should prevail in the
line of Japhet, while the indolent progeny of Shem would
ever be averse to foreign settlements, and indifferent to a
distant commerce ? Hath it been accident, I would ask,
that the history of past ages, and the experience of the
present time, confirm the patriarch's conjecture, and falsify
the poet's ? — for the poet, although the adversary would
gladly have suppressed that circumstance, speaks of the
intermixture which he thought likely to take place of dif-
ferent nations. But, unfortunately for the infidel's argu-
ment, the poet is wrong precisely in those particulars in
which the patriarch is right ; and this although the poet
lived when the different genius of the sons of Shem and
Japhet had shown itself, and lay open to a wise man's
observation. " The cool Armenian streams (so the poet
guessed) shall quench the parched Indian's thirst, and
Persians drink the Rhine and Elbe."* But is it so ? Did

Indus gelidum

Potat Araxem : Albim Persa?

Rheiiumqne bibunt." — Sexkca, Mp:dea, 372, kc.

213

ever colony of Indians settle in the Upper Asia ? Are Per-
sians to be found upon the banks of the Elbe or Rhine?
What said the patriarch ? Just the reverse ; and that
reverse proves true. Tartars from the north of Asia hold
possession of Shem's Indian territory, and Japhet's Europe
drinks the Ganges !

Was it accident — was it an effect of mechanical causes,
that Japhet's sons, when tliey had been sunk for ages in
the abominations of idolatry, were reclaimed at last by the
emissaries of that divine Teacher who arose among Shem's
descendants, and thus settled, according to the patriarch's
prediction, in Shem's tabernacles ? Was it chance — was it
nature — was it fate, that a prophecy like that before us,
applicable to events of various sorts, — to propagation —
conquest — trade — religion, hath received an accomplish-
ment in every sense in which the words can be taken ; —
and this notwithstanding that each sense hath such limita-
tions as no less require a certain determination of the
course of the world, for the verification of the prediction,
than if each sense had respected one individual fact? I
would not indeed deny, that without any superintendence
of the world by Providence, events might sometimes so
fall out as to correspond with a random conjecture of the
human mind, or with the forged predictions of an impostor.
But if the impostor's words should carry two meanings,
the probability that they should be verified in one meaning
or the other would indeed be much greater ; but that they
should prove true in both, the probability would be much
less, than that of the accomplishment of a prediction of a
single meaning. If the words, instead of two, should
carry a variety of meanings, the improbability that they
should prove true in all, would be heightened in a much
greater proportion than any who are not versed in compu-
tation may easily be brought to apprehend. But the pheno-
menon which Noah's prophecy presents, if it be not a real
prophecy brought by Providence to its completion, is that
of a prediction of an immense extent and variety of mean-

214

ing, wliiclj hath had the wonderful good fortune to be veri-
fied in every branch. If this cannot be supposed to have
happened without Providence, in the single instance of
this prophecy, how much less in all the instances of pro-
phecies of this sort which occur in holy writ? And if this
could be conceived of all those prophecies, so far as they
concern secular events, yet, let me ask, do we not find in
every one of them, or at least in the far greater part, that
some event of the Messiah's reign, or something charac-
teristic of his time or person, makes one, and for the most
part the most obvious of the various meanings ? And is
this too casual, — that such a variety of predictions as we
find of this sort in the Bible, delivered in different ages,
upon very different occasions, should be so framed, as all
to bear upon one great object, the last of a succession, or
the chief of an assortment of events, to which the images
of each prediction are adapted with such wonderful art,
that every one of them hath passed in its turn for the ac-
complishment? Should you see the rays of the sun re-
flected from a system of polished planes, and transmitted
through a variety of refractive surfaces, collect at last in a
burning point, and there, by their united action, melt down
the stubborn metal which resists the chemist's furnace,
would you refer the wonderful effect to chance, rather than
to an exquisite polish — to an accurate conformation and a
just arrangement of the mirrors and the glasses ? Would
you not suppose that the skill of many artists had con-
curred to execute the different parts of the machine, under
the direction of some man of far superior knowledge, by
whom the properties of light and the laws of its reflections
and refractions were understood, and by whom the effect
which you had seen produced was originally intended?
And can you suppose that it hath happened without design
and contrivance, that the rays of the prophetic light are
concentrated in a single point to illuminate a single object?
You will now recollect and apply the observation with
which we entered upon this discussion, — that accident

215

being once excluded from any share in the accomplish-
ment, the evidence of a providence which these multiform
prophecies afford, is of the highest kind.

SERMON XVIII.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private
interpretation. For the prophecy came not at any time by the will
of man ; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost.— 2 Peter i. 20, 21.

From the digression which closed my last Discourse, I
noM^ return to my principal subject; and shall immedi-
ately proceed to the last general topic I proposed to treat,
— namely, to show that this same text of the apostle, which
is so sure a guide to the sense of the prophecies, will also
furnish a satisfactory answer to the most specious objection
which the adversaries of our most holy faith have ever been
able to produce against that particular evidence of the
truth of our Lord's pretensions, which arises from the sup-
posed completion of the prophecies of the Old Testament
in him and in his doctrines.

The objection, indeed, is nothing less than this, — that
although the divine inspiration of the Jewish prophets be
admitted, their prophecies will afford no support to our
Lord's pretensions ; for this reason, that in the application
of these prophecies to him, and to the propagation of his
doctrine, they are drawn by the writers of the New Testa-
ment to a sense in which they were never understood by
the prophets themselves who delivered them : and since
the true sense of any writing can be no other than that
which the author intended to convey, and which was un-
derstood by him to be contained in the expressions which
he thought proper to employ, an application of a prophecy
in a sense not intended by the prophet must be a misin-
terpretation.

216

The assertion upon which this objection is founded,
" that the first preachers of Christianity understood pro-
phecies in one sense which were uttered in another," can-
not altogether be denied ; and, unless it could be denied
in every instance, it is to little purpose to refute it, which
might easily be done, in some : for if a single instance
should remain, in which the apostles and evangelists
should seem to have been guilty of a wilful misinterpreta-
tion of prophecy, or of an erroneous application of it, the
credit of their doctrine would be greatly shaken ; since a
single instance of a fraud would fasten on them the impu-
tation of dishonesty, and a single instance of mistake con-
cerning the sense of the ancient Scriptures would invali-
date their claim to inspiration. The truth, however, is,
that though the fact upon which this objection is founded
were as universally true as it is universally alleged, —
which is not the case, — yet, were it so, we have in this
text of the apostle a double answer to the adversary's ar-
gument, which is inconclusive, for two reasons ; first, be-
cause the assumption is false, that the prophets were the
authors of their prophecies, " for the prophecy came not
at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost ;" and, secondly,
were the assumption true, still the conclusion might not
stand, " because no prophecy of holy writ is its own inter-
preter." I will endeavour to make you understand the
propriety of both these answers, which at first perhaps may
not strike you.

First, then, I say we deny the adversary's rash conclu-
sion, though in part we grant his premises, because his
assumption is false, that the prophets were the authors of
their prophecies. The assumption is false, upon the prin-
ciples upon which the adversary who urges this objection
professes to dispute. He professes to dispute upon a con-
cession of the divine inspiration of the Jewish prophets.
But, if the prophets were inspired, they were not the au-
thors of their prophecies; — the Holy Spirit of God was

217

the author of every prophecy or of every saying' of a pro-
phet, so far at least as it is prophetic ; and the views of
that Omniscient Spirit who gave the prophecy — not the
surmises of the men whose faculties or whose organs that
Spirit employed — are to be the standard of interpretation ;
and this upon that very principle which the adversary al-
leges,— that the meaning of every book, and of every sen-
tence in the book, is its author's meaning.

To explain this more distinctly, I must observe, that all
prophecy is speech, in which the prophet is made to ex-
press ideas of the Divine Mind, in uttering his own; and
the prophecies of holy writ are divisible into two different
kinds, distinguished by two different manners, in wdiich
this utterance of the mind of God by the mouth of the pro-
phet was usually effected. The first kind consisted in a
scene allegorically descriptive of futurity, which was dis-
played to the imagination of the prophet, who was left to
paint the images excited in his fantasy in such language
as his natural talents of poetical description might supply.
Of this kind are the prophecies delivered by Jacob and by
Moses, not long before their death — the prophecies of
Balaam, and many that occur in the writings of those who
were prophets by profession. The other kind consists
merely in verbal allusions, when the prophet, speaking per-
haps of himself or of his own times, or of distant events set
clearly in his view, was directed by the inspiring Spirit
to the choice of expressions to which later events have been
found to correspond with more exactness than those to which
the prophet himself applied them. This kind of prophecy
particularly abounds in the Psalms of David, who often
speaks of the fortunes of his own life, the difficulties with
which he had to struggle, and his providential deliver-
ances, in terms which carry only a figurative meaning as
applied to David himself, but are literally descriptive of
the most remarkable occurrences in the holy life of Jesus.
Nor is this kind of prophecy unfrequent in the writings of
the other prophets ; who were often made to allude to the

218

general redemption, when they would speak in the most
explicit terms of deliverances of the Jewish people ; and
were seldom permitted to deplore present calamities, or to
denounce impending judgments, but in expressions lite-
rally descriptive of the suiferings of Christ and the afflic-
tions of his church.

In both kinds of prophecy, the Spirit of God and the
mind of man had each its proper part. In prophecies of
the first kind, the matter was furnished by the Spirit of
God, and the language only is the man's. In these pro-
phecies we often find a double obscurity, of which one
part is to be imputed to the man, and arises from the con-
cise and broken manner in which he utters his conceptions.
Carried away by the strength of the images presented to
him, the prophet seems often to forget that his hearers
were not apprized of what was passing in his own fancy :
he addresses them upon the subject of what lie sees, as
joint spectators of the interesting scene, in brief allusions,
and in animated remarks upon the most striking parts,
rather than in a just and cool description of the whole.
Now, this obscurity may indeed be best removed by in-
quiring the prophet's meaning — by collecting, from his
abrupt hints and oblique intimations, what might be the
entire picture exhibited to his mind. But, when this is
sufficiently understood, another obscurity, arising from the
matter of the prophecy, may yet remain. The mystic
sense couched under the allegorical images may yet be
hidden ; and for clearing this difficulty, on which the real
interpretation of the prophecy, as prophecy, depends, it
may be to little purpose to inquire or to know what mean-
ing the prophet might affix to the images he saw, unless
it were certain that the prophet was so far in the secret of
Heaven as to know of what particular events these images
were designed to be the emblems. But this, it is certain,
he could not know but by a second inspiration, of which
there is no evidence, — by an operation of the Divine Spi-
rit on the man's understanding, which might enable him

219

to decyplier the allegorical scenery which his imagination
had been made to conceive : for, that the sight of the pic-
ture should be accompanied with any natural discernment
of its mystic meaning, is no more necessary than that a
waking man's recollection of his dream should be accom-
panied with a clear understanding of its signification ; the
reverse of which we know to have been the case in ancient
times, when prophetic dreams were not unfrequent. The
dreamer could describe every particular of his dream, but,
for the meaning of it, it was necessary he should have re-
course to other persons with whom the gift of interpreta-
tion was deposited ; and had God been pleased to with-
hold this gift, a prophetic dream would have had no
interpretation antecedent to its completion, and yet, by
the completion, would have been understood to be pro-
phetic. Now, what is a dream which is distinctly remem-
bered, and not at all understood, but one instance of a
prophetic vision, of which the sense is unknown to the
prophet ? In prophecies, therefore, of this first kind, there
is no reason to suppose that the prophet's meaning was the
whole meaning of the inspiring Spirit ; but there is the
greatest reason from analogy for the contrary conclusion. ]
In prophecies of the second kind, the whole matter is
from the mind of the man, but the language is from the
Divine Spirit ; and, in this case, the immediate action of
the Spirit seems to have been upon the memory of the
prophet, which was directed to suggest words, phrases,
and similitudes, which, at the same time that they were
strongly expressive of the prophet's thoughts, were still
more nicely adapted to the private meaning of the inspir-
ing Spirit. Now, in this, as in the former instance, the
first step toward the understanding of the prophecy is to
settle what was the meaning of the prophet. But still this
may be understood, and the meaning of the Divine Spirit
remain a secret; for in this, as in the former case, it was
impossible the prophet should be apprized of the Spirit's
meaning, without a second operation on another faculty of

220

his mind, by which it might be empowered to discern those
future events within the view of the Omniscient Spirit, to
which the expressions in which he clothed his own thoughts
miglit be applicable. But of this second act of the Spirit,
for the private information of the prophet, no evidence
appears.

Upon the whole, prophecy of either kind was the
joint production of two intellects, of very different and
unequal powers. In this, therefore, as in every instance
where more than single intellect is concerned, a design
and meaning may reasonably be ascribed to the superior
understanding, which contrives and directs, not imparted
to the inferior, which obeys and executes ; — just as, in any
book, the meaning of the author may be little miderstood
by the corrector of the press, and not at all by the founder
of the types. And yet the disparities of understanding
between the wisest and most learned author, and the most
ignorant of the mechanics whose manual art and industry
must concur in the publication of his labours, — the dispa-
rity between the wisest man and the humblest of his in-
struments, is nothing in comparison of that which must be
confessed to subsist between the two intellects which have
concurred in the publication of the prophetic word.

Here, then, is one answer which the apostle furnishes to
this specious objection, "that the prophecies of the Old
Testament are misinterpreted by the writers of the New ;
being taken in senses in which the authors of those prophe-
cies, the prophets, never understood them." The prophets,
says the apostle, were not the authors of their prophecies,
any more than a scribe is the author of the discourse
which he takes down from the mouth of a speaker. " For
the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man;
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost."

This first answer is, however, an answer to the objec-
tor rather than to the objection ; since it goes no farther
than to prove that the adversary's argument is incon-

•221

elusive : and as it hath happened to many to fail in
the proof of true propositions, through want of skill or cir-
cumspection in the framing- of tlieir arguments, it may
perhaps be supposed that this may have happened to our
adversary in the present question. It may be said, in de-
fence of the opinion he sustains, that though every author
must be allowed to understand his own writings, it is not
to be allowed that no writing is to be understood by any
but the author of it. Though the principle, therefore, may
be false, upon which our adversary would conclude that
the prophets had of all men the clearest understanding of
their prophecies, the reverse is not immediately to be con-
cluded— that any other men have had a clearer under-
standing of them. It is possible, it may be said, that the
prophets might enjoy a clear foresight of the events to
which their predictions were intended to allude, as some
men have had the gift of interpreting their own dreams ;
and that, if this was the fact, which may seem no unna-
tural supposition, the consequence still must be, that no
meaning that may be affixed to any prophecy may be the
true one, that was not within the comprehension of the
prophet's mind. Now, we will allow the adversary to
amend his assumption, and to reform his argument ; we will
allow him to assume, that the full meaning of every pro-
phecy was clearly understood by the prophet who uttered
it. We shall, in the course of our argument, find a proper
place to show that this assumption is false, and all conse-
quences built upon it at the best precarious. But, for the
present, we grant this assumption, with every consequence
that may fairly be deduced from it. We must therefore
grant (what we hold, indeed, to be false ; but for the pre-
sent we must grant it) that nothing may be a true com-
pletion of a prophecy which was not foreseen by the pro-
phet. Still we feel ourselves at liberty to maintain 'that
the adversary's argument, with all this emendation on his
part, and with all this concession on our own, hath no
connexion with the particular conclusion against the first

222

preachers of Christianity ; because he has not proved —
because he could not prove, without retracting- that very
assumption on which his whole argument depends — be-
cause the thing is incapable of proof upon any principles
which an infidel, granting the divine inspiration of the
Jewish prophets, can admit, — their inspiration being
granted, it is incapable of proof, otherwise than by the
authority of the later Scriptures, that those very meanings
which the writers of the Nev/ Testament affix to the an-
cient prophecies might not be in the minds of the pro-
phets, though they are not obvious in their words. The
proof of this assertion rests upon the apostle's maxim, that
" no prophecy of Scripture is of self-interpretation ;" or, to
state the same thing affirmatively, that the sense of pro-
phecy is to be sought in the events of the v/orld, and in the
harmony of the prophetic writings, rather than in the bare
terms of any single prediction.

The apostle asserts that all the Scripture prophecies are
purposely so conceived as not to be of self-interpretation.
He intimates that it was a part of the scheme of Provi-
dence, that prophecy should be so delivered as to have to
fetch its interpretation from the consistence of the prophe-
tic system, and from the events of the world. I do not
insist upon the authority of the apostle ; — I know that this
is nothing with the adversary : but I persuade myself you
will recollect, that in a former Discourse, in which I opened
the connexion between the apostle's maxim and the facts
on which he builds it, I proved, from the end to which
prophecy, if it comes from God, must unquestionably be
directed, and from the wisdom with which the means of
Providence must ever be adapted to their ends, — I proved
to you, not from any man's authority, but from these plain
and general principles of natural religion, namely, that God
is good and wise, that his ends ever are the best, and his
means the most fitting and convenient, — I proved to you,
from such plain principles as these, acknowledged by Deists
no less than by Christians, that if prophecy be really of

223

divine original, that mysterious disguise by which the
events of remote futurity (such, at least, as depend on the
free actions of men) may be kept almost as much con-
cealed as if prophecy had never been given, must be a part
of the original contrivance. Hence it follows, that what-
ever private information the prophet might enjoy, the Spi-
rit of God would never permit him to disclose the ultimate
intent and particular meaning of the prophecy in the bare
terms of the prediction. I ask, then, by what means we
may discover that any particular meaning which may seem
to suit with the prediction was not in the prophet's mind,
when it is proved, that although it had been in the pro-
phet's mind, he would not have been permitted to declare
it? By what means doth the adversary pretend to show,
that the applications of the ancient prophecies which are
made by the Evangelists were never intended or foreseen by
the prophets, but by showing that no such intention ap-
pears in the terms of any prediction, considered in con-
nexion with the occasion upon which it was delivered, the
circumstances in which the prophet might be who uttered
it, and the persons to whom it was addressed ? But where is
the force of this conclusion, — " The apostle's sense of the
prophecy is not to be found in the terms of the prediction ;
therefore it was not in the prophet's mind ?" Where is
the force of this conclusion, if the mind of the prophet,
possessed of that sense, would nevertheless be irresistibly
determined, by the impulse of the Almighty Spirit, to en-
velop the perceived sense in an enigma, which should re-
main inexplicable till the time for the accomplishment
should draw near ? And this must have been the case, if
the prophet was privy to the intent of his prophecy, and
the Holy Spirit of God was really his inspirer. Our ad-
versary would prove that the ancient prophecies, though
allowed to be divine, give no countenance to the preten-
sions of our Lord ; and his boasted proof is this : " Your
first teachers," he says to Christians, " have taught you to
misinterpret these prophecies, in applying them to your
pretended Messiah ; for they adopt a mode of interpreta-

224

tion which you must confess to be inapplicable, unless the
divine inspiration of the prophets be admitted." The
argument is no less incoherent and infirm than it is base
and insidious, which is built, like this, on an occult retrac-
tation of what the disputant, in drawing his own state of
the controversy, professes to concede.

Thus you see, that though the general principle should
be admitted, that the true meaning of a prophecy cannot
be unknown to the prophet, yet the particular conclusion,
that the prophecies of the Old Testament have been mis-
applied by the writers of the New, hath no connexion with
these general premises. Although the general maxim
could be proved to be true, the particular conclusion might
nevertheless be false. And now we may safely advance a
step farther, and say, that this conclusion is proved to be
actually false, by the evident agreement of the particulars
of the gospel history with the prophecies which have been
applied to them, and by the mutual harmony and consis-
tence of the prophecies so interpreted; since, whatever
might be in the mind of the prophet or his cotempora-
ries, a manifest correspondence and agreement between
the particulars of an event and the images of a prophecy
is in all cases a complete evidence that this prophecy
was predictive of this event, provided the prophecy so ap-
plied be consistent with the general purport of the system.
The authority of this evidence is so decisive, that the pri-
vate opinion of the prophet, could it in any case be clearly
ascertained, must give way to it. If the prophet, in any
case, pretended to form a conjecture concerning the ulti-
mate intention of his prophecies, his judgment must still
bow down to time, as a more informed expositor ; — and
this is an immediate consequence of that disguise of pro-
phecy which > renders it inexplicable but by time, and
which hath been shown to arise from the attributes of the
Deity. Our adversary, therefore, has employed his learn-
ing and his logic to his own confusion : he has brought
himself into a disgraceful and unpleasant situation, for a
man who asserts with confidence, and would afl^ect solidity

225

of argument. The senses of tlie ancient prophecies, which
he rejects because he supposes them to have been unknown
to the propliets, he cannot prove to have been unknown to
them ; and, if he could prove this, still the conclusion,
upon principles which in his assumed character of a Deist
he cannot but admit, — the conclusion still must be for
ignorance in the prophet, rather than error or fraud in the
apostles. And this was indeed the case. The inspired
prophets had not always a distinct foresight of the parti-
cular events in which their prophecies were to receive their
ultimate accomplishment; — not but that the prophets and
the earliest patriarchs had indeed an expectation full of
joy — a glorious hope of a deliverance of mankind from the
ruin of the fall, and the later prophets understood that
the deliverance was to be effected by a descendant of the
royal stock of David ; but, of the particulars of our Saviour's
life — of the particular doctrines he was to teach — of the
particular sufferings he was to undergo — of the means by
which the true religion was to be propagated, ^ — of these
things they had no distinct and particular foreknowledge.
That they had it not, is implied in the text ; but it is more
explicitly affirmed by St. Peter, in his first epistle : " Of
which salvation" — that is, of the salvation of the souls of
men, purchased by our Lord Christ Jesus, — "of which
salvation the prophets have inquired and searched dili-
gently, who prophesied of the grace that should come
unto you ; searching what or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it
testified beforehand the sufterings of Christ and the glory
that should follow." Here, you see, is an explicit asser-
tion that the particulars of the gospel dispensation, testified
by the Spirit of Christ, the Omniscient Spirit of the Fa-
ther and the Son, which was in the prophets, were matters
of anxious search and diligent inquiry to the spirit of the
prophet. But what is once known and clearly understood
is no longer an object of inquiry and search to him who
knows and understands it. By the prophets, therefore,

226

who inquired and searched diligently after that salvation
of which they prophesied, the true sense of their own pro-
phecies was but imperfectly understood.

And this circumstance, the confessed ignorance of the
prophets concerning the issue of their prophecies, is that
which gives the testimony that prophecy affords of the
wise and powerful providence of God its peculiar weight ;
for the evidence of prophecy lies in these two particulars,
— that events have been predicted which were not within
human foresight; and the accomplishments of predictions
have been brought about, which much surpass human
power and contrivance. The prediction, therefore, was
not from man's sagacity, nor the event from man's will
and design ; and then the goodness of the end, and the
intricacy of the contrivance, complete the proof that the
whole is of God. But, if it appeared that the events had
been foreseen by the prophets, a very important branch of
the argument, the exclusion of human foresight, would be
rendered very precarious. The infidel, in that case, would
have said, "The plain fact is, that these events were fore-
seen by men. You tell us, indeed," he would say to the
advocates of revelation, " that this foresight came from a
preternatural illumination of their minds; but this is a
mere hypothesis of your own, which you set up because it
best serves your purpose. All that appears is, that these
men did foresee these events. On what principle their
power of foresight might depend, is matter of doubtful
inquiry. Why should it rather be referred to some inex-
plicable intercourse of a superior mind with the human,
than to a certain faculty originally inherent in the minds
of those particular men, the use of which might be no
less easy and natural to them, than the use of a more li-
mited faculty of foresight, and the ordinary talent of con-
jecture, is to you? Are not men very unequal in all their
endowments? And this being once allowed, is it not rea-
sonable to suppose of any faculty or power which a man
is seen to exercise, that he possesses it as his own, in that

227

degree in which he is seen to exercise it. The prophet's
foresight, therefore, of the things he did foresee, was na-
tural to him. And why," the infidel would add, "why
should it be doubted but that man liath powers to effect
what the human mind hath power to prognosticate." To
such objections, the evidence from prophecy would indeed
have been obnoxious, had the prophets shown a clear
foreknowledge of the full intent and meaning of their pro-
phecies ; but the case being the reverse, — since the events
which best correspond with the prophecies, and put the
system of prophecy most in harmony with itself, were nei-
ther foreseen by the prophets nor by any other men till
they had actually taken place, or till such things had
taken place as at the same time brought these accomplish-
ments within the reach of human foresight, and put it be-
yond the reach of human power to prevent them, there
can be no ground for these extravagant claims in favour of
man's sagacity to predict, or of his power to accomplish.
Had the case been otherwise, the divine inspiration of the
prophets might still, indeed, have been an object of pro-
bable opinion and rational faith ; but it becomes as much
more certain, when the ignorance of the prophet noto-
riously appears, as the consequence of a known fact or
self-evident truth is more certain than any conclusion from
the most plausible hypothesis.

I have now discussed the various points of doctrine
that my text suggested. You have seen that it confutes
those vain pretensions to an infallible authority of inter-
pretation, which its meaning hath been perverted to sup-
port. You have seen that it furnishes rules by which the
private Christian may be enabled to interpret the pro-
phecies of Scripture for himself You have seen, that
these rules are of extensive use, and ready application.
You have seen, that, by virtue of that peculiar structure
which brings them under these rules of interpretation, the
most multiform of the Scripture prophecies do equally
with the most simple afford a positive evidence of God's
q2

228

providential government of the world. And, lastly, you
have seen, that, from this same text of the apostle, the
most specious objection which infidels have ever been able
to produce against the argument from prophecy in sup-
port of the Christian revelation, receives a double answer,
—one from the fact upon which the apostle builds his
maxim of interpretation, the other from the maxim itself,
— the first defeating the objector's argument, the other
establishing the opposite of his conclusion. Nothing now
remains, but briefly to obviate a question which many who
have attended to these Discourses may, perhaps with the
best intentions, wish to put, — whedier these rules of inter-
pretation, which we have taken so much pains to explain
and to establish, are suflScient to clear the prophetic writ-
ings, to popular apprehension, of all obscurity. Length
of time, by the changes which it makes in the customs
and manners of mankind, on which the figures of speech
depend, and by various other means, brings an obscurity
on the most perspicuous writings. Among all the books
now extant, none hath suflered more from this cause in its
original perspicuity, than the Bible ; nor hath any part of
the Bible suffered equally with the prophetic books, in
particular passages : but, notwithstanding the great and
confessed obscurity of particular parts of the prophecies,
those which immediately concern the Christian church are
for the most part, so far at least as they are already ac-
complished, abundantly perspicuous, or incumbered with
no other difiiculty than the apostle's rules of exposition
will remove ; nor does the obscurity of other parts at all
lessen the certainty of the evidence which these afford.
The obscurity, therefore, of the prophecies, great as it is
in certain parts, is not such, upon the whole, as should
discourage the Christian laic from the study of them, nor
such as will excuse him under the neglect of it. Let him
remember, that it is not mine, but the apostle's admoni-
tion, who would not enjoin a useless or impracticable
task, " to give heed to the prophetic word."

229

SERMON XIX.

From that time forth, began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that
he must go unto Jerusalem, aud suffer many things of the elders, and
chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third
day. — Matt. xvi. 2 1 .

The saying of the prophet, that " the ways and thoughts
of God are not like those of men," was never more remark-
ably verified than in that great event which we this day
commemorate, the death and passion of our Lord and Sa-
viour Jesus Christ. " Without controversy, great is the
mystery of godliness !" Wonderful in every part, but
chiefly in the last acts of it, was the scheme of man's re-
demption ! That the Author of life should himself be made
subject unto death — that the Lord of glory should be
clothed with shame — that the Son of God's love should
become a curse for sinful man — that his sufferings and
humiliation should be made the manifestation of his glory
• — that by stooping to death he should conquer death —
that the cross should lift him to his throne — that the
height of human malice should but accomplish the pur-
poses of God's mercy — that the devil, in the persecutions
he raised ao-ainst our Lord, should be the instrument of
his own final ruin, — these were mysteries in the doctrine
of the cross, so contrary to the confirmed prejudices of the
Jewish people, and so far above the reach of philosophi-
cal investigation, that they rendered the preaching of a
crucified Saviour " a stumbling-block to the Jews, and to
the Greeks foolishness." God, foreseeing how improbable
this doctrine would appear to men, was pleased in various
ways to typify and predict our Saviour's passion, ages be-
fore it happened, that the thing, when it should come to
pass, might be known to be his work and counsel ; and
our Lord himself omitted not, at the proper season, to
give his disciples the most explicit warning of it, that an
event so contrary to every thing they had expected (for

230

they were involved in the common error of the Jewish
nation concerning the Messiah) might not come upon
them by surprise. " From that time forth," saith the evan-
gelist, " Jesus began to show to his disciples, how that he
must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the
elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and
be raised again the third da}^"

"From that time forth." — The fact last mentioned was
that conversation of our Lord with his disciples, in which
Peter declared, in the name of all, that while the people
in general were in doubt who Jesus might be — whether
Elias, or Jeremias, or some other of the ancient prophets
revived — they, his constant followers, believed him to be
the Christ, the Son of the living God. "From that time
forth," it seems, and not before, Jesus began to advertise
his disciples of his approaching death. It was a thing
not to be disclosed till their faith had attained to some
degree of constancy and firmness ; but when once it ap-
peared that they not only esteemed and loved their Master
as a wise and virtuous man — that they not only revered
him as an inspired teacher of righteousness, but that they
believed in him as the Christ, the Son of God, the Re-
deemer of Israel, it then became seasonable to remove the
prejudices in which they had been educated, and to show
them plainly what that deliverance was which the pro-
mised Messiah was to work, — for whom, and by what
means, it was to be effected. It was time to extinguish
their hopes of sharing in the splendours of an earthly
kingdom, and to prepare and fortify their minds against
all that " contradiction of sinners" v/hich they, with their
Master, were in this world destined to endure. AW,
therefore, he begins to show them how that he must go to
Jerusalem, and, after much malicious persecution from the
leaders of the Jewish people, he must be killed. The form
of expression here is very remarkable in the original ; and it
is well preserved in our English translation. He must go —
he must suffer — he mjist be killed — he must be raised again
on the third day,^all these things were fi.xed and determined

231

— must inevitably be — nothing could prevent them ; and
yet the greater part of them were of a kind that might
seem to depend entirely upon mans free agency. To go
or not to go to Jerusalem was in his own power ; and the
persecution he met with there, arising from the folly and
the malice of ignorant and wicked men, surely depended
upon human will : yet, by the form of the sentence, these
things are included under the same necessity of event as
that which was evidently an immediate effect of divine
power, without the concurrence of any other cause, the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The words which in
the original express the going — the suffering — the being
killed — the being raised again — are all equally subject
to the verb which answers to the word must of our lan-
guage, and in its first and proper meaning predicates ne-
cessity. As he must be raised on the third day, so he
must go, he must suffer, he must be killed. Every one of
these events, his going to Jerusalem, his suffering, and his
death there — and that these sufferings and that death
should be brought about by the malice of the elders, and
chief priests, and scribes, — every one of these things is
plainly announced, as no less unalterably fixed than the
resurrection of our Saviour, or the time of his resurrection
— that it was to happen on the third day.

The previous certainty of things to come is one of those
truths which are not easily comprehended. The difficulty
seems to arise from a habit that we have of measuring all
intellectual powers by the standard of human intellect.
There is nothing in the nature of certainty, abstractedly
considered, to connect it with past time or with the pre-
sent, more than with the future ; but human knowledge
extends in so small a degree to future things, that scarce
any thing becomes certain to us till it is come to pass, and
therefore we are apt to imagine that things acquire their
certainty /ro?w their accomplishment. But this is a gross
fallacy. The proof of an event to us always depends
either upon the testimony of others, or the evidence of our

232

own senses; but the certainty oi" events in themselves
arises from their natural connexion with their proper
causes. Hence, to that great Being who knows things,
not by testimony — not by sense, but by their causes, as
being himself the First Cause, the source of power and
activity to all other causes, — to Him, every thing that shall
ever be, is at all times infinitely more certain than any
thing either past or present can be to any man, except
perhaps the simple fact of his own existence, and some
of those necessary truths wdiich are evidenced to every
man, not by his bodily senses, but by that internal per-
ception which seems to be the first act of created intellect.

This certainty, however, is to be carefully distinguished
from a true necessity inherent in the nature of the thing.
A thing is necessary when the idea of existence is included
in the idea of the thing as an inseparable part of it. Thus,
God is necessary ; — the mind cannot think of him at all
without thinking of him as existent. The very notion and
name of an event excludes this necessity, w^hich belongs
only to things uncaused. The events of the created uni-
verse are certain, because sufficient causes do, not because
they must, act to their production. God knows this cer-
tainty, because he knows the action of all these causes,
inasmuch as he himself begins it, and perfectly compre-
hends those mutual connexions between the things he hath
created, which render this a cause, and that its effect.

But the mere certainty of things to come, includino- in
it even human actions, is not all that is implied in the
terms of our Lord's prediction ; which plainly intimate that
the actions of men, even their worst actions, are in some
measure comprised in the design of Providence, who, al-
though he wills not the evil of any single act, undoubtedly
wills the good in which the whole system of created agency
shall ultimately terminate.

On these views of things, and in particular on our
Saviour's prediction of his sufferings, in which the&e
views are most strongly set forth, the Calvinistic di-

233

vines endeavoured to establish their hard doctrine of ar-
bitrary predestination, — a doctrine to which, whether
we consider it in itself, or in its consequences, we may,
with good reason, apply the words of the prophet, " It hath
truly little form or comeliness — little beauty, that we should
desire it." But let us not judge uncharitably of those who
maintained it, nor ascribe to a morose severity of temper,
much less to spiritual pride, what is easily traced to nobler
principles. The Calvinistic predestinarians had found in
the Scriptures, both of the Old and of the New Testa-
ment, the most explicit assertions of God's omniscience,
and of his constant attention to the minutest occurrences
both of the natural and of the moral world. These notions
they found agreeable, we must not say to philosophy (for
of that these pious men had but a scanty portion), but to
what in many cases is a better guide — to the natural sense
and feeling of a virtuous mind. The belief that the world,
and they themselves as a part of it, were under the imme-
diate care and protection of the wisest and the best of
beings, had taken possession of their honest hearts more
firmly than it seems to do of some men's understandings ;
and they set themselves to combat with the fiercest zeal,
and without any scrupulous examination, every doctrine
that midit seem to contradict it, and threaten to rob them
of the holy joy and comfort which flowed from that per-
suasion. They did not understand that the foreknowledge
and providence of the Deity, and that liberty which doth
truly belong to man as a moral agent, are things perfectly
consistent and naturally connected ; — they did not hesitate
a moment to deny the freedom of human actions. But
this was a dangerous error ; for, in truth, the proof of our
liberty is to every individual of the human race the very
same, I am persuaded, with the proof of his existence. I
feel that I e.vist, and I feel that I am/ree; and I may with
reason turn a deaf ear upon every argument that can be
alleged in either case to disprove my feelings. I feel that
I have power to flee the danger that I dread — to pursue

234

the pleasure that 1 covet — to forego the most inviting
pleasure, although it be actually within my grasp, if I
apprehend that the present enjoyment may be the means of
future mischief — to expose myself to present danger, to
submit to present evils, in order to secure the possession of
a future good ; — I feel that I have power to do the action
I approve — to abstain from another that my conscience
would condemn; — in a word, I feel that I act from my
own hopes, my own fears, my own internal perceptions of
moral fitnesses and discongruities. Happy, thrice happy,
they who act invariably by these perceptions ! They have
attained to the "glorious liberty of the sons of God!"
But whenever I act from other motives, I feel that I am
misled by my own passions, my own appetites, my own
mistaken views of things. A feeling always succeeds these
unreasonable actions, that, had my mind exerted its na-
tural powers, in considering the action I was about to do
— the propriety of it in itself and its consequences, I might
and I should have acted otherwise. Having these feel-
ings, I feel all that liberty which renders the morality of
a man's actions properly his own, and makes him justly
accountable for his conduct.

The liberty, therefore, of man, and the foreknowledge
and providence of God, are equally certain, although the
proof of each rests on different principles. Our feelings
prove to every one of us that we are free ; reason and re-
velation teach us that the Deity knows and governs all
things, — that even " the thoughts of man he understandeth
long before,"' — long before the thoughts arise — long be-
fore the man himself is born who is to think them. Now,
when two distinct propositions are separately proved, each
by its proper evidence, it is not a reason for denying either,
that the human mind, upon the first hasty view, imagines
a repugnance, and may, perhaps, find a difficulty in con-
necting them, even after the distinct proof of each is clearly
perceived and understood. There is a wide difference
between a paradox and a contradiction. Both, indeed,

235

consist of two distinct propositions ; and so far only are
they alike ; for, of the two parts of a contradiction, the one
or the other must necessarily be false, — of a paradox, both
are often true, and yet, when proved to be true, may con-
tinue paradoxical. This is the necessary consequence of
our partial views of things. An intellect to which nothing
should be paradoxical would be infinite. It may naturally
be supposed that paradoxes must abound the most in me-
taphysics and divinity, " for who can find out God unto
perfection?" — yet they occur in other subjects; and any
one who should universally refuse his assent to proposi-
tions separately proved, because when connected they may
seem paradoxical, would, in many instances, be justly
laughed to scorn by the masters of those sciences which
make the highest pretensions to certainty and demonstra-
tion. In all these cases, there is generally in the nature
of things a limit to each of the two contrasted propositions,
beyond which neither can be extended without implying
the falsehood of the other, and changing the paradox into
a contradiction ; and the whole difficulty of perceiving the
connexion and agreement between such propositions arises
from this circumstance, that, by some inattention of the
mind, these limits are overlooked. Thus, in the case be-
fore us, we must not imagine such an arbitrary exercise of
God"s power over the minds and will of subordinate agents,
as should convert rational beings into mere machines, and
leave the Deity charged with the follies and the crimes
of men, — which was the error of the Calvinists ; nor must
we, on the other hand, set up such a liberty of created
beings, as, necessarily precluding the Divine foreknowledge
of human actions, should take the government of the mo-
ral world out of the hands of God, and leave him nothing
to do with the noblest part of his creation, — which hath
been, perhaps, the worse error of some who have opposed
the Calvinists.

There is yet another error upon this subject, which, I
think, took its rise among professed infidels ; and to them,

236

till of late, it hutli been entirely confined. But some have
appeared among its modern advocates, actuated, I am per-
suaded (for tlieir writings on this subject witness it), by
the same humble spirit of resigned devotion which gave
birth to the plan of arbitrary predestination. Deeply
versed in physics, which the Calvinists neglected, these
men wish to reconcile the notions of God's arbitrary do-
minion, which they, in common with the Calvinists, main-
tain, with what the others entirely overlooked, the regular
operation of second causes : and in this circumstance lies
the chief, if not the whole difference, between the phi-
losophical necessity of our subtle moderns and the predes-
tination of their more simple ancestors. And so far as
these Necessarians maintain the certain influence of moral
motives, as the natural and sufficient means whereby human
actions, and even human thoughts, are brouglit into that
continued chain of causes and effects, which, taking its
beginning in the operations of the Infinite Mind, cannot
but be fully understood by him, — so far they do service
to the cause of truth ; placing the " great and glorious"
doctrines of foreknowledge and providence, — absolute fore-
knowledge, universal providence,— upon a firm and philo-
sophical foundation ; — a thing to be wished with respect
to every doctrine of any practical importance, whenever,
as in this case, the great obscurity of the subject renders
the interpretation of texts of Scripture dubious, which
otherwise, taken as they ought to be, in the plainest and
the most natural meaning of the words, might be decisive.
But when they go beyond this, — when they would repre-
sent this influence of moral motives as arising from a phy-
sical necessity, the very same with that which excites and
governs the motions of the inanimate creation, here they
confound nature's distinctions, and contradict the very
principles they would seem to have established. The
source of their mistake is this, that they imagine a simi-
litude between things which admit of no comparison —
between the influence of a moral motive upon mind, and

237

that of mechanical force upon matter. A moral motive
and a mechanical force are botli indeed causes, and equally-
certain causes each of its proper effect ; but they are causes
in very different senses of the word, and derive their energy
from the most opposite principles. Force is only ano-
ther name for an ejjlcient cause ; it is that which impresses
motion upon body, the passive recipient of a foreign im-
pulse. A moral motive is what is more significantly called
i\ie final cause, and can have no influence but with a being
that proposes to itself an end, chooses means, and ihu&puts
itself in action. It is true, that while this is my end, and
while I conceive these to be the means, a definite act will
as certainly follow that definite choice and judgment of
my mind, provided I be free from all external restraint and
impediment, as a determinate motion will be excited in a
body by a force applied in a given direction. There is in
both cases an equal certainty of t4ie effect ; but the prin-
ciple of the certainty in the one case and in the other is
entirely different, which difference necessarily arises from
the different nature of final and efficient causes. Every
cause, except it be the will of the Deity acting to the first
production of substances, — every cause, I say, except this
acting in this singular instance, produces its effect by act-
ing upon something; and, whatever be the cause that acts,
the principle of certainty lies in a capacity, in the thing on
which it acts, of being affected by that action. Now, the
capacity which force, or an efficient cause, requires in the
object of its action, is absolute inertness. But intelligence
and liberty constitute the capacity of being influenced by
a final cause — by a moral motive : and to this very liberty-
does this sort of cause owe its whole efficacy — the whole
certainty of its operation ; which certainty never can dis-
prove the existence of that liberty upon which it is itself
founded, and of which it affords the highest evidence.

These distinctions between the eflftcient and the final
cause being once understood, we may from the Necessarian's
own principles deduce the firmest proof of the liberty of

238

man : for, since God foreknows nnd governs future events,
so far as subordinate agents are concerned in them, by the
means of moral motives, that is, by final causes, — since
these are the engines by which he turns and wields the
intellectual world, bending the perverse wills of wicked
men and of apostate spirits to his purpose, — and since
these motives owe their energy, their whole success, to
the liberty of the beings that are governed by them, it is
in consequence most certain, however it may seem most
strange, that God could not govern the world as he does,
by final causes, if man were not free, no more than he
could govern the material part of it mechanically, by effi-
cient causes, if matter were not wholly passive. The Neces-
sarian does not listen to this argument. He has furnished
himself with an expedient to make room for the physical
necessity he would introduce into what has been called the
moral world. His expedient is neither more nor less than
this, that he would annihilate the moral world altogether :
he denies the existence of the immaterial principle in man,
and would stamp the very form of human intellect, that
living image of the Divinity, upon the passive substance
of the brain ! It seems, the notion of an active principle
distinct from the body, the true cause of voluntary motion,
possessing in itself the faculties of thought, desire, voli-
tion, and necessarily surviving the body, which principle
should much more truly than the body constitute the man,
— all this was a phantom of heathen philosophy, which a
Christian, for that reason in particular, should discard. It
is a new kind of argument against the truth of a proposi-
tion which a man might otherwise be disposed to receive,
that it hath been asserted and maintained by wise and
good and learned men, who had spent a great part of their
lives in thinking most intensely upon the subject. This is
a new waif of managing the topic of authorities. When
in the ardour of controversy a man alleges such an argu-
ment as this, he is seldom perhaps aware how little he is
himself in earnest in it — how nugatory it would appear to

239
him in any other but tliat particular instance wherein it
happens to serve his purpose — how absurd, were it once
turned against him. That acute writer who would ex-
punge the doctrine of an immaterial soul and its immor-
tality from the creed of a Christian, because many who
were destitute of the assistances of revelation were brouo-ht
by the mere light of nature to believe it, does not, I am
well persuaded, the less firmly believe the being and the
providence of God, because in that belief he happens to
concur with Socrates and Plato,

Let us, however, turn to a meditation more adapted to
this holy season. Let the pious Christian in every thing
look up to God, with full assurance of faith, as to the first
mover and cause of all things, the director of all events,
the vigilant guardian and omnipotent protector of the vir-
tuous : but let him no less firmly believe, that the morality
of his actions is his own, — that he is free to stand and free
to fall, — that if he fall, the blame is with himself, in his
own foolish choice ; God is blameless.

According to this state of things, in which every thing
is subject to the wise control of God, and human actions,
and even the liberty of human actions, are constituent
parts of the wonderfully complex scheme of Providence, —
according to this state of things, so evidently implied in
our Saviour's prediction of his sufferings, every thing fell
out in exact agreement, not only with this prediction, but
also with the ancient predictions of the Jewish prophets,
and with the still more ancient types of the Mosaic law ;
and yet every thing was brought about by the ordinary
operation of second causes, and in great part by the free
agency of man. At the season of the passover, our blessed
Lord, whose present condition of humanity imposed upon
him an implicit obedience to the positive precepts of the
Mosaic law (which law was not yet abolished), was car-
ried by motives of devotion to Jerusalem. The chief priests
and scribes assembled with the elders in the hall of Cai-
aphas the high-priest, to concert the safest measures of

240

destroying- him. These men, in consideration of their
worldly interests, had reason to dread the success of our
Saviour's doctrine. There was nothing against which he
had waged more constant war, than that system of hypo-
crisy and superstition by which they had disfigured the
true religion, and had enslaved the minds of the simple
multitude. He had studiously improved every occasion of
insisting upon the futility of their traditions, the vanity of
their ceremonies, the insincerity of their devotion — of ex-
posing their ignorance, their pride^ their ambition, their
avarice. Motives of interest and revenge suggested the
resolution, in this infernal assembly, of seizing the holy
Jesus, and of putting him to death. A party of their
officers and servants was sent immediately to execute the
first part of the horrid purpose. Motives of avarice had
prevailed upon the sordid mind of Judas to conspire with
his master's enemies against his life. For a paltry bribe
of something less than four pounds — for the sum that the
law appointed for damages to the owner of a slave who had
been killed accidentally by another man's ox, he conducts
the officers of the great council to the accustomed place
of our Lord's retirement, where Jesus was at this time
withdrawn to prepare himself, by prayer and meditation,
against that trying hour which he knew to be approach-
ing.

Let us once more recur to the words of our Lord's pre-
diction,— instructive words, upon which we never can too
deeply meditate. He must go — he must suffer — he must
be killed. Whence, and what was this necessity ? — As-
suredly no absolute necessity originally seated in the na-
ture of the thing, that the Son of God should suffer ; —
he might have left the miserable race of man to perish in
their sins. The Son is in all things, but in nothing more
than in love and mercy, the express image of the Father.
Notwithstanding all that man could plead in extenuation
of his transgression (and somewhat he had to plead, — the
frailty of his nature — the subtlety of the tempter,) yet the

241

purposes of God's moral government rendered it unfit to
pardon sin without intercession and atonement. Com-
passion instigates the Son of God to pay the forfeit of our
crimes, and to satisfy, in his own person, the Eternal Fa-
ther's justice. Impelled by tJiis necessity, incited by com-
miseration of our fallen state, he lays aside the glory
"which he had with the Father before the world began."
In the virgin's womb he clothes himself with flesh ; and,
together with that mortal clothing, he assumes man's per-
fect nature, — a nature subject to our wants and to our pains,
not insensible to our enjoyments, susceptible, as appeared
in many actions of his life, of our social attachments, and
though pure from the stain of sin, not exempt from the
feeling of temptation. When his hour draws near, this
human nature shrinks under the apprehension of pain ; —
he foresees the accumulated horror of his approaching
sufferings, — he foresees it with distress and agony. Where
is the wise disputer of the world, who says that pain and
affliction are not evils; — who, sufficient to himself, indif-
ferent to things external, boasts that he would be unmoved
in calamity, at ease in torment? Bring him to Gethse-
mane : there shall he see a just man and perfect — a man
whose conscience reproaches him with no vice or folly —
a man whose life hath been piety and love, unaffected
piety, disinterested love — a man in whose ample mind are
hidden all the treasures of knowledge — a man assuredly
entitled to every comfort which the consciousness of per-
fection, of perfect virtue and of perfect wisdom, can bestow,
—he shall see this wise, this good, this perfect man, this
man in union with Divinity, overwhelmed with grief and
tribulation. "Surely he bears our griefs, he carries our
sorrows, he undergoes the chastisement of our peace." See
his mortified looks, his troubled gestures ! See the bloody
sweat! strange symptom of the unuttered pangs that rend
his righteous heart. See him prostrate on the earth in
anxious supplication. Humble thyself, O vain philosophy !
dismiss thy arrogant maxims: learn from this alfecting

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242

spectacle a better wisdom than thine own ; — learn it of
him who brought it from above. Say not that affliction is
not an evil : say that it is to be bonie with humility, as
the punishment of sin — to be endured with fortitude, as
the instrument of good — to be accepted with thankfulness,
as the discipline of God, whereby he trains his sons to
virtue, and fits the virtuous for glory ; but confess that it
is that which the most perfect natures do the most abhor,
— that which it is the wisdom of man, with due submis-
sion to the dispensations of Providence, to shun.

Our Saviour, in the anguish of his soul, but with per-
fect resignation to the Father's will, prays that, if possible,
the cup of bitterness may pass by him. The counsels of
God are founded on unerring wisdom ; they cannot be
reversed or changed. The awful sentence is gone forth,
"Without blood there is no remission!" "Awake, O
sword! against my shepherd, and against the man that is
my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts." Love to man, joined
with a zeal for the honour and support of the Father's
government,— these motives, which first engaged him in
the painful work of our redemption, prevail over his human
feelings; and farther fortified by a vision from heaven, he
determines to meet the malice of his enemies ; and when
the officers of the Sanhedrim appear with Judas at their
head, he summons not those legions of angels which were
ever in readiness to attend his call, — he puts not forth the
powers that resided in him,^ — he commands his attendants
to sheath the swords already drawn in his defence, — he
repairs the violence that one of them already had com-
mitted,— and after such rebuke to the traitor, and such
expostulations with the officers, as might show them that
he knew every particular of the conspiracy, and was aware
of all that was intended, he surrenders himself without
resistance, thus verifying the ancient prediction, " He was
led like a lamb to the slaughter ; and as a sheep before
the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth."

The chief priests and elders were unwilling to put him

'243

to death by their own authority, lest they should incur the
charge of tumult and sedition ; for Judea being at this
time a Roman province, death could not regularly be in-
flicted without the permission, at least, of the Roman go-
vernor, and they were desirous of putting the face of public
justice upon the whole of the transaction. Cool and crafty
in their malice, they present him before Pilate, and, urging
the complicated charge of blasphemy and sedition, insist
upon his death. Pilate well understood that both these
accusations were groundless : but he was very unpopular
in his province, which he is said to have ruled with a rod
of iron. He was given to understand, that if he stood forth
as the friend of Jesus, he would himself incur the accusa-
tion of traitorous designs. He took the alarm at this.
He saw that complaints might be carried to Rome : he
well knew the jealous temper of the Emperor Tiberius,
ever ready to listen to complaints against his provincial
governors — cruel and implacable in his resentments : he
thought the present opportunity was not to be missed of
doing the Jews a pleasure, by throwing away the life, as
he conceived, of an inconsiderable, friendless man, who,
when once he was gone, would never be inquired after.
And from these motives of selfish cunning and guilty fear,
Pilate, against the remonstrances of his conscience and
the warnings of Heaven, consented to our Saviour's death.
The execution of the Roman governor's sentence fell
in course upon the Roman soldiers, and this insured that
particular kind of death which our Lord had himself pre-
dicted ; for crucifixion was not the punishment vi^hich the
Jewish law appointed for the crimes wherewith Jesus was
charged, but it was one which the Romans inflicted upon
oflenders of the meanest condition, or those who had been
guilty of the most atrocious and flagitious crimes. The
living body of the suflerer was fastened to two cross pieces
of wood, by nails driven through the hands and feet ; the
feet being nailed to the upright post, and the hands to the
two extremities of the transverse beam. In this situation,
R 2

.244

the miserable objects of this barbarous punishment were
lett to consume in lingering and dreadlYil torments : for
as none of the parts essential to life was immediately in-
jured, none of the vital actions immediately impeded, and
none of the larger blood vessels set open, the death was
necessarily slow ; and the muUitude of nerves that termi-
nate in the hands and feet, giving those parts the nicest
sensibility, rendered the sutterings exquisite.

Such was the death to which the unrelenting malice of
his enemies consigned the meek and holy Jesus. I must
not farther pursue the detail of those minute occurrences,
in which, though brought about by natural and common
causes, the ancient prophecies concerning the circum-
stances of our Saviour's passion were remarkably fulfilled.
It was not till every tittle was fulfilled, that the patient
Son of God, as if then and not before at liberty to depart,
said " It is finished !" bowed his anointed head, and ren-
dered up the ghost. Wonderful catastrophe ! replete with
mysteries ; among which the harmony of Divine Provi-
dence and human liberty is not the least. Mechanical
causes, governed by a single intellect, could not with more
certainty have wrought the predetermined effect : inde-
pendent beings could not have pursued with greater li-
berty, than the persons concerned in this horrid trans-
action, each his separate design, "/if isjinishedr Holy
victim! thy sufterings are finished I All is finished, that
wicked men were wonderfully destined to contribute to-
ward the general deliverance ! What remains, infinite
power and infinite mercy shall accomplish. The disciples,
those few of them who had the courage to be present at
this dismal scene, hang their heads in sorrowful despon-
dency, and seem to have abandoned the hope that this
was he who should redeem Israel. But Israel is redeemed.
The high sacrifice, appointed before the foundation of the
world, typified in all the sacrifices of the law, is now slain,
and is accepted. That Jesus who, according to his own
prediction, hath expired on the cross, shall, according to

245

his own prediction, be raised again on the third day. He
is raised, — he is entered into glory, — he is sitten down
lor ever at the right hand of the Majesty on high : there
he pleads the merit of his blood in behalf of those crying
sins that caused it to be shed. Nor does he plead in vain.
The final judgment is committed to him ; and the greatest
of sinners that will but forsake their evil ways, have no
reason to fear the severity of a judge who hath himself
been touched with the feeling of our infirmities. On the
other hand, let not any deceive themselves with a vain
reliance oh his merits, who, after all that the Son of God
hath done and suffered for them, remain impenitent. The
sacrifice of the cross was no less a display of the just seve-
rity than of the tender mercy of God. The authority of
his government must be maintained. This rendered in-
tercession and atonement necessary for the pardon of sin
in the first instance, — the most meritorious intercession,
the highest atonement. For those "who despise so great
salvation," who cannot be reclaimed by the promises and
threatenings of the gospel — by the warnings of God's
wrath — by the assurances of mercy — by the contempla-
tion of their Saviour's love, — for those who cannot be re-
claimed by these powerful motives from obstinate courses
of wilful vice, there assuredly " remains no more sacrifice
for sin, but a certain fearful looking-for of fiery indigna-
tion," which at the last day shall burn with inextinguisha-
ble rage against these incorrigible adversaries of God and
goodness. Grant, O Lord, that all we who are this day
assembled before thee, lamenting our sins and imploring
thy mercy, may be permitted, through the intercession of
thy Son, to escape the everlasting horrors of that second
death !

246

SERMON XX.

Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit ;

by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which
sometime were disobedient^ when once the loug-suftering of God
waited in the days of Noah. — 1 Peter iii. 18 — 20.

Ix the first rudiments of our Christian faith, comprised
in the Apostles' Creed, which we are made to get by heart -
in our earliest infancy, we are taught to believe 'that " our
Lord Jesus Christ descended into hell ;" and this belief is
solemnly professed by every member of the congregation,
when that creed is repeated in the daily service of the
church. And it seemed of so much importance that it
should be distinctly acknowledged by the Church of Eng-
land, when we separated from the Roman communion,
that cur reformers thought proper to make it by itself the
subject of one of the articles of religion. They were aware,
that upon the fact of our Lord's descent into hell the Church
of Rome pretended to build her doctrine of purgatory, which
they justly esteem.ed one of her worst corruptions ; but,
apprehensive that the zeal of reformation might in this, as
in some other instances, carry men too far, and induce
them to reject a most important truth, on which a dan-
gerous error had been once ingrafted, — to prevent this
intemperance of reform, they assert, in the third article of
the Thirty-nine, " That as Christ died for us and was bu-
ried, so it is to be believed that he went down into hell."
The terms in which they state the proposition, imply that
Christ's going down into hell is a matter of no less impor-
tance to be believed than that he died upon the cross for
men — is no less a plain matter of fact in the history of our
Lord's life and death, than the burial of his dead body. It
should seem, that what is thus taught among the first
things which children learn, should be among the plainest,
— that what is thus laid down as a matter of the same ne-

247

cessity to be believed as our Lords passion and atone-
ment, should be among- the least disputed, — that what
every Christian is required to acknowledge as his own
belief, in the daily assemblies of the faifliful, should little
need either explanation or proof to any that have been in-
structed in the very first principles only of the doctrine of
Christ. But so it is, that what the sagacity of our re-
formers foresaw, the precaution which they used has not
prevented. The truth itself lias been brought into discre-
dit by the errors with which it has been adulterated ; and
such has been the industry of modern refinement, and un-
fortunately so great has been its success, that doubts have
been raised about the sense of this plain article of our creed
by some, and by others about the truth and authenticity of
'it. It will, therefore, be no unprofitable undertaking to
show that the assertion in the Apostles' Creed, that " our
Lord descended into hell," is to be taken as a plain matter
of fact in the literal meaning oi the words, — to show what
proof of this fact we have in holy writ, — and, lastly, to
show the great use and importance of the fact as a point of
Christian doctrine.

First, then, for the sense of the proposition, " He de-
scended into hell."' If we consider the words as they
stand in the Creed itself, and in connexion with what im-
mediately precedes and follows them, they appear evi-
dently to contain a declaration of something which our
Lord performed — some going of our Lord to a place called
"hell," in the interval of time between the burial of his
dead body and his rising to life again on the third day
after that interment ; for thus speaks the Creed of Jesus
Christ: " — was crucified, dead, and buried; he de-
scended into hell ; the third day he rose again from the
dead." It is evident that the descending into hell is
spoken of as an action of our Lord, but as an action per-
formed by him after he was dead and buried, and before
he rose again. In the body, our dead Lord, more than
any other dead man, could perform no action; for the

248

very notion of death is, that all sensation, and activity,
and power of motion of the body, is in that state of the
man extinguished. This, therefore, was an act of that
part of the man which continues active after death, — that
is, of the soul separated by death from the body, — as the
interment must be understood of the body apart from the
soul. The dead body could no more go into hell than the
living soul could be laid in the grave. Considering the
words, therefore, as they stand in the Creed as the church
now receives it, they seem as little capable of any variety
of meaning, and almost as little to require explanation,
as the word " buried." That word describes not more
plainly, to the apprehensions of all men, what was done
with the inanimate body of our crucified Lord, than these
words declare what was done by his rational soul in its'*
intermediate state. The only question that can possibly
arise to a plain man's understanding is, where or what
the place may be which is here called hell, to which it is
said our Lord in the state of death descended.

It is evident that this must be some place below the
surface of the earth ; for it is said that he " descended,"
that is, he went down to it. Our Lord's death took place
upon the surface of the earth, where the human race in-
habit ; that, therefore, and none higher, is the place from
which he descended : of consequence, the place to which
he went by descent was below it ; and it is w^ith relation
to these parts below the surface that his rising to life on
the third day must be understood. This was only a re-
turn from the nether regions to the realms of life and day,
from which he had descended, — not his ascension into
heaven, which was a subsequent event, and makes a dis-
tinct article in the Creed.

But although the hell to which our Lord descended
was indeed below, as the word " descent" implies, it is
by no means to be understood of the place of torment.
This is a point which requires elucidation, to prevent a
mistake into which the unlearned easily might fall. The

•249

word " heir' is so often applied, in common speech, and
in the English translation of the New Testament, to the
place of torment, that the genuine meaning of the word
(in which, how^ever, it is used in many passages of the
English Bible) is almost forgotten; and the common peo-
ple never hear of hell but their thoughts are carried to
that dismal place " where the fallen angels are kept in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of
the great day." But the word, in its natural import, sig-
nifies only that invisible place which is the appointed
habitation of departed souls in the interval between
death and the general resurrection. That such a place
must be, is indisputable; for when man dieth, his soul
dieth not, but returneth unto him that gave it, to be
disposed of at his will and pleasure, — which is clearly im-
plied in that admonition of our Saviour, " Fear not them
which kill the body, but cannot kill the soul." But the
soul existing after death, and separated from the body,
though of a nature immaterial, must be in some place:
for, however metaphysicians may talk of place as one of
the adjuncts of body, as if nothing but gross, sensible body
could be limited to a place, to exist without relation to
place seems to be one of the imcommunicable perfections
of the Divine Being ; and it is hardly to be conceived that
any created spirit, of however high an order, can be with-
out locality, or without such determination of its existence
at any given time to some certain place, that it shall be
true to say of it, " Here it is, and not elsewhere." That
such at least is the condition of the human soul, were it
seasonable to go into so abstruse a disquisition, might be
proved, I think, indisputably from holy writ. Assuming,
therefore, that every departed soul has its place of resi-
dence, it would be reasonable to suppose, if revelation
were silent on the subject, that a common mansion is pro-
vided for them all, their nature being similar; since we
see throuofhout all nature creatures of the same sort

250

placed together in the same element. But i-evelation
is not silent. The sacred writers of the Old Testament
speak of such a common mansion in the inner parts of
the earth; and we find the same opinion so general among
the heathen writers of antiquity, that it is more probable
that it had its rise in the earliest patriarchal revelations
than in the imaginations of man, or in poetical fiction. The
notion is confirmed by the language of the writers of the
New Testament, with this additional circumstance, that
they divide this central mansion of the dead into two dis-
tinct regions, for the separate lodging of the souls of the
righteous and the reprobate. In this, too, they have the
concurrence of the earliest heathen poets, who placed the
good and the bad in separate divisions of the central re-
gion. The name v;hich the Hebrew writers gave to this
mansion of departed souls (without regard to any such
division) expresses only that it is a place unknown, about
which all are curious and inquisitive. The writers of the
New Testament adopted the name which the earliest
Greek writers had given it, which describes it by the sin-
gle property of invisibility. But for the place of torment
by itself, they had quite another appellation. The English
word " hell," in its primary and natural meaning, signifies
nothing more than " the unseen and covered place;" and
is properly used, both in the Old and the New Testament,
to render the Hebrew word in the one, and the Greek
word in the other, which denote the invisible mansion of
disembodied souls, without any reference to suffering.
But being used also in the translation of the New Testa-
ment for that other word which properly denotes the
place of torment, the good sense of the word, if we may
so call it, is unfortunately forgotten, and the common peo-
ple know of no other hell but that of the burning lake.

This certainly was oiot the hell to which the soul of
Christ descended. He descended to hell properly so
called, — to the invisible mansion of departed spirits, and

'251

to that part of it where the souls of the fuitbful, when they
are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and
felicity.

That he should go to this place was a necessary branch
of the general scheme and project of redemption, which
required, that the Divine Word should take our nature
upon him, and fulfil the entire condition of humanity in
every period and stage of man's existence, from the com-
mencement of life, in the mother's womb, to the extinction
and the renovation of it. The same wonderful scheme of
humiliation which required that the Son should be con-
ceived, and born, and put to death, made it equally neces-
sary that his soul, in its intermediate state, should be ga-
thered to the souls of the departed saints.

That the invisible place of their residence is the hell to
which our Lord descended, is evident from the terms of
his own promise to the repentant thief upon the cross :
" Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in
Paradise." Paradise was certainly some place where our
Lord was to be on the very day on which he suffered, and
where the companion of his sufferings was to be with him.
It was not heaven ; for to heaven our Lord after his death
ascended not till after his resurrection, as appears from his
own words to Mary Magdalen. He was not therefore in
heaven on the day of the crucifixion ; and where he was
not the thief could not be with him. It was no place of
torment; for to any such place the name of Paradise never
was applied. It could be no other than that region of repose
and rest where the souls of the righteous abide in joyful
hope of the consummation of their bliss. And upon
this single text we might safely rest the proof of this
article of our Creed in the sense in which we explain it, —
a sense so plain and prominent, in the bare words, to every
one who is not misled by the popular misapplication of
the word " hell," that it never would have been set aside
to make room for expositions of more refinement, much
less would the authenticity of the article ever even have

252

been questioned, but for the countenance which it was
supposed to give to the doctrine of purgatory as taught in
the Church of Rome, with which, however, it has not even
a remote connexion. Time will not permit me to enter
into a particular examination of the different interpreta-
tions of this article which have been attempted by those
who have not gone the length of proposing to expunge it
from the Creed, because they were well aware, that al-
though it is not to be found in any copy of the Creed now
extant, of an earlier date than the latter end of the fourth
century, yet that Christ, in some sense or other, descended
into hell, was the unanimous belief of the Christian church
from the earliest ages. I will offer only this general ob-
servation,— that the interpretation which I have given is
the only literal interpretation which the words will bear,
unless we would admit the extravagant assertion, as to me
it seems, of the venerable Calvin, that our blessed Lord
actually went down to the place of torment, and there
sustained (horrible to think or mention!) the pains of a
reprobate soul in punishment, — a notion evidently confuted
by our Lord's own description of the place where the
companion of his sufferings on the cross was to be with
him on the very day of the crucifixion. This sense being
thus confuted, I say the personal descent of our Lord to
that region where the souls of the righteous rest in hope,
is the only literal interpretation which the words of the
article will bear ; and that any figurative interpretation of
the words of a creed or formulary of faith are inadmissible ;
for, in such a composition, intended to convey the know-
ledge of the most important truths to the most ordinary
understandings, the ornamental figures of rhetoric or
poetry would be no less out of place than in the opinion
of a judge upon a question of law, or in a mathematical
demonstration. They could have no other effect than to
introduce doubt, where every thing ought to be precise
and unequivocal. Without entering, therefore, into a par-
ticular confutation of the figurative interpretations that

253

have been oilered of this article of the Creed, 1 shall pro-
ceed at once to show what proof we find in Scripture of
the fact averred, according; to the literal meanino; of the
words, that " Christ descended into hell."

This proof rests, I think, principally upon three texts
of Scripture, in addition to that which I have already
mentioned, as atfording by itself ample confirmation of the
truth of the proposition, namely, our Lord's promise to the
penitent thief upon the cross. But there are three other
texts which conspire with this to put the matter out of
doubt. The first is that text of the Psalmist which was
alleged by St. Peter, in his first sermon on the day of
Pentecost, as a prophecy concerning Christ, verified in
his resurrection from the dead. " Thou wilt not leave my
soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see
corruption.'' The apostle having recited these words of
the Psalmist, says they were not spoken by David of him-
self, but that David, being a prophet, spake of the resur-
rection of Christ,' — that his soul was not left in hell, nei-
ther did his flesh see corruption. From this text, if there
were no other, the article, in the sense in which we have
explained it, is clearly and infallibly deduced ; for if the
soul of Christ were not left in hell at his resurrection, then
it was in hell before his resurrection. But it was not there
either before his death or after his resurrection, for that
never was imagined : therefore it descended into hell after
his death, and before his resurrection : for as his flesh, by
virtue of the divine promise, saw no corruption, although
it was in the grave, the place of corruption, where it re-
mained until his resurrection; so his soul, which by virtue
of the like promise was not left in hell, was in that hell
where it was not left, until the time came for its reunion
to the body for the accomplishment of the resurrection.
Hence it is so clearly evinced that the soul of Christ was
in the place called hell, "that none but an infidel," saith
St. Augustine, " can deny it."

Another text which carries us to the same conclusion,

254

is in the fourth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Eplie-
sians, in the apostle's reasoning upon a passage of the
sixty-eighth Psalm, which he applies as prophetic of the
various gifts which Christ, after his ascension, conferred
upon the members of his church. The Psalmist speaks to
this effect, as he is cited by the apostle : " When he
ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave
gifts unto men." " Now that he ascended," says the
apostle, arguing upon the Psalmist's words, " what is it
but that he descended first into the lower parts of the
earth?" — intimating, that the ascending up on high, of
which the Psalmist speaks, is to be understood in refe-
rence to a previous descent into the lowest regions, as its
opposite.

Some, however, have imagined, that the descent into
hell is not to be deduced from this text with the same
certainty as from the former. They imagine something
of ambiguity in the phrase of "the lower parts of the
earth." Rightly referring the ascending up on high to
our Lord's ascension into heaven, they think that "the
lower parts of the earth" may signify the earth gene-
rally, as lower than the heavens, and even nothing lower
than the very surface of it. And it must be confessed
that our Lord speaks of himself before his death, while
he was living upon the surface of the earth, as having
come down to it from heaven. Nevertheless, "the lower
parts of the earth," in the Greek language, in which the
apostle writes, is a periphrasis for "hell" in the proper
sense of that word, as the invisible mansion of departed
spirits. The phrase is so perfectly equivalent to the word
" hell," that we find it used instead of that word in some
of the Greek copies of the Creed, in this very article,
where the mention of our Lord's coming down from hea-
ven to dwell upon the earth would be quite out of place,
after the mention of the several events of his birth, cru-
cifixion, death, and burial, in their natural order and suc-
cession. But, indeed, this phrase of the "lower parts of

255

the eartir" is in the Greek language so much a name tor
the central parts of the globe, as distinguished from the
surface or the outside on which we live, that had the
apostle intended by this phrase to denote the inhabited
surface of the earth, as lowei- than the heavens, we may
confidently say his Greek converts at Ephesus would
not easily have guessed his meaning. This text, there-
fore, when the Greek words are taken in the only sense
in which any writer in that language would have used,
or any one who spoke the language would have under-
stood them, expressly affirms a descent of Christ's spirit
into hell.

A third scripture which goes to the proof of the same
fact, is that very remarkable passage in the third chapter
of St. Peter's First Epistle, which I have chosen for my
text. I might mention, as a fourth, another passage in
the following chapter of the same Epistle, which alludes
to the same event, but not, I think, with equal certainty ;
for the sense of that following passage is indeed depen-
dent upon this, insomuch that any figurative interpreta-
tion which would invalidate the argument we shall deduce
from this first passage, would in equal degree affect the
second ; and no proof can be drawn from that of Christ's
descent into hell, if none can be previously found in the
words of my text.

But in them, taken in their most literal and obvious
meaning, we find not only a distinct assertion of the fact
that " Christ descended into hell" in his disembodied
spirit, but moreover, a declaration of the business upon
which he went thither, or in which at least his soul was
employed while it was there. " Being put to death in the
flesh, but quickened by the Spirit ; by which also he went
and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime
were disobedient." The interpretation of this whole pas-
sage turns upon the expression " spirits in prison;" the
sense of which I shall first, therefore, endeavour to ascer-
tain, as the key to thejneaning of the whole. It is hardly

25G

necessary to mention, that " spirits" here can signify no
other spirits than the souls of men; for we read not of
any preaching of Christ to any other race of beings than
mankind. The apostle's assertion, therefore, is this, that
Christ went and preached to souls of men in prison.
The invisible mansion of departed spirits, though certainly
not a place of penal confinement to the good, is never-
theless in some respects a prison. It is a place of seclusion
from the external world— a place of unfinished happiness,
consisting in rest, security, and hope, more than enjoy-
ment. It is a place which the souls of men never would
have entered, had not sin introduced death, and from
which there is no exit by any natural means for those who
once have entered. The deliverance of the saints from it
is to be effected by our Lord's power. It is described in
the old Latin language as a place enclosed within an im-
passable fence; and in the poetical parts of Scripture it is
represented as secured by gates of brass, which our Lord
is to batter down, and barricadoed with huge, massive iron
bars, which he is to cut in sunder. As a place of con-
finement, therefore, though not of punishment, it may well
be called a prison. The original word, however, in this
text of the apostle, imports not of necessity so much as
this, but merely a place of safe keeping ; for so this passage
might he rendered with great exactness. " He went and
preached to the spirits in safe keeping." And the invisible
mansion of departed souls is to the righteous a place of
safe keeping, where they a.re preserved under the shadow
of God's right hand, as their condition sometimes is de-
scribed in Scripture, till the season shall arrive for their
advancement to their future glory; as the souls of the
wicked, on the other hand, are reserved, in the other divi-
sion of the same place, unto the judgment of the great
day. Now, if Christ went and preached to souls of men
thus in prison or in safe keeping, surely he went to the
prison of those souls, or to the place of their custody ;
and what place that should be but the hell of the Apostles'

257

Creed, to which our Lord descended, I have not yet met
with the critic that could explain. So clearly does this
text affirm the fact of Christ's descent into hell.

But this is not all. It agrees with the Apostles' Creed
in the time of this event, that it was in the interval be-
tween our Lord's death and resurrection ; for the apostle
affirms, that it was in his spirit, that is, in his disembodied
soul, that Christ went and preached to those souls in safe
custody. " Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened
by the Spirit." " Quickened by the Spirit." — The Spirit,
in these English words, seems to be put, not for the soul
of Christ, but for the Divine Spirit ; and the sense seems
to be, that Christ, after he was put to death, was raised to
life again by the Holy Spirit. But this, though it be the
sense of the English translation, and a true proposition, is
certainly not the sense of the apostle's words. It is of
great importance to remark, though it may seem a gram-
matical nicety, that the prepositions, in either branch of
this clause, have been supplied by the translators, and are
not in the original. The words " flesh" and " spirit," in
the original, stand without any preposition, in that case
which, in the Greek language, without any preposition, is
the case either of the cause or instrument by which — of
the time when — of the place where — of the part in which
— of the manner how — or of the respect in which, accord-
ing to the exigence of the context ; and, to any one who
will consider the original with critical accuracy, it will be
obvious, from the perfect antithesis of these two clauses
concerning flesh and spirit, that if the word " spirit" de-
note the active cause by which Christ was restored to life,
which must be supposed by them who understand the word
of the Holy Ghost, the word " flesh " must equally denote
the active cause by which he was put to death, which tliere-
fore must have been the flesh of his own body, — an inter-
pretation too manifestly absurd to be admitted. But if
the word " flesh " denote, as it most evidently does, the
part in which death took effect upon him, " spirit" must

258

denote the part'in which life was preserved in him, that is,
his own soul ; and the word " quickened" is often applied
to signify, not the resuscitation of life extinguished, but the
preservation and continuance of life subsisting. The exact
rendering, therefore, of the apostle's words would be —
" Being put to death in the flesh, but quick in the spirit ;"
that is, surviving in his soul the stroke of death which his
body had sustained ; " by which," or rather " in which,"'
that is, in which surviving soul, " he went and preached
to the souls of men in prison or in safe keeping."

It is not to be wondered that this text should have been
long considered in the church as one of the principal foun-
dations of the catholic belief of Christ's descent into hell :
it is rather to be wondered that so clear a proof should
ever have been abandoned. In the Articles of religion
agreed upon in convocation in tie year 1552, the 6th of
Edward the Sixth, and published by the king's authority
the year following, the, third article is in these words : "As
Christ died and was buried for us, so also it is to be believed
that he went down into hell ; for the body lay in the se-
pulchre until the resurrection, but his ghost departing
from him, was with the ghosts that were in prison, or in
hell, as the place of St. Peter doth testify." But in the
short interval of ten years, between this convocation in the
reign of Edward and the setting forth of the Thirty-nine
Articles in their present form, in the 5th of Queen Eliza-
beth, a change seems to have taken place in the opinions
of the divines of our church with respect to this text of
St. Peter ; for in the Articles, as they were then drawn, and
we now have them, Christ's descent into hell is still asserted,
but the proof of it from the text of St. Peter is withdrawn,
— as if the literal sense of the text which affords the proof
had fallen under suspicion, and some other exposition of
it had been adopted. This change of opinion, I fear, is to
be ascribed to an undue reliance of the divines of that
time on the authority of St. Austin ; for St. Austin was, I
think, the first who doubted of the literal sense of this pas-

259

sage of St. Peter. He perplexes himself with some ques-
tions, which seemed to him to arise out of it, of too great
subtlety perhaps to be solved by man ; and then he had
recourse to the usual but dangerous expedient of abandon-
ing the plain meaning of the passage, for some loose, figu-
rative interpretation, which presents a proposition of no
sort of difficulty to the understanding of the critic, because
in truth it is a proposition of his own making. I mean
iK)t to depreciate the character of St. Austin. He was
indeed, in his day, a burning and a shining light ; and he
has been ever since, by his writings, one of the brightest
luminaries of the Latin church, — a man of warm, unaffected
piety, of the greatest natural talents and the highest attain-
ments, exercised in the assiduous study of the Holy Scrip-
tures, replete with sacred learning, and withal deeply
versed in that Pagan lore, in Avhich, however it may have
been of late shamefully calumniated, the soundest divines
have always been great proficients. In polite literature
he was the rival — in science and philosophy the superior,
by many degrees, of his great cotemporary St. Jerome.
But it was a culpable deference to the authority even of
so great and good a man, if his doubts were in any case
turned into objections, and the interpretation of Scripture
adjusted to opinions which he himself propounds with
doubt and hesitation. Those in later times, who have im-
proved upon St. Austin's hint of figurating this passage,
have succeeded no better than they who have made the
like attempt upon the article of our Lord's descent in the
Creed. They tell us, that by the souls in prison are to be
understood the Gentile world in bondage and captivity to
sin and Satan, and held in the chains of their own lusts ;
and, for confirmation of this, they refer to those passages
of the prophet Isaiah in which it is predicted of Christ,
that he is to bring the prisoners out of prison, and them
that sit in darkness out of the prison-house, — that he is to
say to the prisoners, " Go forth," — that he is to proclaim
s2

2(]0

liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to
those that are bound.

Now, we deny not that the state of the unregenerate,
carnal man is indeed represented in Scripture under the
images of captivity and bondage, and his sinful lusts under
the images of chains and fetters ; but, with respect to the
alleged passages from the prophet Isaiah, — in the last of
them most indubitably, and I believe in all, but in the last
without doubt, the prison is no other than that self-same
place which is the prison or place of safe keeping in this
text of St. Peter, according to our notion of it. The en-
largement of the saints from the confinement of that place
is the liberation predicted. Their souls in that place are
the captives to whom the Redeemer, at the season of his
final triumph over death and hell, shall say, " Go forth."
These texts of the prophet, therefore, rather afford a con-
firmation of the literal acceptation of the apostle's words,
than of those jejune figurative interpretations, which mo-
dern criticism, scared at the bugbear of purgatory, would
substitute for the plain and obvious sense.

It cannot, however, be dissembled, that difficulties arise
out of the particular character of the souls in custody ; to
which I shall give such consideration as the time will
permit.

The souls in custody, to whom our Saviour went in his
disembodied soul and preached, were those " which some-
time were disobedient," The expression " sometime were,"
or "one while had been disobedient," implies that they were
recovered, however, from that disobedience, and, before
their death, had been brought to repentance and faith in
the Redeemer to come. To such souls he went and
preached. But what did he preach to departed souls, and
what could be the end of his preaching? Certainly he
preached neither repentance nor faith ; for the preaching
of either comes too late to the departed soul. These souls
had believed and repented, or they had not been in that

2(31

part of the nether regions which the soul of the Redeemer
visited. Nor was the end of his preaching any liberation
of them from we know not what purgatorial pains, of which
the Scriptures give not the slightest intimation. But if he
went to proclaim to them (and to proclaim or publish is
the true sense of the word "to preach") the glad-tidings,
that he had actually offered the sacrifice of their redemp-
tion, and was about to appear before the Father as their
intercessor, in the merit of his own blood, this was a
preaching fit to be addressed to departed souls, and would
give new animation and assurance to their hope of the
consummation in due season of their bliss ; and this, it
may be presumed, was the end of his preaching. But the
great difficulty, in the description of the souls to whom
this preaching for this purpose was addressed, is this, that
they were souls of some of the antediluvian race. Not
that it at all startles me to find antediluvian souls in safe
keeping for final salvation: on the contrary, I should find
it very difficult to believe (unless I were to read it some-
where in the Bible), that of the millions that perished in
the general deluge, all died hardened in impenitence and
unbelief, insomuch that not one of that race could be an
object of future mercy, beside the eight persons who were
miraculously saved in the ark, for the purpose of re-
peopling the depopulated earth. Nothing in the general
plan of God's dealings with mankind, as revealed in Scrip-
ture, makes it necessary to suppose, that, of the antedilu-
vian race who might repent upon Noah's preaching, more
would be saved from the temporal judgment than the pur-
pose of a gradual repopulation of the world demanded ; or
to suppose, on the other hand, that all who perished in the
flood are to perish everlastingly in the lake of fire. But
the great difficulty, of which perhaps I may be unable to
give any adequate solution, is this, — For what reason
should the proclamation of the finishing of the great work
of redemption be addressed exclusively to the souls of
these antediluvian penitents? Were not the souls of the

262

penitents of later ages equally interested in the joyful
tidings? To this I can only answer, that I think I have
observed, in some parts of Scripture, an anxiety, if the ex-
pression may be allovs^ed, of the sacred writers to convey
distinct intimations that the antediluvian race is not unin-
terested in the redemption and the final retribution. It is
for this purpose, as I conceive, that in the description of
the general resurrection, in the visions of the Apocalypse,
it is mentioned with a particular emphasis, that the ''^ sea
gave up the dead that were in it ;" which I cannot be con-
tent to understand of the few persons — few in comparison
of the total of mankind — lost at different times by ship-
wreck (a poor circumstance to find a place in the midst of
the magnificent images which surround it), but of the my-
riads who perished in the general deluge, and found their
tomb in the waters of that raging ocean. It may be con-
ceived, that the souls of those who died in that dreadful
visitation might from that circumstance have peculiar ap-
prehensions of themselves as the marked victims of divine
vengeance, and might peculiarly need the consolation
which the preaching of our Lord in the subterranean re-
gions afforded to these prisoners of hope. However that
may be, thither, the apostle says, he went and preached.
Is any difficulty that may present itself to the human mind,
upon the circumstances of that preaching, of sufficient
weight to make the thing unfit to be believed upon the
word of the apostle ? — Or are we justified, if, for such dif-
ficulties, we abandon the plain sense of the apostle's words,
and impose upon them another meaning, not easily adapted
to the words, though more proportioned to the capacity of
our understanding, — especially when it is confirmed by
other Scriptures that he went to that place ? In that place
he could not but find the souls which are in it in safe
keeping ; and, in some way or other, it cannot but be sup-
posed that he would hold conference with them ; and a
particular conference with one class might be the means,
and certjiinly could be no obstruction, to a general com-

268

munication with all. It' the clear assertions of holy writ
are to be discredited, on account of difficulties which may
seem to the human mind to arise out of them, little will
remain to be believed in revealed or even in what is called
natural religion : we must immediately part with the doc-
trines of atonement — of gratuitous redemption — of justi-
fication by faith, without the works of the law — of sanc-
tification by the influence of the Holy Spirit; and we
must part at once with the hope of the resurrection. " How
are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?"
are questions more easily asked than answered, unless it
may be an answer, to refer the proposer of them to the
promises of holy writ, and the power of God to make good
those promises.

Having now, I trust, shown that the article of Christ's
descent into hell is to be taken as a plain matter of fact,
in the literal meaning of the words, — having exhibited the
positive proof that we find of this fact in holy writ, — hav-
ing asserted the literal meaning of my text, and displayed,
in its full force, the convincing proof to be deduced from
this passage in particular, — I shall now, with great brevity,
demonstrate the great use and importance of the fact
itself as a point of Christian doctrine.

Its great use is this, — that it is a clear confutation of the
dismal notion of death as a temporary extinction of the
life of the whole man; or, what is no less gloomy and dis-
couraging, the notion of the sleep of the soul in the in-
terval between death and the resurrection. Christ was
made so truly man, that whatever took place in the human
nature of Christ may be considered as a model and example
of what must take place, in a certain due proportion and
degree, in every man united to him. Christ's soul sur-
vived the death of his body: therefore shall the soul of
every believer survive the body's death. Christ's disem-
bodied soul descended into hell : thither, therefore, shall
the soul of every believer in Christ descend. In that place,
the soul of Christ, in its separate state, possessed and

264

exercised active powers : in the same place, therefore, shall
the believer's spul possess and exercise activity. Christ's
soul was not left in hell : neither shall the souls of his ser-
vants there be left but for a season. The appointed time
will come, when the Redeemer shall set open the doors of
their prison-house, and say to his redeemed, " Go forth."

SERMON XXL

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbatli. —
Makk ii. 27.

The two opposite characters of the hypocrite and the
profane are in no part of their conduct more conspicu-
ously distinguished, than by the opposite errors which
they seem to adopt concerning the degree of attention due
to the positive institutions of religion, whether of human
or Divine appointment. Under the name of positive in-
stitutions, we comprehend all those impositions and re-
straints, which, not being suggested to any man by his
conscience, and having no necessary and natural con-
nexion with the dictates of that internal monitor, seem to
have no importance but what they may derive from the
will of a superior who prescribes them. Of this sort, as
far as we at present understand it, was the restriction laid
upon our first parents in Paradise— the prohibition of the
use of blood for food, after the deluge — the rite of circum-
cision in Abraham's family — the whole of the Mosaic ri-
tual— the sacraments of the Christian church — the insti-
tution of the Sabbath — and, besides these, all ceremonies
of worship whatsoever, of human appointment. All these
things come under the notion of positive institutions ; for
although the expediency of things of the kind, in the se-
veral successive ages of the world, is sufficiently apparent,
yet the particular merit of the special acts enjoined, for
which they might be preferable to other acts which might

•265

have been devised for the same purpose, is perhaps in none
of the instances alleged very easy to be discovered. That
men should assemble, at stated seasons, for the public
worship of God, all must perceive to be a duty, who ac-
knowledge that a creature, endowed with the high faculties
of reason and intelligence, owes to his Maker public ex-
pressions of homage and adoration : but that the assembly
should recur every seventh, rather than every sixth or every
eighth day, no natural sanctity of the seventh, more than of
the sixth or eighth, persuades. That Christians, in their
public assemblies, should commemorate that death by which
death was overcome, and the gate of everlasting life set
open to the true believer, no one who pretends to a just
sense of the benefit received, and the sharpness of the
pain endured, will dare to question : but the particular
sanctity of the rite in use proceeds solely from our Lord's
appointment. The same may be said of baptism. A rite
by which new converts should be admitted into the church,
and the children of Christian parents, from their earliest
infancy, devoted to Christ's service in their riper age, is of
evident propriety : but our Lord's solemn injunction of its
constant use constitutes the particular sanctity of that
which is employed. The like observations applied with
equal force, in ancient times, to the particulars of the
Mosaic service, to the rite of circumcision, to the prohibi-
tion of the use of blood, and to the abstinence from the
fruit of a particular tree, exacted of Adam in Paradise, for
no other purpose, perhaps, but as a test of his obedience ;
and they are still applicable with much greater force to all
ceremonies of worship appointed in any national church by
the authority of its rulers. The fact is, that all ceremonies
are actions, which, by a solemn appropriation of them to
particular occasions, are understood to denote, or are made
use of to produce, certain dispositions of the mind toward
God : they acquire their meaning merely from the institu-
tion ; and the necessity of making a choice of some one
out of a variety of acts which naturally might be equally

266

significant and equally fit to be made subservient to tlie
intended purpose, will always produce, even in the ordi-
nances of Divine appointment, an appearance at least of
something arbitrary in the institution. Hence, it will of
necessity come to pass, that these ordinances will be very
differently regarded by different men, according as the
particular cast of each man's temper and disposition — his
natural turn to seriousness or gaiety — his acquired habits
of sincerity or dissimulation — render either the importance
of the general end, or what there may seem to be of arbi-
trary authority in the particular institution, the object most
apt to seize upon his attention ; according as he is dis-
posed to be scrupulous in his duty, or impatient of restraint
— fair and open in his actions, or accustomed to seek his
private ends in the fair show and semblance of a ready and
exact submission to authority. With the hypocrite, there-
fore, the whole of the practical part of religion will consist
in an ostentatious rigour in the observance of its positive
precepts. With that thoughtless tribe which constitutes,
it is to be feared, the far greater proportion of mankind,
those who, without any settled principles of positive infi-
delity, and without any strong propensities to the excesses
of debauchery, find, however, their whole occupation in
the cares and what may seem the innocent amusements of
the world, and defer the consideration of the future life
till they find the present drawing to a close, — with persons
of this disposition, the duties of which I speak are for the
most part totally neglected ; insomuch, that an affected
assiduity in the discharge of the positive precepts of re-
ligion on the one hand, and the neglect of them on the
other, may be considered as the discriminating symptoms
of the two opposite vices of hypocrisy and profaneness :
for the name of profaneness, you will observe, in strict
propriety of speech, belongs not only to the flagrant and
avowed impiety of the atheist and libertine, but to the
conduct of him who, without any thing notoriously repre-
hensible in his morals — any thing to make him shunn*^

2()7

and disliked by his neighbours and acquaintances, lives,
however, without any habitual fear of God and sense of
religion upon his mind.

The Mosaic law, as it was planned by unerring wisdom,
was uncjuestionably admirably well contrived for the great
purposes for which it was intended, — to maintain the
knowledge of the true God among a particular people,
and to cherish an opinion of the necessity of an expiatory
sacrifice for involuntary offences, till the season should
arrive for the general revelation. Nor is it to be supposed
that it failed of the purpose for which it was so well con-
trived. The highest examples of consummate virtue and
heroic piety which the ancient world knew were formed in
that people, under the discipline of their holy law ; never-
theless, the great stress laid upon ceremonial observances
had, notwithstanding the continual remonstrances of the
prophets — not from any defect in the law itself, but from
the corruption of human nature— it had at least an ill
effect upon the manners of the people. Notwithstanding
the eminent instances of virtue and piety which from time
to time arose among them — of virtue and piety, of which
faith alone in the revelation which they enjoyed might be
a sufficient foundation, — yet, if we look to the national
character, especially in the later ages of the Jewish state,
we shall find that it was rank hypocrisy, such as justifies
what is said of them by a learned writer, that they were at
the same time the most religious and the most profligate
people upon the earth, — the most religious in the hypo-
crite's religion — the most regardless of what their own law
taught them to be more than all whole burnt-offerings and
sacrifices.

Strange as the assertion may seem, this depravity of the
Jewish people, the effect, as has been observed, of an abuse
of their divine law, was favourable (so active is the merciful
providence of God to bring good out of evil), — this ill
effect of the abuse of the divine law was favourable to
that great end to which the law tended, the introduction

268

of a universal revelation for the general reforrpation of the
manners of mankind. It was favourable to this end, be-
cause it was favourable to our Saviour's method of instruc-
tion. Our Saviour's method of instruction was not by
delivering a system of morality, in which the formal na-
ture of the moral good should be traced to the original
idea of the seemly and the fair — the foundations of our
duty discovered in the natural relations of things, and the
importance of every particular duty demonstrated by its
connexion with the general happiness. This was not his
method of instruction, because he well knew how long it
had been followed with little effect ; for abstruse specula-
tions, whatever they may have at the bottom of solidity
and truth, suit not the capacities of the many, and in-
fluence the hearts of none. The method of instruction
which he chose, was to throw out general maxims respect-
ing the different branches of human duty, as often as, in
the course of an unreserved intercourse with persons of all
ranks, characters, and conditions, he found occasion either
to reprove the errors and enormities which fell under his
observation, or to vindicate his own conduct and that of
his disciples, when either was unjustly arraigned by the
hypocrites of the times. Had the manners of his cotem-
poraries been less reprehensible, or their hypocrisy less
rigid and censorious, the occasions of instruction by re-
proof and apology would have less frequently occurred.
It was an accusation of his disciples as profaners of the
Sabbath, when they took the liberty to satisfy their hunger
with the ripe ears of standing corn, which they plucked as
they chanced to cross a corn-field on the Sabbath-day,
which drew from him that admirable maxim which I have
chosen for my text, — a maxim which, rightly understood,
may be applied to all the positive precepts of religion no
less than to the Sabbath, and clearly settles the degree of
attention that is due to them ; insomuch, that whoever will
keep this maxim in its right sense constantly in view, will
with certainty avoid the two extremes of an unnecessary

269

rigour in the observance of these secondary duties, on the
one hand, and a profane neglect of them on the other.

After all that can be said, and said with truth, about
the immutable distinctions of right and wrong, and the
eternal fitness of things, it should seem that the will of
God is the true foundation of moral obligation ; for I can-
not understand that any man's bare perception of the natu-
ral seemliness of one action and unseemliness of another,
should bring him under an obligation upon all occasions
to do the one and to avoid the other, at the hazard of his
life, to the detriment of his fortune, or even to the diminu-
tion of his own ease, which suffers diminution more or less
in every instance in which he lays a constraint upon his
own inclination. I say, I cannot understand how the bare
perception of good in actions of one sort, or of evil in ac-
tions of another, should create such an obligation, that a
man, if he were not accountable to a superior for the con-
duct of his life, should yet be criminal, if, in view of his
own happiness or ease, he should sometimes think proper
to omit the action which he admires, or to do that which
he disapproves. No such obligation therefore arising from
the mere intuitive perception of the diiferences of right
and wrong, it follows, that, notwithstanding the reality of
those differences, and the incommutable nature of the two
things, still the obligation upon man to act in conformity
to these perceptions arises from the will of God, who en-
joins a conformity of our conduct to these natural appre-
hensions of our minds, and binds the obligation by assur-
ances that what we lose of present gratification shall be
amply compensated in a future retribution, and by threaten-
inof the disobedient with heavier ills than the restraints of
self-denial or the loss of life. But if this be the case, that
the will of God is the sole foundation of man's duty, it
should seem that the distinction which is usually made
between the great natural duties of justice and sobriety —
all, in short, that are included in the general topics of the
love of God and man, — it should seem that the distinction

270

between these and the positive precepts of religion is ima-
ginary, so far at least as the distinction regards positive
precepts of Divine appointment ; it should seem that all
duties, natural and positive, are, upon this principle, of
the same value and importance — that, by consequence, all
crimes are equal, and that a wilful, unnecessary absence
from the assemblies of the seventh day, or from the Lord's
table, is a crime of no less guilt than theft or murder.

The highest authority hath decided otherwise, and hath
established the distinction. Our Lord told his disciples,
that " unless their righteousness should exceed the riphte-
ousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, they should in no-
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven," — that is, unless it
should be a righteousness of a higher kind ; for, in the
sort of righteousness which they practised, the Scribes
and Pharisees were not easily to be outdone. He recom-
mended to them two things very contrary to the hypocrite s
religion, secrecy and brevity in their devotions. He seemed
industriously to seek occasions of doing those good actions
on the Sabbath-day, which, to those who understood not
how the principle and the end sanctified these works of
mercy, seemed a violation of the institution : and it was in
justification of an action in which no such merit could be
pretended — an action done by some of his followers, per-
haps without much consideration, to appease the cravings
of a keen appetite — that he alleged the maxim in the text,
" that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath," — a maxim which, at the same time that it esta-
blishes in the most peremptory terms the distinction be-
tween natural duties and positive institutions, defines with
the greatest precision and perspicuity in what the differ-
ence consists, and as little justifies the wilful neglect of the
ordinances of religion as it countenances an hypocritical
formality in the performance, or a superstitious reliance on
the merit of them.

Although the obligation upon man to a discharge of
any duty arises, as I have observed, from the sole will of

271

God, yet, in the great duties of justice and charity in our
dealings with men — of mildness to our inferiors, courtesy
to our equals, and submission to our governors — of sobriety
and temperance in the refections of the body, and of mode-
ration in the pleasures which belong to the animal life, —
in all these we can discern a natural fitness and propriety
immutably inherent in the things themselves ; insomuch,
that any rational being, once placed in a situation to be
superior to the influence of external motives, and to be
determined in his conduct by the sole approbation of his
own mind, must always delight in them : and though oc-
casions may arise which may render a contrary conduct
useful to the individual, yet no occasions can arise which
may render it so lovely and laudable. Now, although
this natural fitness and propriety be not the origin of moral
obligation among men, yet it is indeed a higher principle ;
for it is that from which that will of God himself origi-
nates by which the natural discernment of our conscience
acquires the force of a law for the regulation of our lives.
Of these duties of inherent and immutable propriety, it
were not true to say that they are made for man : but what
is denied of positive institutions is true of these, that man
was made for them. They are analogous to the moral
attributes of the Deity himself. The more that any man
is fixed in the habitual love and practice of them, the more
the image of God in that man is perfected. The perfec-
tion of these moral attributes is the foundation of the ne-
cessity of God's own existence; and if the enjoyment and
display of them is (if the expression may be allowed) the
end and purpose to which God himself exists, the humble
imitation of these divine perfections is the end and pur-
pose for which men and angels were created.

We discern, therefore, in these natural duties, that in-
trinsic worth and seemliness, which is the motive that
determines the Divine will to exact the performance of
them from the rational part of his creation; for God's will
is not arbitrary, but directed by his goodness and his

272

wisdom. Or, to go a step higher, the natural excellence
of these duties, we may reasonably presume, was the ori-
ginal motive which determined the Deity to create beings
who should be capable of being brought to that dignity of
character which a proficiency in virtue confers, and of en-
joying, in their improved state of moral worth, a corre-
sponding happiness.

But in the positive institutions of religion we discern
nothing of inherent excellence. They evidently make a
part of the discipline only of our present state, by which
creatures in their first state of imperfection, weak in in-
tellect and strong in passion, might be trained to the habit
of those virtues which are in themselves valuable, and, by
the fear of God thus artificially as it were impressed upon
their minds, be rendered in the end superior to temptation.
They are therefore, as it were, but a secondary part of
the will of God ; and the rank which they hold as objects
of God's will, the same they must hold as branches of
man's obedience. They are no otherwise pleasing to God
than as they are beneficial to man, by enlivening the flame
of genuine religion in his bosom. Man, therefore, was
not made for these, but these were made for man. To
commemorate the creation of the universe by certain cere-
monies in public assemblies on the seventh day, though a
noble and a salutary employment of our time, is not, how-
ever, the principal business for which man was created ;
nor is the commemoration of our Redeemer's death, by
any external rite, the principal end and business of the
Christian's calling : but the observation of the Sabbath
with certain ceremonies in public assemblies, and the
commemoration of our Lord's death in the Eucharist, v/ere
appointed as means of cherishing in the heart of man a
more serious and interested attention to those duties which
are the real end and purpose of his existence, and the pe-
culiar service which the Christian owes his Lord, who
bought him with his blood. And thus we see the dis-
tinction between the primary duties and the positive pre-

273

cepts of religion. Tiie practice of the first is the very end
for which man was originally created, and, after the ruin
of his fall, redeemed: the other are means appointed to
facilitate and secure the attainment of the end. In them-
selves they are of no value ; insomuch, that a scrupulous
attention to these secondary duties, when the great end of
thern is wilfully neglected, will but aggravate the guilt of
an immoral life. Man was not made for these,

But, on the other hand, it demands our serious atten-
tion, that it is declared by the very same authority that
they ivere made for him. They are not mere arbitrary
appointments, of no meaning or significance. They are
not useless exactions of wanton power, contrived only to
display the authority of the master, and to imbitter the
subjection of the slave. They were made for man. They
were appointed for the salutary influence which the Maker
of man foresees they are likely to have upon his life and
conduct. To live in the wilful neglect of them, is to neg-
lect the means which Infinite Wisdom hath condescended
to provide for the security of our future condition. The
consequence naturally to be expected is that which is
always seen to ensue, — a total profligacy of manners,
hardness of heart, and contempt for God's word and
commandment.

Having thus shown the true distinction between the
primary duties and the positive precepts of religion, I
shall in some future Discourses proceed to the particular
subject which the text more especially suggests, and in-
quire what the reverence may be, due to the Sabbath
under the Christian dispensation ; which I shall prove to
be much more than it is generally understood to be, if
the principles of men are to be inferred from their practice.

•274

SERMON XXII.

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabl)ath.
Mark ii. 27.

What is aflirmed of the Sabbath in these remarkable
words is equally true of all the ordinances of external
worship. The maxim tliereforc is general ; and, at the
same time that it establishes a distinction between the
primary duties and the positive institutions of religion, it
clearly defines the circumstance in which the difference
consists. Of the positive institutions of religion, even of
those of Divine appointment, whatever sanctity may be de-
rived to them from the will of God, which is indeed the su-
preme rule and proper foundation of human duty, — what-
ever importance may belong to them as necessary means
for the attainment of the noblest end, the improvement
of man's moral character, and the consequent advance-
ment of his happiness, — yet we have our Lord's authority
to say, that the observance of them is not itself the end
for which man was created. Man was not made for these.
Of natural duties we affirm the contrary. The acquisition
of that virtue which consists in the habitual love and prac-
tice of them, is the very final cause of man's existence.
The intrinsic worth and seemliness of that virtue is so
great, that it may be presumed to be the motive which
determined the will of God to create beings with capa-
cities for the attainment. These, therefore, are the things
for which man was made. They were not made for him.
They derive not their importance from a temporary sub-
serviency to the interests of man in his present condition
— to the happiness and preservation of the individual or
of the kind. They are no part of an arbitrary discipline,
contrived, after man was formed, for the trial and exercise
of his obedience. Their worth is in the things themselves.
In authority they are higher than law — in time, older than
creation — in worth, more valuable than the universe. The

275

positive precepts of religion, on tlie contri\ry, are ot* the
nature of political institutions, which are g'ood or bad in
relation only to the interests of particular conniuuuties.
These, therefore, were made for man. And although man
hath no authority to give himself a general dispensation
from any law which hath the sanction of his Maker's will,
yet, since God hath given him faculties to distinguish
between things for which he is made and things which
are made for him, it is every man's duty, in the applica-
tion of God's general laws to his own conduct on particu-
lar occasions, to attend to this distinction. If by an af-
fected precision in the exercises of external devotion,
while he disregards the great duties of morality, lie thinks
that he satisfies the end of his creation, — if he sets sacri-
fice in competition with mercy, as the Jews did, when,
under the pretence of rich otlerings to the temple, they
defrauded their parents in their old age oi^ the support
which was their due — and when they took advantage of
the rigour with which their law enjoined the observance
of the Sabbath, to excuse themselves on that day from of-
fices of charity, while they could dispense with the insti-
tution for the preservation of their own property, — who-
ever, after these examples, thinks to commute for natural
duties by an exact observance of positive institutions, de-
ceives himself, and offers the highest indignity to God, in
believing, or affecting to believe, that he will judge o( the
conduct of moral agents otherwise than according to the
truth of things — that he will prefer the means to the eiul,
the subordinate to the primary duties. On the other luuul,
the wilful neglect of the ordinances of religion, under a
pretence of a general attention to the weightier matters o['
the law, argues either a criminal security or a profane in-
ditference. No one, whatever pretensions he may make,
can have a just sense of the importance and the dilhculty
of virtuous attainments, who in mere indolence desires to
release himself from a discipline which may diminish the
difficulty and insure the effect; nor is it consistent with

•276

just apprehensions of the divine wisdom to suppose that
the means which God hath appointed in subservience to
any end may be neglected with impunity. A neglect,
therefore, of the ordinances of religion of divine appoint-
ment, is the sure symptom of a criminal indifierence about
those higher duties by which men pretend to atone for
the omission. It is too often found to be the beginning
of a licentious life, and for the most part ends in the high-
est excesses of profligacy and irreligion.

Having thus taken occasion from the text to explain the
comparative merit of natural duties and positive precepts,
and having shown the necessity of a reverent attention to
the latter, as to means appointed by God for the security
of virtue in its more essential parts, I proceed to the in-
quiry which the text more immediately suggests, — the
sanctity of the Sabbath under the Christian dispensation.
The libertinism of the times renders this inquiry impor-
tant; and the spirit of refinement and disputation has ren-
dered it in some degree obscure. I shall therefore divide
it into its parts, and proceed by a slow and gradual dis-
c^uisition. An opinion has been for some time gaining
ground, that the observation of a Sabbath in the Chris-
tian church is a matter of mere consent and custom, to
which we are no more obliged by virtue of any divine
precept than to any other ceremony of the Mosaic law.
I shall first, therefore, show you, that Christians actually
stand obliged to the observation of a Sabbath, — that is,
to the separation of some certain day for the public wor-
ship of God ; and I shall reply to what may be alleged
with some colour of reason on the other side of the ques-
tion. I shall, in the next place, inquire how far the Chris-
tian, in the observation of his Sabbath, is held to the ori-
ginal injunction of keeping every seventh day; and which
day of the seven is his proper Sabbath. When I have
shown you that the obligation to the observance of every
seventh day actually remains upon him, and that the first
day of the week is his proper Sabbath, I shall, in the last

277

place, inquire in what manner this Christian Sabbath
should be kept.

To the general question, What regard is due to the in-
stitution of a Sabbath under the Christian dispensation ?
the answer is plainly this, — Neither more nor less than
was due to it in the patriarchal ages, before the Mosaic
covenant took place. It is a gross mistake to consider
the Sabbath as a mere festival of the Jewish church, de-
riving its whole sanctity from the Levitical law. The
contrary appears, as well from the evidence of the fact
which sacred history affords, as from the reason of the
thing which the same history declares. The religious ob-
servation of the seventh day hath a place in the decalogue
among the very first duties of natural religion. The rea-
son assigned for the injunction is general, and hath no
relation or regard to the particular circumstances of the
Israelites, or to the particular relation in which they stood
to God as his chosen people. The creation of the world
was an event equally interesting to the whole human race ;
and the acknowledgment of God as our Creator is a duty,
in all ages and in all countries, equally incumbent upon
every individual of mankind. The terms in which the
reason of the ordinance is assigned plainly describe it as an
institution of an earlier age. " Therefore the Lord blessed
tlie seventh, and set it apart.'" (That is the true import of
the word "hallowed it.") These words, you will observe,
express a past time. It is not said, "Therefore the Lord
«o?i^ blesses the seventh day, and sets it apart;" but, " There-
fore he did bless it, and set it apart in time past ; and he
now requires that you his chosen people should be ob-
servant of that ancient institution." And in farther con-
firmation of the fact, we find, by the sixteenth chapter of
Exodus, that the Israelites were acquainted with the Sab-
bath, and had been accustomed to some observance of it be-
fore Moses received the tables of the law at Sinai. When
the manna was first given for the nourishment of the army
in the wilderness, the people were told, that on the sixth day

278

tliey should collect the double of the daily portion. When
the event was found to answer to the promise, Moses gave
command, that the redundant portion should be prepared
and laid by for the meal of the succeeding day; " For to-
morrow," said he, " is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto
the Lord : on that day ye shall not find it in the field ; for
the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he givcth
you on the sixth day the bread of two days." He men-
tions the Sabbath as a divine ordinance, with which he
evidently supposes the people were well acquainted; for
he alleges the well-known sanctity of that day to account
for the extraordinary quantity of manna which was found
upon the ground on the day preceding it. But the ap-
pointment of the Sabbath, to which his words allude, must
have been earlier than the appointment of it in the law, of
which no part was yet given: for this first gathering of
the manna, which is recorded in the sixteenth chapter of
Exodus, was in tlie second month of the departure of the
Israelites from Egypt; and at Sinai, where the law was
given, they arrived not till the tliird. Indeed, the anti-
quity of the Sabbath was a thing so well understood
among the Jews themselves, that some of their rabbin
had the vanity to pretend that an exact adherence to
the observation of this day, under the severities of the
Egyptian servitude, was the merit by which their ances-
tors procured a miraculous deliverance. The deliverance
of the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage was surely an
act of God's free mercy, in which their own merit htid
no share : nor is it likely that their Egyptian lords left
them much at liberty to sanctify the Sabbath, if they were
inclined to do it. The tradition, therefore, is vain and
groundless: but it clearly speaks the opinion of those
among whom it passed, of the antiquity of the institution
in question; which appears, indeed, upon better evidence,
to have been coeval with the world itself. In the book of
Genesis, the mention of this institution closes the history
of the creation.

279

An institution of this antiquity, and of this general im-
portance, could derive no part of its sanctity from the au-
thority of the Mosaic law; and the abrogation of that law
no more releases the worshippers of God from a rational
observation of a Sabbath, than it cancels the injunction of
filial piety, or the prohibitions of theft and murder, adul-
tery, calumny, and avarice. The worship of the Christian
church is properly to be considered as a restoration of the
patriarchal, in its primitive simplicity and purity ; — and
of the patriarchal worship, the Sabbath was the noblest
and perhaps the simplest rite.

Thus it should seem that Christians are clearly obliged
to the observance of a Sabbath. But let us consider what
may be alleged with any colour of reason on the other
side. Now, it may be said, that the argument which we
have used for the perpetual sanctity of the Sabbath is of
that sort which must go for nothing, because it proves too
much. If the antiquity and the universality of the origi-
nal institution be made the ground of a permanent obliga-
tion to the observance of it, it may seem a consequence,
that the practice of the world, since the establishment of
Christianity, must have been far more deficient than hath
ever been suspected ; since upon this principle, mankind,
it may be said, should still be held to various ceremonies
which for many ages have sunk into disuse. Circum-
cision, it is true, will not come within the question ; for
though four or perhaps six centuries older than the law, it
was only a mark set upon a particular family. But the
prohibition of the use of blood in food bore the same anti-
quity, it may be said, with respect to the second race of
men, as the Sabbath with respect to the first. The prohi-
bition of blood followed the deluge as closely as the Sab-
bath followed the creation : the one was no less general to
all the sons of Noa.h than the other to all the sons of Adam.
The use of animals at all for food is only to be justified by
the Creator's express permission; and since the exception
of the blood of the animal accompanied the grant of the

280

flesh, the prohibition, it may be said, unless it was at any
time solemnly repealed, must be as general and as perma-
nent as the license. In the assembly of the apostles at
Jerusalem, of which we read in the fifteenth chapter of
the Acts, when the question was solemnly discussed con-
cerning the obligation of the Jewish law upon the converts
from the Gentiles, the prohibition of blood was one of three
things specially reserved in the solemn act of repeal in
which the deliberations of that council terminated. " It
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us," — these are the
words of the apostolical rescript — " it seemed good to the
Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden
than these necessary things, — that ye abstain from meats
offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled,
and from fornication." It seemed good to the Holy Ghost
and to the apostles, to lay no other restraint upon the Gentile
converts : but this restraint, of which an abstinence from
blood made a part, it seemed good to the apostles, nor to
the apostles only, but to the Holy Ghost also, to lay ; and
they declare that they laid it on as a necessary thing:
whereas, in this same decree, which so remarkably reserves
the abstinence from blood, the Sabbath is not at all re-
served as a thing either of necessity or expedience. It
should seem, therefore, it may be said, that the prohibition
of blood was an ordinance of more lasting obligation than
the Sabbath : the argument from antiquity and original
generality applies with equal force to both ; and the pro-
hibition is enforced by the authority of tbe apostles, who
mention no necessity of any observance of a Sabbath in
the Christian church. Upon what principle, then, is the
sanctity of the Sabbath maintained by those who openly
disregard the prohibition ?

I must confess, that had the Sabbath been a rite of the
Mosaic institution, or were any reason to be assigned for
the prohibition of blood, which might be of equal force in
all ages, I should hold this argument unanswerable, and
feel myself compelled to admit that the disregard of the

281

Sabbath were a less crime than the use of blood : but, as
the apostles assembled to consider whether the Gentile
converts were to be holden to any part of the Jewish ritual,
and if to any, to what part, it was beside their purpose to
mention any thing that was not considered by those who
consulted them as a branch of Judaism. Fornication, in-
deed, they mention ; for it hath been owing to that refine-
ment of sentiment which the Christian religion hath pro-
duced, that this is at last understood to be a breach of
natural morality. In the heathen world, it was never
thought to be a crime, except it was accompanied with
injury to a virgin's honour, or with violation of the mar-
riage-bed. Abstinence, in this instance, was considered as
a peculiarity of Judaism ; and had it not been mentioned
in the apostolical decree, the Gentile converts would not
have been very ready to discern that the prohibition of this
crime is included in the seventh commandment. But
with regard to the Sabbath, although it was gone into
disuse among the heathen long before the appearance of
our Saviour, yet the most ignorant idolater observed some
stated festivals in honour of the imaginary divinities to
which his worship was addressed. When an idolater,
therefore, was converted, the natural consequence of his
conversion — that is, of his going over from the worship of
idols to the worship of the true God, — the natural and
immediate consequence would be, that he would observe
the festival of the true God instead of the festival of his
idol. Thus the Gentile convert would spontaneously
adopt the observation of the Sabbath, as a natural duty —
a branch, indeed, of that most general commandment,
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." It was therefore as
little necessary that the Sabbath should be expressly ob-
served in the apostolical decree, as that express reservation
should be made of any other of the ten commandments :
nor is the neglect of the Sabbath more to be justified by
the silence of the apostolical council concerning the ne-
cessity of the observation, than idolatry or blasphemy is to

282

be justified by their silence about the second or the third
commandment.

The argument, therefore, from the parallel antiquity of
the injunction of a Sabbath and the prohibition of blood,
rather goes to prove that the prohibition is in force, than
to invalidate the conclusion of the perpetual sanctity of the
Sabbath from the early date of the institution. Accord-
ingly, it hath been the practice of very considerable men,
within our own memory, to abstain, from conscientious
scruples, from all meats prepared with the blood of ani-
mals, and from the flesh of animals otherwise killed than
by the effusion of their blood. The truth, however, seems
to be, that the two ordinances, the observation of a Sab-
bath and abstinence from blood, although they were
equally binding upon all mankind at the time when they
were severally enjoined, differ nevertheless in this, — that
the reason of the Sabbath continues invariably the same,
or, if it changes at all, it hath been gaining rather than
losing its importance from the first institution. The rea-
son of the prohibition of blood was founded on the state
of mankind before the coming of Christ, and was peculiar
to those early ages. The use of the Sabbath, as it began,
will end only with the world itself. The abstinence from
blood was a part of that hand-writing of ordinances to which
sin gave a temporary importance, and which were blotted
out when the Messiah made an end of sin by the expiatory
sacrifice of the cross. I have already had occasion to re-
mark, that it was the great end of the numerous sacrifices
of the Mosaic ritual, to impress the Jewish people (for a
season the chosen depositaries of revealed truth) with an
opinion of the necessity of a sanguinary expiation even for
involuntary offences, — to train them to the habitual belief
of that awful maxim, that " without blood there shall be
no remission." The end of those earlier sacrifices, vs^hich
were of use in the patriarchal ages, was unquestionably
the same. To inculcate the same important lesson, in the
earliest instance of a sacrifice upon record, respect was had

283

to the shepherd's sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock, rather
than to the husbandman's offering' of the fruit of his ground ;
and for the same reason, by the prohibition laid upon the
sons of Noah, and afterward enforced in the severest terms
in the Mosaic law, blood was sanctified, as it were, as the
immediate instrument of atonement. The end of the pro-
hibition was to impress mankind with a high reverence for
blood, as a most holy thing, consecrated to the purpose of
the general expiation : but this expiatory virtue belonged
not to the blood of bulls and of goats, but to the blood of
Christ, of which the other was by God's appointment made
a temporary emblem. As the importance, therefore, of all
inferior sacrifices, and of all the cleansings and purifica-
tions of the law, ceased when once the only meritorious
sacrifice had been oifered on the cross, and the true atone-
ment made, animal blood, at the same time, and for the
same reason, lost its sanctity. The necessity, therefore,
mentioned in the apostolic rescript, so far as it regards the
restriction from the use of blood, can be understood only
of a temporary necessity, founded on the charitable conde-
scension, which, in the infancy of the church, was due
from the Gentile converts to the inveterate prejudices of
their Hebrew brethren. Accordingly, although we read
of no subsequent decree of the apostolical college, rescind-
ing the restriction which by the act of their first assembly
they thought proper to impose, yet we find what is equiva-
lent to a decree, in the express license given by St. Paul
to the Christians of Corinth, to eat of whatever meat was
set before them, provided they incurred not the imputa-
tion of idolatry, by partaking of a feast upon the victim in
an idol's temple. With this exception, they had permis-
sion to eat whatever was sold in the shambles, and what-
ever was served up at table, without any attention to the
legal distinctions of clean and unclean, and without any
anxious inquiry upon what occasion or in what manner
the animals had been slaughtered.

Thus it appears, that the prohibition of blood in food

284

was for a time indeed, by the generality of the restraint,
binding upon all mankind : but, in the reason of the thing,
its importance was but temporary; and when its impor-
tance ceased, the restraint was taken off, — not indeed by
a decree of the whole college of apostles, but still by apos-
tolical authority. The observation of a Sabbath, on the
contrary, was not only a general duty at the time of the
institution, but, in the nature of the thing, of perpetual
importance; since, in every stage of the world's existence,
it is man's interest to remember, and his duty to acknow-
ledge, his dependence upon God as the Creator of all
things, and of man among the rest. The observation of
a Sabbath was accordingly enforced, not by any apostoli-
cal decree, but by the example of the apostles after the
solemn abrogation of the Mosaic law.

Thus, I trust, I have shown that the observation of a
Sabbath, as it was of earlier institution than the religion
of the Jews, and no otherwise belonged to Judaism, than
as, with other ordinances of the patriarchal church, it was
adopted by the Jewish legislature, necessarily survives the
extinction of the Jewish law, and makes a part of Chris-
tianity. I have shown how essentially it differs from other
ordhiances, which, however they may boast a similar an-
tiquity, and for a season an equal sanctity, were only of a
temporary importance. I have shown that it is a part of
the rational religion of man, in every stage and state of
his existence, till he shall attain that happy rest from the
toil of perpetual conflict with temptation — from the hard-
ship of duty as a task, of which the rest of the Sabbath is
itself a type. I have therefore established my first propo-
sition, that Christians stand obliged to the observation of
a Sabbath. I am, in the next place, to inquire how far
the Christian, in the observance of a Sabbath, is held to
the original injunction of keeping every seventh day ; and
which day of the seven is his proper Sabbath. And this
shall be the business of my next Discourse.

285

SERMON XXIII.

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Mark ii. 27.

The general application of this maxim of our Lord, as
a rule establishing the true distinction between natural
duties and positive institutions, I have already shown.
I have already shown you, that, rightly understood, what-
ever pre-eminence in merit it may ascribe (as it ascribes
indeed the greatest) to those things which are not good
because they are commanded, but are commanded because
they are in themselves good, it nevertheless as little justi-
fies the neglect of the external ordinances of religion, as
it warrants the hypocritical substitution of instituted forms
for those higher duties which it teaches us to consider as
the very end of our existence. In the particular inquiry
which the text more immediately suggests, what regard
may be due to the institution of the Sabbath under the
Christian dispensation, I have so far proceeded, as to show,
in opposition to an opinion which too visibly influences
the practice of the present age, that Christians are indeed
obliged to the observance of a Sabbath. It remains for
me to inquire how far the Christian, in the observance of
a Sabbath, is held to the original injunction of keeping
every seventh day ; and when I have shown you that this
obligation actually remains upon him, I am, in the last
place, to show in what manner his Sabbath should be
kept.

The spirit of the Jewish law was rigour and severity.
Rigour and severity were adapted to the rude manners of
the first ages of mankind, and were particularly suited to
the refractory temper of the Jewish people. The rigour
of the law itself was far outdone by the rigour of the
popular superstition and the pharisaical hypocrisy, — if,
indeed, superstition and hypocrisy, rather than a particular

286

ill will against our Lord, were the motives with the people
and their rulers to tax him with a breach of the Sabbath,
when they saw his power exerted on the Sabbath-day for
the relief of the afflicted. The Christian law is the law
of liberty. We are not therefore to take the measure
of our obedience from the letter of the Jewish law, —
much less from Jewish prejudices and the suggestions of
Jewish malignity. In the sanctification of the Sabbath,
in particular, we have our Lord's express authority to take
a pious discretion for our guide, keeping constantly in
view the end of the institution, and its necessary subordi-
nation to higher duties. But, in the use of this discretion,
I fear it is the fashion to indulge in a greater latitude than
our Lord's maxims allow or his example warrants ; and
although the letter of the Jewish law is not to be the
Christians guide, yet, perhaps, in the present instance, the
particular injunctions of the law, rationally interpreted by
reference to the general end of the institution, will best
enable us to determine what is the obligation to the obser-
vance of a particular day, — what the proper observation
of the day may be, — and how far the practice of the pre-
sent age corresponds with the purpose and spirit of the
ordinance.

The injunction of the Sabbath, in the fourth command-
ment, is accompanied with the history and the reason of
the original institution. Both the history and the reason
given here are the same which occur in the second chapter
of Genesis. The history is briefly this, — that " God blessed
the seventh day, and hallowed it." " He hallowed it," —
that is, God himself distinguished this particular day, and
set it apart from the rest; and "he blessed it," — that is,
he appropriated this day to religious exercises on the part
of man ; and he engaged, on his own part, to accept the
homage which should on this day be oifered to him. He
promised to be propitious to the prayers, public and pri-
vate, which should be offered to him on this day in the
true spirit of piety, humility, and faith. This is, I think,

287

the import of tlte phrase that God " blessed the day." He
annexed the promise of his especial blessing to the regular
discharge of a duty enjoined. The reason of this sancti-
fication of the seventh day was founded on the order in
which the work of the creation had been carried on. In
this business, we are told, the Divine power was active
for six successive days ; on the sixth day all was finished,
and on the seventh God rested : his power was no longer
exerted in the business of making, the whole world being
now made, arranged, and finished.

From the reason thus assigned for the institution, it is
easy to understand that the worship originally required of
men on this day was to praise God as the Creator of the
universe, and to acknowledge their dependence upon him
and subjection to him as his creatures : and it is evident
that this worship is due to the Creator from all men, in all
ages, since none in any age are not his creatures. The
propriety of the particular appointment of every seventh
day is also evident from the reason assigned, if the fact be
as the letter of the sacred history represents it, that the
creation was the gradual work of six days. It hath ever
been the folly or the pride of man, to make a difficulty of
every thing of which he hath not the penetration to dis-
cern the reason. It is very certain that God needs no
time for the execution of his purposes. Had it so pleased
him, the universe, in its finished form, with all its furni-
ture and all its inhabitants, might have started into exis-
tence in a moment. To say " Let the world be," had been
as easy to God as " Let there be light;" and the effect
must have followed. Hence, as if a necessity lay upon
the Deity upon all occasions to do all to which his omni-
potence extends, — or as if, on the contrary, it were not
impossible that Infinite power should in any instance do
its utmost (for whatever hath been done, more must be
within its ability to perform, or it were not infinite), — un-
mindful of these principles, some have dreamed of I know
not what figures and allegories in that part of the Mosaic

288

history which describes tlie creation as a work performed
in time and distributed into parts ; imagining, in opposi-
tion to the letter of the story, that the whole must have
been instantaneously accomplished. Others, with more
discernment, have suspected, that when once the chaos
was produced and the elements invested with their quali-
ties, physical causes, which work their effect in time, were
in some measure concerned in the progi'ess of the business ;
the Divine power acting only at intervals, for certain pur-
poses to which physical causes were insufficient, such as
the division of the general chaos into distinct globes and
systems, and the formation of the first plants and animals.
These notions are indeed perfectly consistent with sound
philosophy ; nor am I aware that they are in any way re-
pugnant to the sacred history : but from these principles a
conclusion has too hastily been drawn, that o, week would
be too short time for physical causes to accomplish their
part of the business ; and it has been imagined, that a day
must be used figuratively in the history of the creation, to
denote at least a thousand years, or perhaps a longer
period.

In what manner the creation was conducted, is a ques-
tion about a fact, and, like all questions about facts, must
be determined, not by theory, but by testimony ; and if no
testimony were extant, the fact must remain uncertain.
But the testimony of the sacred historian is peremptory
and explicit. No expressions could be found in any lan-
guage to describe a gradual progress of the work for six
successive days, and the completion of it on the sixth, in
the literal and common sense of the word "day," more
definite and unequivocal than those employed by Moses ;
and they who seek or admit figurative expositions of such
expressions as these, seem to be not sufficiently aware,
that it is one thing to write a history, and quite another
to compose riddles. The expressions in which Moses
describes the days of the creation, literally rendered, are
these ; When he has described the first day's work, he

&'

289

.say3 — "And there was morning and there was evening-
one day ;" when he has described the second day's work
"There was morning and there was evening, a second
day;" when he has described the third day's work, "There
was evening and there was morning, a third day," Thus,
in the progress of his narrative, at the end of each day's
work, he counts up the days which had passed off from
the beginning of the business ; and, to obviate all doubt
what portion of time he meant to denote by the appella-
tion of " a day," he describes each day of which the men-
tion occurs as consisting of one evening and one morning,
or, as the Hebrew words literally import, of the decay of
light and the return of it. By what description could the
word " day" be more expressly limited to its literal and
common meaning, as denoting that portion of time which
is measured and consumed by the earth's revolution on
her axis ? That this revolution was performed in the same
space of time in the beginning of the world as now, I
would not over confidently affirm; but we are not at pre-
sent concerned in the resolution of that question : a day,
whatever was its space, was still the same thing in nature
— a portion of time measured by the same motion, divisi-
ble into the same seasons of morning and noon, evening
and midnight, and making the like part of longer portions
of time measured by other motions. The day was itself
marked by the vicissitudes of darkness and light ; and so
many times repeated, it made a month, and so many times
more, a year. For six such days God was making the
heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that therein is ; and
rested on the seventh day. This fact, clearly established
by the sacred writer's testimony, in the literal meaning of
these plain words, abundantly evinces the perpetual im-
portance and propriety of consecrating one day in seven
to the public worship of the Creator.

I say one day in seven. In the first ages of the world,
the creation of the world was the benefaction by which
God was principally known, and for which he was chiefly

290

to be worshipped. The Jews, in their religious assem-
blies, had to commemorate other blessings — the political
creation of their nation out of Abraham's family, and
their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage. We Chris-
tians have to commemorate, beside the common benefit of
the creation, the transcendent blessing of our redemption
— our new creation to the hope of everlasting life, of
which our Lord's resurrection to life on the first day of
the week is a sure pledge and evidence. You see, there-
fore, that the Sabbath, in the progress of ages, hath ac-
quired new ends, by new manifestations of the Divine
mercy ; and these new ends justify correspondent altera-
tions of the original institution. It has been imagined that
a change was made of the original day by Moses — that
the Sabbath was transferred by him from the day on
which it had been originally kept in the patriarchal ages,
to that on which the Israelites left Egypt. The conjec-
ture is not unnatural ; but it is, in my judgment, a mere
conjecture, of which the sacred history affords neither
proof nor confutation. This, however, is certain, that
upon our Lord's resurrection, the Sabbath was transferred,
in memory of that event, the great foundation of the Chris-
tian's hopes, from the last to the first day of the week.
The alteration seems to have been made by the authority
of the apostles, and to have taken place on the very day
on which our Lord arose; for on that day the apostles
were assembled, and on that day sennight we find them
assembled again. The celebration of these two first Sun-
days was honoured with our Lord's own presence. It was
perhaps to set a mark of distinction upon this day in par-
ticular, that the intervening week passed off, as it should
seem, without any repetition of his first visit to the eleven
apostles. From that time, the Sunday was the constant
Sabbath of the primitive church. The Christian, there-
fore, who devoutly sanctifies one day in seven, although
it be the first day of the week, not the last, as was origi-
nally ordained, may rest assured that he fully satisfies the

291

spirit of the ordinance. Had the propriety of the altera-
tion been less apparent than it is from the reason of the
thing, the authority of the apostles to loose and bind was
absolute.

I must remark, however, that their authority upon this
point was exercised not purely in consideration of the ex-
pediency, but upon the higher consideration of the neces-
sity of a change — a necessity arising, as I conceive, out
of the original spirit of the institution. The original ob-
servation of a Sabbath on every seventh day was a public
and distinguishing characteristic of the worship of the
Creator, who finished his work in six days, and rested on
the seventh. This was the public character by which the
worship of the true God was distinguished, that his festi-
val returned every seventh day ; and, by the strict obser-
vance of this ordinance, the holy patriarchs, and the Jews
their descendants, made as it were a public protestation
once in every week against the errors of idolatry, which,
instead of the true God, the Creator of the universe, paid
its adoration either to the works of God, the sun and moon,
and other celestial bodies, or to mere figments of the hu-
man imagination, misled by a diabolical illusion — to
imaginary beings presiding over the natural elements, or
the departed ghosts of deceased kings and heroes — and,
in the last stage of the corruption, to inanimate images,
by which the supposed influences of the celestial bodies
and physical qualities of the elements were emblematically
represented, and the likenesses of the deified kings sup-
posed to be pourtrayed. To this protestation against
heathenism, the propriety of which binds the worshippers
of the true God in all ages to a weekly Sabbath, it is rea-
sonable that Christians should add a similar protestation
against Judaism. It was necessary that Christians should
openly separate as it were from the communion of the
Jews, who, after their perverse rejection of our Lord,
ceased to be the true church of God : and the sanctifica-
tion of the Saturday being the most visible and notorious
u 2

292

character of the Jewish worship, it, was necessary that the
Christian Sabbath should be transferred to some other day
of the week. A change of the day being for these reasons
necessary, the choice of the apostles was directed to the
first day of the week, as that on which our Lord's resur-
rection finished and sealed the vv'ork of our redemption ;
so that, in the same act by which we acknowledge the
Creator, and protest against the claims of the Jews to be
still the depositaries of the true religion, we might confess
the Saviour whom the Jews crucified.

You have now seen that the Christian clearly stands
obliged to the observance of a Sabbath, — that, in the ob-
servance of his Sabbath, he is held to the original institu-
tion of keeping every seventh day, — and that his proper
Sabbath is the first day of the seven. By keeping a Sab-
bath, we acknowledge a God, and declare that we are not
atheists; by keeping one day in seven, we protest against
idolatry, and acknowledge that God who in the beginning
made the heavens and the earth ; and by keeping our Sab-
bath on the first of the week, we protest against Judaism,
and acknowledge that God who, having made the world,
sent his only-begotten Son to redeem mankind. The ob-
servation, therefore, of the Sunday in the Christian church,
is a public weekly assertion of the two first articles in our
Creed — the belief in God the Father Almighty, the Maker
of heaven and earth ; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son,
our Lord.

I must not quit this part of my subject without briefly
taking notice of a text in St. Paul's Epistle to the Colos-
sians, which has been supposed to contradict the whole
doctrine which I have asserted, and to prove that the ob-
servation of a Sabbath in the Christian church is no point
of duty, but a matter of mere compliance with an ancient
custom. In the second chapter of that epistle, St. Paul,
speaking of " the hand-writing of ordinances which is
blotted out, having been nailed to the Redeemer's cross,"
adds, in the sixteenth verse, "Let no man therefore judge

293

you in meat or in drink, or in respect oT a lioliday, or of
the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days." From this text,
no less a man than the venerable Calvin drew the conclu-
sion, in which he has been rashly followed by other con-
siderable men, that the sanctification of the seventh day
is no indispensable duty in the Christian church, — that it
is one of those carnal ordinances of the Jewish religion
which our Lord hath blotted out. The truth however is,
that, in the apostolical age, the first day of the week, though
it was observed with great reverence, was not called the
Sabbath-day, but the Lord's-day, — that the separation of
the Christian church from the Jewish communion might
be marked by the name as well as by the day of their
weekly festival ; and the name of the Sabbath-days was
appropriated to the Saturdays, and certain days in the
Jewish church which were likewise called Sabbaths in the
law, because they were observed with no less sanctity.
The Sabbath-days, therefore, of which St. Paul in this
passage speaks, were not the Sundays of the Christians,
but the Sa urdays and the other Sabbaths of the Jewish
calendar. The Judaizing heretics, with whom St. Paul
was all his life engaged, were strenuous advocates for the
observation of these Jewish festivals in the Christian
church; and his (St. Paul's) admonition to the Colossians
is, that they should not be disturbed by the censures of
those who reproached them for neglecting to observe these
Jewish Sabbaths with Jewish ceremonies. It appears
from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, that the Sunday
was observed in the church of Corinth with St. Paul's
own approbation. It appears from the Apocalypse, that
it was generally observed in the time when that book was
written by St. John ; and it is mentioned by the earliest
apologists of the Christian faith, as a necessary branch of
Christian worship. But the Sabbaths of the Jewqsh church
are abolished ; nor is the Christian, in the observation of
his own Sabbath, to conduct himself by the childish rules
of the old Pharisaical superstition. This brino-s me to

294

consider, in the last place, the manner in which the Chris-
tian Sabbath is to be kept.

As the reason of the institution rests on such common
benefits as the creation of the world and man's redemp-
tion, it is evident that ail descriptions of men stand ob-
liged to the duties of the day. No elevation of rank may
exempt; no meanness of condition may exclude; no inex-
perience of youth disqualifies for the task ; no decrepitude
of age is unequal to the toil ; no tenderness of sex can
suffer from the fatigue. Since the proper business of the
day thus engages every rank, every sex, and every age,
it is evident that it requires a suspension of the ordinary
business of the world ; for none can be at leisure for se-
cular employments when all are occupied as they ought
to be in devotion. All servile labour and all worldly bu-
siness was accordingly prohibited by the Mosaic law,
under the highest penalties; and capital punishment was,
in an early instance, actually inflicted on a man who only
went out on the Sabbath to gather sticks for fuel. Chris-
tian magistrates have not only the permission, they have
the injunction of our Lord — they have the authority at
least of inference from the example of what he did him-
self, and what he justified when done by his disciples, to
remit much of the rigour of this interdiction. Such a ces-
sation, however, of business and of pleasure, should be
enforced, as may leave neither necessity nor temptation
upon any denomination of men in the community to neg-
lect the proper observance of the festival. It is to be re-
membered, that although the worship of God is the chief
end of the institution, yet the refreshment of the lower
ranks of mankind, by an intermission of their labours, is
indisputably a secondary object. " Thou shalt rest on the
seventh day," said the law, " that the son of thy handmaid
and the stranger may be refreshed." A handmaid, in the
language of the Old Testament, denotes a female slave.
The son of a handmaid therefore is the offspring of a fe-
male slave, which, by the laws of the Jews, as of all people

•295

among- whom slavery hath been allowed, was the property
of the master of the mother. The stranger seems here to
be set in opposition to the home-born slave, denoting a
foreign slave bought with money or taken in war. These
two descriptions of the home-born and the foreign slave
comprehend the whole of that oppressed and helpless
order of mankind. It is expressly provided by the law,
that on the Sabbath-day this harassed race of mortals
should have their refreshment. Now, as these injunctions
were evidently founded on the general principles of phi-
lanthropy, it should seem, that, allowance being made for
the difference between the rigour of the Jewish and the
liberality of the Christian dispensation, — and allowance
being also made for the different circumstances of the
ancient and the modern world, — these injunctions of the
suspension of the labours of the lower ranks are univer-
sally and perpetually in force, in all parts of the world,
and in all ages; the rather, as they are no less calculated
for the benefit of the higher than for the comfort of the
lower orders. It is useful to both to be admonished at
frequent intervals, — the one for their consolation, the
other for the suppression of Jiat pride which a con-
dition of ease and superiority is too apt to inspire. It
is useful to both to be reminded of their equal relation
to their common Lord, as the creatures of his power —
the subjects of his government — the children of his love,
by an institution which at frequent intervals unites them
in his service. Under this recollection, the servant will
obey with fidelity and cheerfulness, and the superior will
govern with kindness and lenity. It is of the highest
importance to the present good humour of society, and
to the future interests of men of every rank, that these
injunctions should be observed with all the exactness
which the present state of society may admit.

The labour of man is not the only toil which the Mo-
saic law prohibited on the Sabbath-day. "On the se
venth day thou shalt rest, that thine ox and thine ass may

296

rest." It was a principle with some of the heathen mora-
lists, that no rights subsist between man and the lower
animals, — that, in the exercise of our dominion over them,
we are at liberty to pursue our own profit and conve-
nience, without any consideration of the fatigue and the
miseries which they may undergo. The holy Scriptures
seem to speak another language, when they say, " The
righteous man is merciful even to his beast ;" and as no
reason can be alleged why the ox or the ass of Palestine
should be treated with more tenderness than the kindred
brutes of other countries, it must be upon this general
principle, that mercy is in some degree due to the animals
beneath us, that the divine Legislator of the Jews pro-
vided on the Sabbath for their refreshment. This, there-
fore, like the former provision (allowance still being made
for the different spirit of Judaism and Christianity), is
to be considered as a general and standard part of the
institution, which is violated whenever, for the mere plea-
sure and convenience of the master and the owner, either
servants, or even animals, are subjected to the same seve-
rity of toil on the Sabbath, which belongs to the natural
condition of the one, and to the civil rank of the other, on
the six days of the week. On the Sabbath, man is to
hold a sort of edifying communion with the animals be-
neath him, acknowledging, by a short suspension of his
dominion over them, the right of the Creator in himself as
well as in them, and confessing that his own right over
them is derived from the grant of the superior Lord.

It appears from what has been said, that the practice,
which is become so common in this country among all
ranks of men, of making long journeys on the Sabbath-
day without any urgent necessity, is one of the highest
breaches of this holy institution. It breaks in upon the
principal business of the day, laying some under a
necessity, and furnishing others with a pretence for
withdrawing themselves from the public assemblies;
and it defeats the ordinance in its subordinate ends.

297

depriving servants and cattle of that temporary exemption
from fatigue which it was intended both should enjoy.
This, like other evils, hath arisen from small beginnings;
and by an unperceived, because a natural and a gradual
growth, hath attained at last an alarming height. Persons
of the higher ranks, whether from a certain vanity of ap-
pearing great, by assuming a privilege of doing what was
generally forbidden, or for the convenience of travelling
when the roads were the most empty, began within our
own memory, to make their journeys on a Sunday. In a
commercial country, the great fortunes acquired in trade
have a natural tendency to level all distinctions but what
arise from affluence. Wealth supplies the place of nobi-
lity : birth retains only the privilege of setting the first
example. The city presently catches the manners of the
court, and the vices of the high-born peer are faithfully
copied in the life of the opulent merchant and the thriv-
ing tradesman. Accordingly, in the space of a few years,
the Sunday became the travelling day of all who travel in
their own carriages. But why should the humbler citizen,
whose scantier means oblige him to commit his person to
the crammed stage-coach, more than his wealthier neigh-
bour, be exposed to the hardship of travelling on the
working days, when the multitude of heavy carts and
waggons moving to and fro in all directions renders the
roads unpleasant and unsafe to all carriages of a slighter
fabric ; especially when the only real inconvenience, the
danger of such obstructions, is infinitely increased to him,
by the greater diflficulty with which the vehicle in which
he makes his uncomfortable journey crosses out of the
way, in deep and miry roads, to avoid the fatal jostle?
The force of these principles was soon perceived; and,
in open defiance of the laws, stage-coaches have for seve-
ral years travelled on the Sundays. The waggoner soon
understands that the road is as free for him as for the
coachman, — that if the magistrate connives at the one, he
cannot enforce the law against the other ; and the Sunday

'298

traveller now breaks the Sabbath without any advantage
gained in the safety or pleasure of his journey. It may
seem, that the evil, grown to this height, would become its
own remedy : but this is not the case. The temptation, in-
deed, to the crime, among the higher ranks of the people,
subsists no longer ; but the reverence for the day among all
orders is extinguished, and the abuse goes on from the
mere habit of profaneness. In the country, the roads are
crowded on the Sunday, as on any other day, with tra-
vellers of every sort: the devotion of the villages is inter-
rupted by the noise of the carriages passing through, or
stopping at the inns for refreshment. In the metropolis,
instead of that solemn stillness of the vacant streets in
the hours of the public service, which might suit, as in
our fathers' days, with the sanctity of the day, and be a
reproof to every one who should stir abroad but upon the
business of devotion, the mingled racket of worldly busi-
ness and pleasure is going on with little abatement; and
in the churches and chapels which adjoin the public
streets, the sharp rattle of the whirling phaeton, and the
graver rumble of the loaded waggon, mix^d with the oaths
and imprecations of the brawling drivers, disturb the con-
gregation and stun the voice of the preacher.

These scandals call loudly for redress : but redress will
be in vain expected from any increased severity of the
laws, without a concurrence of the willing example of the
great. This is one of the many instances in which a
corrupt fashion in the higher orders of society will render
all law weak and ineffectual. I am not without hope that
the example of the great will not be wanting. I trust that
we are awakened to a sense of the importance of religious
ordinances, by the dreadful exhibition of the mischiefs of
irreligion in the present state of the neighbouring apos-
tate nation; and though our recovery from the disease of
carelessness and indifference is yet in its beginning, ap-
pearances justify a sanguine hope of its continuance, and
of its ultimate termination, through the grace of God, in

299

a perfiect convalescence : and when once the duties of r eU-
gion shall be recommended by the general example of the
superior ranks, then, and not till then, the bridle of legal
restraint will act with effect upon vulgar profligacy.

But, in the application of whatever means for the re-
medy of the evil, — whether of legal penalties, which ought
to be enforced, and in some cases ought to be heightened,
— or of the milder persuasion of example — or of the two
united, which alone can be successful, — in the application
of these various means, the zeal of reform, if it would not
defeat its own end, must be governed and moderated by a
prudent attention to the general spirit of Christianity, and
to the general end of the institution. The spirit of Chris-
tianity is rational, manly, and ingenuous ; in all cases de-
lighting in the substantial works of judgment, justice, and
mercy, more than in any external forms. The primary
and general end of the institution is the public worship of
God, the Creator of the world and Redeemer of mankind.

Among the Jews, the absolute cessation of all animal
activity on their Sabbath had a particular meaning in re-
ference to their history : it was a standing, symbolical
memorial of their miraculous deliverance from a state of
servitude. But to mankind in general — to us Christians
in some degree, the proper business of the day is the wor-
ship of God in public assemblies, from which none may
without some degree of crime be unnecessarily absent.
Private devotion is the Christian's daily duty; but the
peculiar duty of the Sabbath is public worship. As for
those parts of the day which are not occupied in the public
duty, every man's own conscience, without any interfer-
ence of public authority, and certainly without any offi-
cious interposition of the private judgment of his neigh-
bour,— every man's own conscience must direct him what
portion of this leisure should be allotted to his private
devotions, and what may be spent in sober recreation.
Perhaps a better general rule cannot be laid down than
this, — that the same proportion of the Sabbath, on the

300

whole, should he devoted to religious exercises, public
and private, as every man would spend of any other day
in liis ordinary business. The holy work of the Sabbath,
like all other work, to be done well, requires intermissions.
An entire day is a longer space of time than the human
mind can employ with alacrity upon any one subject.
The austerity therefore of those is little to be commended,
who require that all the intervals of public worship, and
whatever remains of the day after the public duty is satis-
fied, should be spent in the closet, in private prayer and
retired meditation. Nor are persons in the lower ranks of
society to be very severely censured — those especially who
are confined to populous cities, where they breathe a nox-
ious atmosphere, and are engaged in unwholesome occu-
pations, from which, with their daily subsistence, they
derive their daily poison-— if they take advantage of the
leisure of the day to recruit their wasted strength and
harassed spirits, by short excursions into the purer air of
the adjacent villages, and the innocent recreations of sober
society ; provided they engage not in schemes of dissi-
pated and tumultuous pleasure, which may disturb the
sobriety of their thoughts, and interfere with the duties of
the day. The present humour of the common people leads
perhaps more to a profanation of the festival than to a
superstitious rigour in the observance of it: but, in the
attempt to reform, we shall do wisely to remember, that
the thanks for this are chiefly due to the base spirit of
puritanical hypocrisy, which in the last century opposed
and defeated the wise attempts of government to regulate
the recreations of the day by authority, and prevent the
excesses which have actually taken place, by a rational
indulgence.

The Sabbath was ordained for a day of public worship,
and of refreshment to the common people. It cannot be
a day of their refreshment, if it be made a day of mortified
restraint. To be a day of worship, it must be a day of
leisure from worldly business, and of abstraction from dis-

301

sipated pleasure : but it need not be a dismal one. It was
ordained for a day of general and willing resort to the
holy mountain ; when men of every race, and every rank,
and every age, promiscuously — Hebrew, Greek, and Scy-
thian— ^bond and free — young and old — high and low —
rich and poor — one v/ith another — laying hold of Christ's
atonement, and the proffered mercy of the gospel, might
meet together before their common Lord, exempt for a
season from the cares and labours of the world, and be
"joyful in his house of prayer."

SERMON XXIV.

^Ve have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ,
the Saviour of the world. — John iv. 42.

It was in an early period of our Saviour's ministry —
in the beginning of the first year of it, shortly after his
first public appearance at Jerusalem, that the good people
of the town of Sychar in Samaria, where he made a short
visit of two days in his journey home to Galilee, bore that
remarkable testimony to the truth of his pretensions, which
is recorded in my text. " We have heard him ourselves,"
they say to the woman of their town to whom he had first
revealed himself at the well by the entrance of the city,
and who had first announced him to her countrymen. " We
no longer rely upon your report : we ourselves have heard
him. We have heard him propounding his pure maxims
of morality — inculcating his lessons of sublime and rational
religion — proclaiming the glad-tidings of his Father's
peace. We ourselves have heard him ; and we are con-
vinced that this person is indeed what he declares himself
to be : we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the
world, the Christ."

This profession consists, you see, of two parts. The

302

terms in which it is stated imply a previous expectation of
these Samaritans of a Christ who should come ; and de-
clare a conviction that Jesus was that person. It is very
remarkable in three circumstances.

First, for the persons from whom it came. They were
not Jews : they were Samaritans, — a race of spurious
Israelites sprung from the forbidden marriages of Jews
with heathen families,^ — a nation who, although they pro-
fessed indeed to worship the God of Abraham after the
rites of the Mosaic law, yet, as it should seem from the
censure that was passed upon them by a discerning and a
candid judge, " that they worshipped they knew not what,"
— as it should seem, I say, from this censure, they had but
very imperfect notions of the nature of the Deity they
served ; and they were but ill instructed in the true spirit
of the service which they paid him. These were the per-
sons who were so captivated with the sublimity of our
Saviour's doctrines, as to declare that he who had so admi-
rably discoursed them could be no other than the Christ,
the Saviour of the world.

The second thing to be remarked, is the very just notion
these Samaritans express of the office of the Christ whom
they expected, — that he should be the Saviour of the world.
In the original language of the New Testament, there are
more words than one which are rendered by the word
" world'' in the English Bible, One of these is a word
which, though it properly signifies the whole of the habi-
table globe, is often used in a more confined sense by those
later Greek writers who were subjects of the Roman empire
and treat of the affairs of the Romans. By these writers,
it is often used for so much only of the world as was com-
prised within the limits of the Roman empire. It has been
imagined that the evangelists, following in this particular
the example of the politer writers of their times, have used
this same word to denote what was peculiarly theii' world,
the territory of Judea. Men of learning in these later ages
have been much too fond of the practice of framing expo-

303

sitions of Scripture upon these grammatical refinements.
The observation may be partly just : in many instances,
however, it hath been misapplied ; and I would advise the
unlearned reader of the English Bible, wherever the world
is mentioned, to take the word in its most natural — that is,
in its most extended meaning. This rule will seldom mis-
lead him ; and the few instances in which it may be incor-
rect, are certain passages of history in which exactness of
interpretation is not of great — at least not of general im-
portance. In the text, however, at present before us, the
original word is not that which is supposed to be capable
of a limited interpretation. On the contrary, it is that word
which is used by the sacred writers to denote the mass of
the unconverted Gentile world, as distinguished from God's
peculiar people. Of this world, therefore, and by conse-
quence of the whole world, the Samaritans, as it appears
by the text, expected in the Christ the Saviour. It appears,
too, from the particulars of our Saviour's conference with
the woman at the well, which are related in the preceding-
part of this chapter, — it appears, that of the means by
which the Messiah was to effect the salvation of the world,
these same people had a very just, though perhaps an in-
adequate apprehension. They expected him to save the
world by teaching the true religion. " I know," said the
woman, " when the Messiah is come, he will tell us all
things," — all things concerning the worship of God ; for
that was the topic in discussion. The circumstances which
the evangelist's narrative discovers of this woman's former
life, give us no reason to suppose that she had been a person
of a very thoughtful, religious turn of mind, which had led
her to be particularly inquisitive after the true meaning
of the prophecies. It is to be supposed, therefore, that
the notions which she expressed were the common notions
of her country. It was the notion, therefore, of the Sama-
ritans of this age, that teaching men the true religion
would be in great part the means which the Messiah
would employ for the general salvation of mankind : and

304

since this was their notion of the means by which the
Messiah's salvation should be effected, they must have
placed the salvation itself in such a deliverance as these
means were naturally fitted to accomplish, — in a deliver-
ance of mankind from the corruptions which ignorance,
hypocrisy, and superstition had introduced in morals and
religion, and particularly in the rites of external worship.
Another thing appears by the woman's profession, — that
the Samaritans were aware that the time was actually
come for this Deliverer's appearance. Jesus had said to
her — " The hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor-
shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ;
for the Father seeketh such to worship him." The woman
took this declaration in its true meaning. She answered,
" I know" — (these words in the beginning of the woman's
answer are opposed to those in which our Saviour had be-
spoken her attention, "• Believe me") — " You have my
belief," she said, — " I know you tell me what is true : I
know that the Messiah is just now coming (that is the
precise meaning of the original words) : I know that the
appointed time is come — that the Messiah must presently
arrive; and I know that when that person is come, he will
tell us all things." Great and innumerable are the myste-
ries of godliness. These Samaritans, who knew not what
they worshipped, had truer notions of the Messiah's ofiice,
and of the nature and extent of the deliverance he was to
work, than the Jews had, who for many ages had been the
chosen depositaries of the oracles of God. The Samari-
tans looked for a spiritual, not a temporal — for a universal,
not a national deliverance ; and, by a just interpretation of
the signs of the times, they were apprized, that the time in
which Jesus of Nazareth arose was the season marked by
the prophetic spirit for the Messiah's appearance. Attend,
I beseech you, to this extraordinary fact, deduced, if I
mistake not, with the highest evidence, from the public
profession of the Sycharites which is contained in my text,
connected with the particular professions of the woman.

305
Tliis iuct will lead us to interesting speculations, and to
conclusions of the bigliest importance. The use I would
at present make of it, is only to admonish you, by this
striking instance, of how little benefit what are called the
external means of grace may prove — the advantages even
of a Divine revelation, — of how little benefit they may
prove to those whose minds are occupied with adverse
prejudices, or who trust so far to that partial favour of the
Deity, of which they erroneously conceive the advantages
of their present situation to be certain signs, as to be neo-li-
gent of their own improvement. On the other hand, you
see what a proficiency may be made, by God's blessing,
on the diligent use of scanty talents. The Samaritans, you
see, who were not included in the commonwealth of Israel,
who had no light but what came to them obliquely, as it
were, by an irregular reflection from the Jewish temple —
no instruction but that of fugitive priests, and under the
protection of a heathen prince, — these Samaritans had so
far improved under this imperfect discipline, as to attain
views of the promised redemption, of which the Jews
themselves missed, whom the merciful providence of God
had placed under the immediate tuition of Moses and the
prophets.

I return to the analysis of my text. The third circum-
stance to be remarked in this profession of the Sycharites,
is the great Vv'armth and energy of expression with which '
they declare their conviction that Jesus was that universal
Saviour whose arrival at this season they expected. " We
know,'' they say to the woman (this word expresses an
assurance of the mind far stronger than belief) — " We
give entire credit to your report. But your assertion is no
longer the ground of our belief; our persuasion goes far
beyond any belief founded upon the testimony of a third
person. We believe your report ; but we believe it because
we ourselves have heard him : and we know and can main-
tain, each of us upon his own proper knowledge and con-
viction, that this person is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of

30G

the world." Would God, that all who now name the name
of Christ, I had almost said, were Sycharites ! But would
God, they all were animated with that full-grown confi-
dence of faith, which, in a visit of two days, our great
Master's preaching had raised to such strength and matu-
rity in the honest hearts of these half-taught Samaritans !

These facts, then, are clearly deducible from the text, — •
that the Samaritans of our Saviour's day, no less than the
more instructed Jews, expected a Messiah, — that they knew,
no less than the Jews, that the time was come for his ap-
pearance,^ — that, in the Messiah, they expected not, like
the mistaking Jews, a Saviour of the Jewish nation only,
or of Abraham's descendants, but of the world — a Saviour
of the world from moral rather than from physical evil.

Of these facts, J may hereafter, with God's gracious
assistance, endeavour to investigate the causes. The spe-
culation will be no less improving than curious. It will
give us occasion to inquire by what means God had pro-
vided that something of a miraculous, beside the natural
witness of himself, should remain among the Gentiles in
the darkest ages of idolatry. We shall find, if I mistake
not, that a miraculous testimony of God, as the tender
parent of mankind, founded upon early revelations and
wide- spread prophecies, beside that testimony which the
works of nature bear to him as the universal Lord, was
ever existing in the heathen world, although for many
ages the one was little regarded, and the other lay buried
and concealed. We shall, besides, have occasion to con-
sider and to explain many prophecies that lie scattered in
the books of Moses. When I have shown you what were
the foundations of the previous faith of the Samaritans in
the Messiah to come, I may then proceed to inquire upon
what evidence the people of Sychar were induced to be-
lieve that Jesus was the expected person. But, as these
topics will require some accuracy and length of disquisi-
tion, I shall for the present decline them ; and I shall
bring my present discourse to a conclusion, when I have

307

mentioned and considered a diOiciilty which some find in
the story of our Lord's visit to the town of Sychar, and of
his conference with the woman at the well, — and which
they think a great one, though, in my judgment, it is
either altogether groundless, or, if it have any foundation,
it is nevertheless entirely removed by the discovery which
my text makes of the state of the Samaritans' faith at the
time of our Lord's appearance. Whence was it, it hath
been said, that Jesus, who declared himself not sent, save
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, should, to these
Samaritans (a race which, in a more advanced period of
his ministry, he ranked with Gentiles, when he first sent
his apostles out to announce the approach of the kingdom
of heaven, forbidding them to go into any Gentile province,
or to enter any Samaritan town), — whence was it, that in
this early period, to these Samaritans, and in particular, to
a woman of that country whose character at that time was
not irreproachable, whatever her succeeding life might be
when she became a disciple of our Lord, — whence was it,
that at this early period, in this country, and to this woman,
our Lord declared himself more explicitly than it is sup-
posed he had yet done in any part of Judea, or even in
private among his own disciples ?

Perhaps the supposition which creates this diflficulty —
the supposition that Jesus had not declared himself ex-
plicitly, either among the Jews in general, or to any of his
disciples in private — may be unfounded ;— at least, it is
no proof that it is true, that we read not in any of the
four Evangelists, that Jesus had, at any time before this
interview with the Sycharite woman, said to any one,
either in public or in private, " I am the Messiah." To
those who consider the abridged manner in which the
Evangelists have written — in which they professed to
write the story of their Master's life, omitting many more
incidents than they have related, — to those who consider
this circumstance, it will be no argument that no declara-
tion equally explicit had been previously made, that none
X 2

308

such is recorded. The important transactions of tlie whole
interval between our Lord's baptism and his return into
Galilee after the first passover, which are contained in the
four first chapters of St. John's gospel, the three other
Evangelists have altogether passed by: and those who are
read in history, either sacred or profane, well know, that
the negative of any probable fact is never to be concluded
from the silence and omission even of the most accurate
and exact historians. From the narrative contained in the
three first chapters of St. John's gospel, my conclusion, I
confess, would be, that our blessed Saviour, from the very
first, was sufliciently explicit with his select associates,
upon the general point of his pretensions, and neither
at Jerusalem nor in Galilee at all reserved in public. But,
granting the truth of the supposition upon which the diffi-
culty is raised, I say the solution of the difficulty is easy
to be found, in the view which the text displays of the
religious opinions of the Samaritans at the time of our
Lord's visit to the town of Syclmr. The Samaritans, at
that time, had truer notions of the Messiah's character
and office — I will not say than an}^ that were commonly
to be found among the Jews — but I will say, than any one
even of the apostles had, before their minds were en-
lightened by the Holy Spirit, after our Lord's ascension.
Now, we are told that it is one of the maxims of God's
government, "that to him that hath" — to him that hath
acquisitions of his own, made by an assiduous improve-
ment of his talents, by a studious cultivation of his natural
endowments, and a diligent use of the external means of
knowledge which have been afforded him — " to him shall
be given" the means of greater attainments; "but from
him that hath not'' — from him who can show no fruits of
his own industry- — " from him shall be taken even that
which he seemeth to have." This unprofitable servant,
in the natural course of things, and by the just judgment
of God, shall lose the advantages which, through sloth and
indolence, he hath neglected to improve. By this maxim,

309

every particular person's rank and station will be deter-
mined in the world to come. If it is not constantly ob-
served in the present world, the necessity of departing
from it is either the result of that disorder and irregularity
which man's degeneracy hath introduced, or it may be an
essential part of the constitution of a probationary state.
Still, in general, it is reasonable to suppose that the ex-
ternal light of revelation, like the internal influences of the
Spirit, when no particular good purposes of Providence
are to be answered by a more arbitrary and unequal dis-
tribution of it, — ^in general, it is reasonable to suppose,
that it is dispensed to difl'erent persons in proportion to
the inclination and ability to profit by it which the Searcher
of hearts discerns in each. Where, then, is the wonder,
that our Saviour should declare himself so openly to these
honest Sycharites, who vrere then earnestly looking for the
great redemption, whose hearts were ready, and whose un-
derstandings were prepared, to receive such a deliverer as
Jesus pretended to be — to acknowledge the Christ, the
Son of God, although he came in the form of a servant?
Where is the wonder that he should make this m-eat dis-
covery in the first instance to a weak woman, laden with
the follies of her youth, if, notwithstanding the irregularity
,of her past life, he discovered in her heart a soil in which
his holy doctrine rnight take root and flourish ? The re-
striction laid upon the apostles, in their first mission, not
to visit the Samaritans, was probably founded on reasons
of policy, not on any dislike of the Samaritans. It might
have obstructed the accomplishment of our Saviour's great
design, had the Samaritan multitude at that time risen on
his side ; as the Jewish multitude, if I conjecture aright,
was ripe to rise, had he declared himself the temporal
Messiah which they expected. But how, then, would
man's redemption have been effected, which required that
his blood should flow for our crime — that he, as the re-
presentative of guilty man, should suffer capital punish-
ment as a criminal ? It was probably for this reason that

310

the public call was not to be given to Samaria in his life-
time, lest Samaria should obey it. This, at least, seems
consistent with the general politics of our Saviour's life ;
for it is very remarkable, that as he grew in public fame,
he became more reserved with his friends and more open
with his enemies. This appears in a ver}^ striking manner
in the circumstances of his lastjourney to Jerusalem, when
he went up thither to return home no more till he had
finished the great atonement. From Galilee, where his
friends were numerous and his party strong, he stole away
in secret : through Samaria, where he was then less known,
he made a more public progress : Jerusalem, wliere the
faction of his enemies prevailed, he entered in open
triumph : in the temple, he bid defiance to the chief
priests and rulers ; telling them, that if, at their request,
he should silence the acclamations of his followers (which
he refused to do), the stones of the building would pro-
claim his titles, and salute the present Deity. From simi-
lar motives, it may reasonably be presumed, our Saviour,
in the beginning of his ministry, honoured the forward
faith of the Samaritans with an open avowal of his person
and his office. In a more advanced period, bent on the
speedy execution of his great design, he would not call
them to his party, lest, by securing his person, they should
thwart his purpose.

And now, from these contrasted examples of Samaritan
faith and Jewish blindness, let every one take encourage-
ment, and let every one learn the necessity of assiduity in
self-improvement. Does any one whose thoughtless heart
has hitherto been set upon the lust of the eye, the pomp of
the world, or the pride of life, begin now to perceive the
importance of futurity? Does any one whom the violence
of passion hath carried into atrocious crimes, which repe-
tition hath rendered habitual and familiar, begin to per-
ceive his danger? — Would he wish to escape it, if an
escape were possible? — Let him then not be discouraged
by any enormities of his preceding life. To become

311

Christ s disciple, every one who wishes is permitted : every
one's past sins are forgiven from the moment that he re-
solves to conform to the precepts and example of his Sa-
viour. He who made an open discovery of himself — an
early proffer of salvation to a people who, though not ido-
laters, had but imperfectly known the Father, — he who,
in a conference, the occasion of which was evidently of
his own seeking, revealed himself to a woman living in
impure concubinage with the sixth man she had called her
husband, — he who forgave the sinner that perfumed his
feet, and bathed them with the tears of her repentance, —
lie who absolved the adulteress taken in the fact, — he who
called Saul the persecutor to be a pillar and an apostle of
the faith he had so cruelly oppressed, — he who from the
cross bore the penitent companion of his last agonies to
Paradise, — HE hath said — and you have seen how his
actions accorded with his words — he hath said — " Him
that Cometh to me, I will in nowise cast out." " Him
that Cometh to me in humility and penitence, I will in
nowise cast out. In nowise, — in no resentment of any
crimes, not even of blasphemy and infidelity previous to
his coming, will I exclude him from the light of my doc-
trine— from the benefits of my atonement — from the glo-
ries of my kingdom." Come, therefore, unto him, all ye
that are heavy laden with your sins. By his own gracious
voice he called you while on earth : by the voice of his
ambassadors he continueth to call ; he calleth you now by
mine. Come unto him, and he shall give you rest, — rest
from the hard servitude of sin and appetite and guilty fear.
That yoke is heavy, — that burden is intolerable : his yoke
is easy, and his burden light. But come in sincerity ; —
dare not to come in hypocrisy and dissimulation. Think
not that it will avail you in the last day, to have called
yourselves Christians — to have been born and educated
under the gospel light — to have lived in the external com-
munion of the church on earth, — if all the while your
hearts have holden no communion with its Head in hea-

312

veil. If, instructed in Christianity, and professing to be-
lieve its doctrines, ye lead the lives of unbelievers, it will
avail you nothing in the next, to have enjoyed in this
world, like the Jews of old, advantages which ye despised,
— to have had the custody of a holy doctrine, which never
touched your hearts— of a pure coraraandincnt, by the
light of which 3'e never walked. To those who disgrace
the doctrine of their Saviour by the scandal of their lives,
it will be of no avail to have vainly called him "Lord !
Lord !"

SERMON XXV.

\Vc liave heard liim ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ,
the Saviour of the world. — .Tohn iv. 42.

Such was the testimony which, in an early period of
our Saviour's ministry, the good people of the town of Sy-
char, in Samaria, bore to the truth of his pretensions. They
make, you see, a double profession, — first, of a previous
faith in a Christ that was to come; then, of a faith now
wrought in them by the preaching of Jesus, that Jesus
himself was the person they expected.

From this public confession of the Sycharites, connected
with the sentiments which had been expressed by a wo-
man of the same town, in her private conference with our
Lord at Jacob's well, these facts, as I showed you in my
last Discourse, may readily be deduced : that the Samari-
tans of our Saviour's day, with advantage of less light from
revelation, no less than the more instructed Jews, expected
a Messiah, — that they knew, no less than the Jews, that
the time was come for his appearance, — that, in the Mes-
siah who was now to come, they expected not, like the
mistaking Jews, a Saviour of the Jewish nation only, or
of Abraham's descendants, but of the world, — that they ex-
pected a Saviour of the world from moral evil — from the

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misery of sin and guilt — from the corruptions of ignorance,
hypocrisy, and superstition.

Of these facts, I now purpose to investigate tlie causes.
I am to inquire, therefore, first, on what grounds the pre-
vious faith which we find in the Samaritans — their faith
in a Christ to come, was founded ; and, in the next place,
what particular evidence might produce their conviction
that Jesus was the person they expected actually arrived.

The first question, what were the grounds of their pre-,
vious faith, may seem naturally to divide itself into two
parts, — as it respects this previous faith in that part which
was peculiar to the Samaritans ; or in that more general
part of it in which they only concurred in the universal
expectation of all the civilised nations of the world. The
expectation of an extraordinary person who should arise
about this time in Judea, and be the instrument of great
improvements in the manners and condition of mankind,
was almost, if not altogether, universal at the time of our
Saviour's birth ; and had been gradually spreading and
getting strength for some time before it. The fact is so
notorious to all who have any knowledge of antiquity, that
it is needless to attempt any proof of it. It may be assumed
as a principle which even an infidel of candour would be
ashamed to deny ; or, if any one would deny it, I would
decline all dispute with such an adversary, as too ignorant
to receive conviction, or too disingenuous to acknowledge
what he must secretly admit. This general expectation
was common, therefore, to the Samaritans with other na-
tions : and, so far as it was common, it must be traced to
some common source ; for causes can never be less gene-
ral than their effects. What was peculiar to the Samari-
tans, was the just notion which is expressed in my text,
and in the private professions of the Sycharite woman, of
the nature and extent of the benefits men were to receive
from the expected deliverer, and of the means by which
the deliverance was to be accomplished.

The subject, therefore, before us, in its first general

314

branch, the inquiry into the grounds of the previous faith
of the Samaritans, appears, in this view of it, to be of vast
extent and comprehension : for, to give the question a com-
plete discussion, and to conduct the inquiry in what
might seem the most natural order, it would be necessary
to consider, first, the general grounds of the expectation
which so generally prevailed ; and afterward, to inquire
from what particular sources the Samaritans drew these
just views of the Messiah's business which they have been
found to entertain. The investigation of the first question
would carry us into deep disquisitions of theological anti-
quities.

It is not much my practice to shrink from difliiculties ;
nor can I bring myself to believe that common people are
so incompetent as they are generally supposed to be to
comprehend whatever the preacher will be at the trouble to
explain. Under the contrary persuasion, I scruple not to
serve you with stronger meats than are generally thought
fit for popular digestion, I should consult my own ease
more, and your advantage less, if I could acquiesce in the
general opinion. — For our present subject. The condition
of the Samaritans in the article of religious information,
was, in consequence of their connexion with the Jews, so
different from that of any other people, that we may rea-
sonably separate the two questions concerning their parti-
cular faith and the general expectation of the rest of man-
kind, and consider them as distinct subjects ; for the views
of the Samaritans might have been just what they were,
although the Gentiles had been left (which never was tlieir
case) in total darkness. For the present, therefore, I shall
postpone the general question concerning the grounds of
the general expectation of the Gentiles (which I purpose,
however, with God's gracious assistance, at some future
season to resume ; but for the present, I shall postpone it),
and, confining myself to the particular case of the Samari-
tans, I shall endeavour to ascertain the particular sources
from which they drew their information that the Messiah

315

was to come for the general advantage of mankind, and that
he was to come in the cliaracter of a public teacher of the
true religion. In the first circumstance, their expectations
differed from those of the Jews, and, in the second, from
those of the whole Gentile world. Now, since these no-
tions, which were peculiar to themselves, could not be
formed on any vague traditions which were current among
any other people, and since they have been remarkably
justified by the event of things, it is most reasonable to
suppose that they were drawn immediately from the word
of God— from prophecies of the Old Testament, which the
Samaritans interpreted with more discernment than the
Jews, because they were free from the prejudices which
the Jews entertained in favour of their own nation, —
perhaps for this reason, tliat, being secretly conscious of
their spurious original, however they might boast their
descent from Abraham, they were unwilling to admit those
exclusive claims of his family for which the Jews so zea-
lously contended, and on which their fatal prejudices
were founded. But if the notions of the Samaritans
were drawn immediately from the Old Testament, it is
evident they are to be sought in those parts of it which the
Samaritans admitted. The Samaritans admitted no part
of the sacred writings of the Jews but the five books of
Moses. In the books of Moses, therefore, we are to look
for such prophecies of the Messiah as might be a sufficient
foundation of the faith of the Samaritans — of that pure
faith which was free from the errors of the Jews, and far
more particular than the general expectation of the Gen-
tiles. In the books of Moses we must look for prophecies
of the Messiah, declaring the general extent of the deliver-
ance he was to accomplish, and describing him in the
character of a religious teacher : and these prophecies must
be clear and explicit, — not conveyed in dark images and
ambiguous allusions, but in terms that might be open to
popular apprehension before their accomplishment ; for if
no such prophecies should be found in the books of Moses,

316

the faith of the Samaritans will be a fact for which it will
be impossible to account.

For prophecies describing the Messiah as the general
benefactor of mankind, it is no difficult task to find them
in the books of Moses. The greater difficulty, perhaps,
would be to find any prophecy of him, of that high anti-
quity, in which the extent of the blessings that should be
the consequence of his appearance is not expressly sig-
nified. This circumstance is clearly implied in the earliest
revelations; and it is remarkable that it is always men-
tioned in the most explicit terms, in the promises made to
the ancestors of the Jewish nation. A general restoration
of mankind from the ruin of the fall was plainly implied
in the original curse upon the serpent; for what would
have been the great victory of the woman's seed, if the
greater part of Eve's posterity were doomed to continue
in the power of the common enemy? — if, for one family
to be brought by Christ within the possibility of salvation,
two hundred and ninety-seven millions were to remain the
neglected victims of the devil's malice?— which, upon a
very moderate computation, was the case, if Jacob's w^as
the single family that was to have an interest in Christ's
redemption. After the flood, when Jehovah was de-
scribed as the God of Shem, it was declared that Japhet
was to find a shelter in Shem's tabernacle. Nor can I
perceive that the curse denounced on Canaan's degenerate
posterity amounted to an absolute exclusion of his descen-
dants from the knowledge and worsliip of Shem's God :
the contrary, I think, is mercifully implied in the terms of
the curse, though I confess very darkly. When it was
first intimated to Abraham that the Messiah was to arise
among his descendants, it was at the same time declared
that the blessing was to reach to all the families of the
earth ; and this declaration was constantly repeated upon
every renewal of the glorious promise to Isaac and to
Jacob : so that the whole tenor of patriarchal prophecy
attests the universal extent of the Messiah's blessings ; and

317

tlic tiling is so very clear, that it is unnecessary to be
more particular in tlie proof of it.

i\gain, for the time of his ajjpearance. This was marked
in Jacob's dying prophecy by a sign which the Samaritans of
our Saviour's days could not but discern. The dissolution
of a considerable state hath, like all events, its regular and
certain causes, which work the ultimate effect by a slow
and gradual progress. The catastrophe is ever preceded
by public disorders, of which human sagacity easily fore-
casts the event. To the Samaritans of our Saviour's day,
living in the heart of the Jewish territory, it must have
been very perceptible that the sceptre was falling from
the hand of Judah, when the Jewish polity was actually
within half a century of its dissolution ; — and when the
sceptre should depart from Judah, then, according to the
holy patriarch's prediction, the Shiloh was to come.

Of the extent, therefore, of the Messiah's blessings, and
of the time of his appearance, the Samaritans might find
clear information in the books of Moses. Upon these
points the earliest prophecies were so explicit, that no
higher qualification could be requisite to comprehend their
general meaning, than a freedom of the mind from preju-
dices in favour of the pretensions of the Jewish nation,
— prejudices which the Samaritans, who hated the Jews,
were not likely to entertain.

It may be somewhat more difficult to produce the par-
ticular predictions in which they found the Messiah de-
scribed as a religious teacli^r. That predictions to this
purpose do exist in the books of Moses, in terms which
were clearly understood by the ancient Samaritans, cannot
reasonably be doubted; because we find this notion of the
Messiah in the previous faith of the Samaritans, of which
the books of Moses were the sole foundation. If these
prophecies are now not easy to be found, the whole diffi-
culty must arise from the obscurity which time hath
brought, through various causes, upon particular passages

;3i8

of these very ancient writings, which originally were per-
spicnous.

It were, perhaps, not difficult to prove, that the promise
which accompanied the delivery of the law at Sinai — the
promise of a prophet to be raised np among the Israelites,
who should resemble Moses — had the Messiah for its ulti-
mate object : and from the appeal which is repeatedly made
to it by the first preachers of Christianity, — from the terms
in which the inquiries of the Pharisees were propounded
to the Baptist, — from the sentiments which the Jewish
multitude were accustomed to express upon occasion of
several of our Saviour's miracles, it is very evident, that,
in the age of our Lord and his apostles, the Messiah was
universally looked for by the Jewish nation, as the person
in whom that promise was to receive its final and particular
completion. In the office of a prophet, and more particu-
larly in the resemblance of Moses, the character of a teacher
is indeed included ; but of a national teacher of the Jews
only, not of a universal instructor of mankind. This pro-
mise, therefore, could hardly be the foundation of the ex-
pectation which the Samaritans entertained of a public
teacher who was to rescue the whole world from moral
evil, by instructing all men in the true religion : for, in the
letter of the prophecy, no such character appears ; nor is
it probable, that before the merciful scheme of Providence
was developed and interpreted by the appearance of our
Saviour and the promulgation of the gospel, men would be
so quick-sighted in the interpretation of dark figures and
distant allusions, as to descry the character of a universal
teacher under the image of a prophet of the Israelites.
The passages, therefore, on which the Samaritans built
their hope, we have yet to seek.

One passage which, if I take its meaning right, contains
an illustrious prophecy to our purpose, occurs in the book
of Deuteronomy. It is the beginning of that prophetic
song in which Moses, just before his death, describes the

319

future fortunes of tlie twelve tribes of Israel. This song
is contained in the thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy,
under the title of " The blessing wherewith Moses, the
man of God, at the point of death, blessed the children of
Israel." The particular passage of which I speak, lies in
the second, third, fourth, and fifth verses. From the quick
transitions that are used in it from narrative to ejaculation,
and from ejaculation again to narrative — and from the
mixture of allusion to past facts and future events — it has
much of that natural difficulty which is, in some degree,
inseparable from this style of composition : and the natural
difficulty of the passage seems considerably heightened
by the errors of transcribers ; insomuch, that the ablest
critics seem to have despaired of reducing the original text
to any grammatical propriety, or of drawing from it any
consistent meaning, without much liberty of conjectural
emendation. If the interpretation which I shall venture
to propose should seem new, it Avill nevertheless be thought
a circumstance somewhat in its favour, that, at the same
time that it brings the passage to a more interesting and
more connected sense than any other exposition — a sense
too the most pertinent to the occasion — it requires fewer
alterations of the present text than are necessary in any
exposition that hath been hitherto attempted. Of forty-
two words, of which the whole passage is composed, six
only undergo slight alterations, and a seventh is omitted.
The six alterations have the sanction of antiquity, — two
from the Samaritan copy of the original text, three from
the Greek translation of the Seventy, and the sixth from
the Syro-Arabic and Chaldee versions. In the omission
of the seventh word, which is the name of Moses in the
fourth verse, I have the consent of all judicious critics,
who have found the omission necessary in all possible in-
terpretations of the passage. In this sacred poem, the
particular benedictions of the several tribes are naturally
prefaced with a thankful commemoration of that which
was the great and general blessing of the whole nation —

320

tlie revelation wlucli they enjoyed, and tlie singular privi-
lege of a polity and a law of Divine institution. The
mention of these national prerogatives is mixed with inti-
mations of God's general tenderness for the whole human
race, with which the particular promises to the Jews, as
hath been before observed, were seldom unaccompanied
in the earlier prophecies ; and, as I understand the pas-
sage, a prediction of the final conversion of the Jews to
Christ, after a previous adoption of the Gentiles, finishes
the lofty proem of the inspired song. Such, as I conceive
it, is the general scope and purport of the passage ; of
every part of which, with the few alterations I have men-
tioned, I shall now give you the literal translation, — or,
where that cannot be done with perspicuity in the English
language, the exact meaning, accompanied witli so much
of paraphrase and remark as may be necessary to illustrate
the connexion, and to justify my version in its principal
peculiarities.

The prophet enters upon his subject with poetical allu-
sions to the most striking circumstances of the glorious
scene which accompanied the promulgation of the law.

*' Jehovah came from Sinai ;
His uprising was from Seir :
He displayed his glory from Mount Paran,

And from the midst of the myriads came forth the Holy One,* —
On his right-hand streams of fire."

Seir and Paran were places in the wilderness where the
Divine glory had been sensibly displayed. The myriads,
from which the Holy One is described as coming forth,
were the myriads of attendant angels whose descent per-
haps was visible before the blaze of light burst forth, which
Avas the well-known signal of the personal presence of the
Holy One, — that High and Holy One whose transcendent
perfections and original existence separate him by an infi-
nite interval even from the highest orders of the angelic

* " T/ie Hobj One.'' The same word is used for God, in the parallel
text of Habakkuk. — Editor.

321

nature. The streams of fire on his right, are tlie incessant
flashes of lightning which struck the whole assembly with
dismay.

The description being brought to this point, the thing
next in order to be mentioned should be the utterance of
the decalogue; but here the" prophet interrupts his narra-
tive, to commemorate God's parental care of all mankind,
in these pathetic eja'culations :

" O loving Father of the peoples !"

" Of the peoples," — that is, of all the different nations of
the world ; for that is the force of '' peoples " in the plural.

" O loving Father of the peoples !
Ail the saints are in thy hand j
They are seated at thy feet^
And have received of thy doctrine."

" All the saints — good men of all families and of all coun-
tries are under thy protection." In our English Bibles we
read " all his saints." It is upon the authority of the Se-
venty that I throw away the pronoun, which not being-
expressed in their translation, had probably no place in
their copies of the original ; and indeed its whole effect is
but to destroy the generality of the expression, on which
the spirit of the sentiment entirely depends. " All the
saints are seated at thy feet, and have partaken of thy doc-
trine." In these words, you will observe, the great Being
who was styled the loving Father of the peoples is addressed
in the specific character of a teacher; for the expression of
sitting at his feet describes the attitude of scholars listening
to the lessons of a master. " And they have received of
thy doctrine, or of thy instructions." " They have re-
ceived— " In the public translation, the expression is in
future time, — " They shall receive ;" and, thus rendered,
the passage stands as a promise of the instruction of man-
kind by future revelations : but we have the authority of
the Seventy to understand the original expression of time
past. The promise of future instruction comes in another

Y

322

place : the allusion here is to past mercies, as an evidence
of the universality of God's parental care of all mankind,
in which the prophet professes his belief; and of this the
past instances of general mercy, manifested in the revela-
tions which had been granted to good men in the patriarchal
ages, long before the institution of the Mosaic covenant,
furnished a more pregnant proof than distant promises.
After these ejaculations, the prophet resumes his narrative,
and proceeds to mention the promulgation of the law ;
which, prefaced as it is with these allusions to the world's
old experience of its Maker's comprehensive love, seems
rather alleged as a recent instance of the general provi-
dence, than as an argument of any arbitrary partial fond-
ness for that particular race in which the theocracy was
erected.

" To us he prescribed a law." " He," the Holy One
who came forth from the midst of the- myriads ; for the
intervening ejaculations stand in parentheses, and this line
is to be taken in connexion with the two last of the initial
stanza.

" To us he prescribed a law.

Jacob is the inheritance of the preacher :

He shall be king in .leshurun.

When the chiefs of the people shall gather themselves together

In union with the tribes of Israel."

'' Jacob is the inheritance of the preacher." This sentence
renders the reason of the institution of the law,— that the
family of Jacob, for the general good of mankind, was
chosen to be the inheritance or peculiar portion of the
preacher. They were appointed to be for many ages the
immediate objects of Divine instruction, and the deposita-
ries of the sacred oracles. In this sense Jacob was the
inheritance of " the preacher," — of that person who hath
been in all ages, though in difterent ways at difl'erent
seasons, the dispenser of the light of revelation. Of this
preacher Jacob is here called the inheritance, in the same
sense in which the Jewish nation is called " his own" in

323

tlic first cliaptcr of St. John's gospel. The word wliich I
have rendered by " tlic preacher" hath been generally
taken in this place in the sense ot" " congregation," which
gives the whole passage a very different meaning : but the
sense in which I take it, of " the preacher," is the usual
signification of the word. The use of it in the sense of
" congregation" is unexampled in the sacred writings, un-
less perhaps in this passage, in another in the book of
Genesis, and a third in the book of Nehemiah. The pas-
sage of the book of Genesis will be particularly considered
in the prosecution of our subject. The signification of the
word in question is not less ambiguous in that place than
it is here; and the sense of" the preacher" will equally
suit the context. In Nehemiah, the sense is somewhat
doubtful ; and, were it certain, the style of Nehemiah is
not the best standard for the interpretation of Moses. The
interval between the two writers was long; and the changes
and corruptions which the Hebrew language underwent in
the captivity of the Jewish nation were great and various.
The book of Ecclesiastes was of an earlier and a purer age ;
and throughout that book, the word, by the consent of all
interpreters, signifies " the preacher." But the particular
advantage of taking the word here in its usual and proper
signification, is the remarkable perspicuity which it gives
to the ensuing distich, — clearly demonstrating the person
of whom it is predicated that he shall be a king ; which
person it will be no easy matter to ascertain, if, by adopt-
ing any other meaning of this word, we lose the descrip-
tion of him which this line affords. " He shall be king."
The preacher, whose inheritance is Jacob, shall be king.
Our public translation has it — " He was king ;" making
the sentence an assertion of something past, instead of a
prediction. And this, assertion some understand of Moses,
M^ho was no king, nor ever bore the title, — and some, of
God, of whom it were improper to say that he ivas what
he ever is, king in Jeshurun. With the authority of the
Seventy, therefore, on my side, T throw away the letter
Y 2

324

which gives the verb the preterite form, and understand it
of time future. " He," the preacher, " shall be king in
Jeshurun." The word " Jeshurun" is no patronymic of
the Jewish nation ; but, by the natural force of it, seems
rather to denote the whole body of the justified, in all ages
of the world, and under all dispensations : and it is to be
taken with more or less restriction of its general meaning,
according to the particular times which may be the subject
of discourse. It is sometimes descriptive of the Jews, not
as the natural descendants of Jacob or of Abraham, but in
their spiritual character of the justified, while they formed
the whole of the acknowledged church : but, in prophecies
which respect the adoption of the Gentiles, it denotes the
whole body of the faithful gathered from the four winds
of heaven. In this Jeshurun the monarchy of God was
from the beginning, is without interruption, and shall be
without end : but tlie MessiaJi's kingdom commenced
upon our Lord's ascension; and its establishment will be
then complete, when the rebellious Jews shall acknow-
ledge him. This kingdom I conceive to be here predicted,
in the assertion that the preacher shall be king in that
Jeshurun which shall hereafter be composed of Jews and
Gentiles, living in friendship and alliance, professing the
same faith, and exercising the same worship.

Thus it appears, that in this prophecy of Moses, if we
have rightly divined its meaning, the Messiah is explicitly
described under the character of a preacher, in whose spi-
ritual kingdom Jews and Gentiles shall be imited as the
subjects of a common Lord. This interpretation of this
remarkable passage will receive, I think, considerable con-
firmation, from the elucidation of another prophecy of an
earlier age, in which Christ's character of a general teacher,
or his business at least of teaching all the world, is de-
scribed in terms less liable to ambiguity of interpretation.
And this I shall consider in my next Discourse.

325

SERMON XXVJ.

We have heard him ourselves, and know that tliis is indeed the Christ,
the Saviour of the world. — John iv. 42.

This fourth chapter of St. John's gospel contains a
narrative of our Saviour's visit to the town of Sychar in
Samaria ; and in the text we have the testimony which
was publicly borne by the people of the place to the truth
of his pretensions.

Extraordinary as the fact may seem, this portion of the
evangelical history aflx)rds the most unquestionable docu-
ments of the truth of it, — that the Samaritans of our Sa-
viour's day not only believed in a Christ who was to
come, but had truer notions than the Jews, their cotem-
poraries, of the nature and extent of the salvation to b'e
expected from him, and of the means by which it should
be accomplished : the nature of the salvation, spiritual —
the extent, universal — the means, teaching. They ex-
pected a deliverance of the whole world from moral evil,
by a person who should appear in the character of a uni-
versal teacher of the true religion.

Of these just, views of the Samaritans, the books of
Moses, which were the only part of the Jewish Scriptures
which the Samaritans received, were the only possible
foundation. The conclusion therefore seems infallible,
that prophecies do actually exist in some part of the books
of Moses, which describe the Messiah as a general teacher
of the true religion, and express this character in terms
which were clearly understood by the ancient Samaritans.
If these prophecies are now not easy to be found, the diffi-
culty must arise from the obscurity which time hath brought
upon particular passages of those very ancient writings,
which originally were perspicuous. If, by the assistance
of Him who hath promised to be ever with us, we should

326

be enabled to succeed in our attempt to do the injuries of
time in some degree away, and to restore defaced prophe-
cies of this great importance to their original evidence, we
trust we shall have rendered some part of the service which
we owe to that great cause, to the support of which our
talents and our studies stand solemnly devoted.

In my last Discourse, I produced a passage from the
book of Deuteronomy, which, in whatever obscurity it
may have lain for several ages, with fewer and slighter
emendations than are requisite to bring it to any other
consistent meaning, admits an interpretation which makes
it an illustrious prophecy to our purpose. You will re-
collect, that the passage is the proem of that prophetic
song in which Moses, just before his death, described the
fortunes of the twelve tribes of Israel. My translation,
which it may be useful to repeat, that the agreement and
resemblance between this prophecy and some others, which
I now purpose to consider, may be the more readily per-
ceived,— my translation of the second and three following
verses of the thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy, is in
these words :

" Jehovah came from Sinai >
His uprising was from Seir :
He displayed his glory from Mount Faran,

And from the midst of tlic myriads came fortli the Holy One, —
On his right hand streams of fire.
O loving Father of the peoples !
All the saints are in thy hand;
They are seated at thy feet,
And have received of thy doctrine.
To ns he (the Holy One) prescribed a law.
Jacob is the inheritance of the preacher :
He (the preacher) shall be king in Jcshurun,
When the chiefs of the peoples gatlier themseh'es together
In union with the tribes of Israel."

The interpretation of this remarkable passage will re-
ceive great confirmation from the elucidation of another
prophecy, of an earlier age, which I now take in hand.
The examination of this prophecy will consist of two

327

parts. The first point will be, to ascertain its meaning,
as it stands in our modern copies of the Hebrew text,
without any alteration ; and the second, to consider an
emendation suggested by the old versions, which, without
altering the sense, considerably improves the perspicuity
and heightens the spirit of the expression.

When the patriarch Jacob was setting out for Padan-
aram, to form an alliance by marriage, according to the
customs of those early times, with the collateral branch
of his mother's family, his father Isaac's parting blessing
was to this effect : "God Almighty bless thee, and make
thee fruitful, and multiply thee; and thou shalt be a mul-
titude of i^eoplesT This blessing was repeated, it seems,
to the patriarch, in his dream at Luz ; for though this cir-
cumstance is not mentioned by Moses in its proper place,
in his narrative of that extraordinary dream, in the twenty-
eighth chapter of Genesis, it is, however, apparent by the
words which in the forty-eighth chapter he puts into the
mouth of Jacob upon his death-bed : " God Almighty ap-
peared unto me at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed
me, and said unto me — Behold, I will make thee fruitful,
and multiply thee ; and I will make of thee a multitude of
peoples." You will observe, that it is not without a [spe-
cial reason that I choose in these passages to sacrifice the
propriety of my English expression to an exact adherence
to the letter of the Hebrew text, in the use of the word
" peoples" in the plural. In the original language of the
Old Testament, the word " people" in the singular always
signifies some single nation, and, for the most part, the
individual nation of the Jews ; the plural word '• peoples"
signifies many nations, either Jews and Gentiles promis-
cuously, or the various nations of the Gentiles, as dis-
tinguished from the Jews. Our translators, in this in-
stance, over studious of the purity of their English style,
have dropped this important distinction throughout the
whole of the Old Testament ; and thus the force and spi-
rit of the original, wherever it depends upon this distinc-

328

tion, vvliich is the case in many prophetic texts, is unhap-
pily lost in our public translation. But, to return.

This same blessing was again repeated upon the pa-
triarch's return from Padan-aram, when God appeared to
him, and said — " I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and
multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall be
of thee." It is the same word in the original which is
rendered in our English Bibles, in this third benediction,
by a "company," and in the two former passages by a
" multitude :" but it is of great importance to observe, that
in the promise made to Abraham that he should be a fa-
ther " of many nations," or, according to the margin, " of
a multitude of nations," a very different word is used.
Were the marginal interpretation adopted, the terms of
this promise to Abraham, and of the blessings pronounced
upon Jacob upon three diti'crcnt occasions, in our English
Bibles, would be very much the same : whereas in the ori-
ginal they are essentially different ; and the difference lies
in the principal word, in the word which expresses the
matter of the promise. Novv^, as a sameness of the terms,
if it really existed, v^ould be an argument for assigning
one and the same meaning to the promises, so a regular
variation of the terms in which the promises to Abraham
and to his grandson were conveyed, when the promise
was repeated twice to Abraham — to Jacob three times,
creates a strong presumption that the promises to these
different persons, in which so striking a difference of the
terms was so constantly observed, had different objects :
and the event of things confirms the suspicion. Of Abra-
ham, who was the common ancestor of the Israelites, the
Arabians, the Idumseans, and many other nations of the
East, it might be said with truth, in the literal sense of
the words, " that he should be the father of many nations."
But, of Jacob, whose whole posterity was contained in the
single nation of the Jews, I cannot see with what propriety
it could be said that " a company of nations should come
out of him,'' or that he should be " made a multitude of

329

peoples." To say tliut nations or peoples sUind only for
tribes, is an ill-devised subterfuge of Jewish expositors :
it is founded upon a principle vvliich will ever mislead,
because it is in itself false (though, by the way, it is the fa-
vourite assumption of our modern Socinians, and is the
foundation of their whole system), that the prophetic style
describes little things by gigantic images. Even in the
spiritual sense, the expression that Jacob should be a mul-
titude of peoples, or that a company of nations should
come out of him, would be improper and unprophetic ; for
the various races of men, who, by embracing the faith of
Christ, are become in a spiritual sense the children of
Abraham and of Jacob, are in the same spiritual sense,
by virtue of their adoption into the blessed family, become
parts of the one nation of the spiritual Israel, and are no
longer to be called in any spiritual sense a multitude or a
company of peoples or of nations. It is a just observation
of the learned Calvin, that a prophecy which should have
described the Christian community under the image of a
variety of nations, would have been no blessing, but a
curse; since, according to the regular signification of
the prophetic images, which have their regular and deter-
mined significations no less than the words of common
speech, such a prophecy would have been predictive of
factions and schisms, and would have threatened a disso-
lution of that unity on which the welfare of the church
depends. The word which, in these promises to Jacob,
is rendered by " multitude"" or " company" in our English
Bibles, takes its origin and its meaning from a root which
properly signifies "to assemble," or to "call an assembly:"
and the force of it in these passages seems more properly
expressed in the Greek translation of the Seventy than by
any later interpreter. Their translation is to this effect ;
In the two first places, " I will make thee for the gathering
together of nations :" in the third place, " the gathering
together of nations shall be from thee ;" — and the gather-
ing: together which is intended, can be no other than the

330

gathering- of all nations into one in Christ. But, it I mis-
take not, this great event is much more expressly men-
tioned in these passages than it appears to be even in the
version of the Seventy; the Messiah being personally
mentioned under the character of the " Gatherer of the
nations :" for the word w^hich the Seventy render by "the
gathering together," and the English translators by " a
multitude or company," may by its derivation either signify
the persons of which an assembly is composed, in which
sense our English translators understood it, — or the act of
bringing them together, which is the sense the Seventy
express ; or it may bear a third sense, which perhaps is of
all the most pertinent in the passages in question : it may
stand for the person by whose authority the assembly is
convened. Any one of these three senses, the word, for
its natural force, may bear indifferently; and in Avhich of
the three it is in any particular passage to be taken, can
only be determined by the occasion upon which it is intro-
duced, by what is said of it, and by the words with which
it is immediately connected. In the passages in question,
the first sense seems absolutely excluded by the truth of
history, with which true prophecy must ever be consistent :
Jacob never became the father of a multitude of nations.
Of the remaining two, we are at liberty to choose that
which may be most consistent with history and with the
general tenor of the ancient prophecies, and may give the
most importance to the sense and the most spirit to the
expression. The spirit of the expression will be the most
striking, if the last of the three senses be adopted, that of
a person ; for, with this sense of the word, the literal ren-
dering of the three passages will be thus : Of the two first,
"I have appointed thee for a gatherer of the peoples :" of
the third, "A nation and the gatherer of nations shall
arise from thee." Were I satisfied that our modern copies
of the Hebrew text give these promises to Jacob precisely
in the terms in which they were originally delivered to
him, without the alteration or omission of a single letter,

33 J

I mig'Iit perhaps allege, in confirmation of the iuterpreta-
tioii I would propose, that our Lord may be imagined to
allude to this prediction of himself under the character of
a gatherer of the nations, in those pathetic words with
which he closed his public preaching : "■ O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem ! thou murderess of the prophets ! thou that
stonest them that are sent unto thee ! how often would I
liave gathered thy children together in what manner the
hen gathereth her own chickens under her wings, and ye
would not !" But, whichever be the true rendering, — whe-
ther " the gatherer," for which my opinion stands, or "the
gathering together," which the Seventy approve, — the
prophecy contains an evident allusion either to the person
of Christ as a teacher, or to his business as a teaching ;
for although the ambiguous word, in the sense of an as-
sembly, seems to carry no natural limitation of its mean-
ing, but might stand for any assembly convened by pro-
clamation, without regard to any particular end or purpose
for which it might be holden, yet the most frequent use of
it among the sacred writers is for assemblies of which the
purpose is either civil consultation or religious worship
and instruction : and the civil assemblies to which it is
applied, are for the most part those in which something
of religious business mixes itself more or less with the pur-
pose of the meeting : so that, in the sense of " an assem-
bly," it pretty much corresponds with the English word
" congregation," which, by its natural force, might stand
for any assembly, and yet, by the usage of our best writers,
and indeed of common speech, is appropriated to religious
assemblies. By analogy, therefore, we may conclude that
this same word, in the sense of "an assembler," must pe-
culiarly denote the person who presides in a religious con-
gregation, who leads the public worship, and instructs the
people : and the gatherer of nations, in this sense, is the
proper character of the founder of a religion which was
to be adopted by the whole Gentile world ; except, perhaps,
that it may seem somewhat more comprehensive, as de-

332

scribing a person who shonld gather the nations, as our
Saviour would have gathered the children of Jerusalem,
for the double purpose of teaching and of saving them.

In these passages, therefore, of the book of Genesis, as
they stand in our modern copies of the Hebrew text, whe-
ther we follow the version of the Seventy or adopt another
which the original words will equally bear, we have an
explicit prediction of the instruction and salvation of the
Gentiles, to be accomplished by a descendant of Jacob.
The two first, indeed, in which it is said to Jacob that he
should be, or that God had appointed him to be, for a
gatherer or for the gathering of the peoples, declare
perhaps the general benefit immediately intended by the
selection of Jacob's family, who, for the general good of all
mankind, were appointed to be for a certain period the
depositaries of the true religion, and the objects of a mi-
raculous discipline. Their intercourse, in various ways at
different periods — by conquest or by commerce, by alliance
or by servitude — with the principal empires and most en-
lightened nations of the world, — in the earliest times with
the Moabites, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and the
Syrians of Damascus ; afterward with the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, and the Persians ; then with the Greeks ; and
last of all with the Romans ; the intercourse of the Is-
raelites, in every period of their state, with the people
that was the most considerable for the time, was the means
of keeping alive some knowledge of the true God even
among the heathens, in such a degree at least as might
prepare the world for a general revelation at the appointed
season. They were, as some of their own rabbin have
very well expressed it, the witnesses of the one true God
to all mankind. In this sense Jacob was appointed for
the congregations, or for the teacher of the people : his
posterity was a race of priests, a nation of prophets. The
third passage specifically respects either the general sal-
vation of the Gentiles, or the person who was to save them
by teaching them a true religion and a pure worship.

333

According' to the version of the Seventy, " The gathering
together of the nations shall be from thee," this passage
is exactly parallel with our Saviour's own words, m his
conference with the Samaritan woman, — " Salvation is of
the Jews." The salvation of the Gentiles is predicted ;
and the accomplishment of it is ascribed to a descendant
of Jacob. According to the version which to me seems
preferable, it is a prophecy describing a descendant of
Jacob by the character of the Saviour and the teacher of
all mankind.

We find, therefore, in this promise to Jacob, as it is
represented in the copies of the Hebrew text which are
now in use, such a declaration of God's merciful care of
all mankind — so explicit a prediction of a teacher, or at
least of a teaching of the Gentiles, as may sufficiently ac-
count for the just views which the Samaritans entertained
of the nature as well as of the extent of the Messiah's re-
demption.

I cannot take leave of this same prophecy, without con-
sidering an emendation which the translation of the Seventy
suggests. The true object of the prophecy is that which
appears in the interpretation of the Greek translators —
the mysterious scheme of Providence of gathering all na-
tions into one in Christ. But, though the Seventy have
so far succeeded as not to misinterpret (for they have ex-
pressed the true purport of the prophecy, and have intro-
duced no false images which the original words do not
convey), whether they have had the good fortune to seize
the true turn of the original expression, and have given
the prophecy in its genuine form as well as its true mean-
ing, will bear a question. In their translation, the pro-
phecy is a simple prediction of the event. The original
words will bear an exposition which render it an animated
prediction of the person by whom the event was to be ac-
complished, in that particular character in which we have
the highest reason to think he is actually described in
some passages of the Mosaic writings which have been

334

long misunderstood. The different interpretations of this
passage have all arisen, as I have in a preceding part of
this Discourse explained, from the ambiguity of a single
word, which by its natural force may indifferently signify
either a multitude assembled, the act of assembling, or the
person by whose authority the assembly is convened. If
the ambiguous word be taken in the last of these three
meanings, the literal rendering of the three passages in
question will be to this effect: Of the two first, "Thou
shalt be," or " I have appointed thee to be for a gatherer
of the peoples :" of the third, " A nation and the gatherer
of nations shall arise from thee." I shall not dwell upon
the arguments that might be alleged for giving a pre-
ference to this interpretation of the passages in question,
as the original text stands in our modern copies; but I
shall proceed to show, that in older copies, which were
likely to be more sincere, this was the most obvious, if
not the only sense which the Hebrew words presented.

The copies of the Hebrew text which are now in use,
from which the English and most modern translations of
the Old Testament have been made, give the text which
the Jews have thought proper to consider as authentic,
since a revision of the sacred books by certain learned
rabbin who lived several centuries after Christ. These
critics, by their very imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew
language, which in their time had been a dead language
among the Jews themselves for many ages, and by their
prejudices against our Saviour, were but ill qualified for
their arduous undertaking. I would not over confidently
charge them with an impiety of which they have been sus-
pected— of wilful corruptions of the prophetic text in pre-
judice of our Lord's pretensions. To say the truth, I am
little inclined to give credit to this heavy accusation : the
Jews, to do them justice, with all their prejudices, have
ever shown a laudable degree of religious veneration for
the sacred text, and have employed the greatest pains,
though not always by the most judicious means, to preserve

335

its integrity. 1 am there fore unwilling to believe that
any Jew would make the least wilful alteration in any
expression which he believed to have proceeded from the
inspired pen. But, although I am inclined to acquit them
of the imputation of wilful corruptions (without any im-
peachment, how^ever, of the candour of those who judge
more severely ; for they have room enough for their suspi-
cions), it is but reasonable to suppose, — it were unreason-
able to suppose the contrary, — that where various readings
occurred of any prophetic text, these Jewish critics w^ould
give the preference, not in malice, but in the error of a
prejudiced mind, — they would give the preference to that
readinp' which mioht seem the least favourable to the
scheme of Christianity, and to give the least support to the
claims of that Saviour whom their ancestors had crucified
and slain : and that this was actually their practice, might
be proved by many striking instances. It is therefore
become of great importance, to consider how certain texts
might stand in more ancient copies of the sacred writings ;
which is often to be discovered from the translations and
paraphrases made before the appearance of our Saviour,
and of consequence before any prejudices against him
could operate. Among these, the Greek translation of the
Pentateuch, for its great antiquity, deserves the highest
attention, being about two hundred and sixty years older
than the Christian era. And though an extreme caution
should be used in admitting any conjectural emendations
of the sacred text, lest we should corrupt what we attempt
to amend, yet the historical inquiry after the varieties of
the ancient copies cannot be prosecuted with too much
freedom : for, though it might be dangerous to make any
alteration of the modern text, except upon the most certain
evidence, yet it can never be dangerous to know of any
particular text that it was once read otherwise ; and the
inquiry might often prove the means of restoring many
illustrious prophecies. Nor can I see for what reason we
should be scrupulous to adopt readings which give perspi-

33G

cuity to particular passages, and heighten the prophetic
evidence, wlien we have the highest reason to believe
that those readings were received by the Jews themselves,
in their unprejudiced times ; and were only called in ques-
tion afterward, for the positive testimony they seemed
to bear to our Saviour's claims, and to the gospel doctrine
of a general redemption. The passages which would be
most apt to suffer, through the prejudices of the later Jew-
ish critics, would be those in which the call of the Gen-
tiles was most openly predicted, and in which the Messiah
was described as a universal teacher.

We have seen that this description of the Messiah is
contained in the promises to Jacob, as they stand in the mo-
dern Hebrew text. From an attentive consideration of the
Greek translation of the Seventy, I cannot but persuade
myself that this character of the Messiah was far more
explicitly expressed in the copies of the Hebrew from
which that version v/as made, though it was not clearly
understood by those translators; and yet the whole diffe-
rence between their copies of the original, and those of the
modern Jews, consists in the omission of a single letter in
the later copies. The word " gathering," or " gatherer,"
on the true sense of which so much depends, is rendered
by the Seventy, in every one of the three passages in ques-
tion, in tlifi plural number, — not ^'gathering,'''' but ^'ga-
therings;'" and yet the original Hebrew word, in the pre-
sent state of the text, is singular. These translators have in
general followed their original with such scrupulous exact-
ness, expressing in their Greek all the grammatical pecu-
liarities of their Hebrew original, often at the expense not
only of the purity but of the perspicuity of their style, that
no one who has had the opportunity of giving a critical
attention to that translation will believe, that the Seventy
would in three places, where they found a word in the
Hebrew which could not but be singular, choose, without
any necessity, to express it by a plural word in Greek:
and every one who cannot believe this, will find himself

337

compelled to conclude that thut word, wliich in our mo-
dern copies of the Hebrew text is necessarily singular, in
the copies which the Seventy used was something that
might be taken for a plural. The addition of a single
letter (and that a letter which transcribers have been very
apt to omit) to the word which now occurs in the Hebrew
will give it that plural form which the Seventy have ex-
pressed : but, with the addition of this letter, the Hebrew
word may be either that plural word which the Seventy
understood it to be, or a singular word which literally
signifies "the preacher." "The words of the preacher,
the son of David, king of Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities,
saith the preacher." This, you know, is the title and the
beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes. The word which
liere, and in other parts of this same book, is very pro-
perly rendered in our English Bibles by " the preacher,"
diflers not in a single letter from that plural word which
in the promises to Jacob the Seventy have rendered by
" the gatherings." But since this word, by the consent
of all interpreters, signifies " the preacher" throughout
the book of Ecclesiastes, why should it be otherwise un-
derstood in other passages of Scripture, where the same
sense may suit the context ? In the promises to Jacob, no
other sense of the word will equally suit the context, since
no other interpretation of the word produces an equal per-
spicuity of the whole sentence. This, therefore, is the
sense in which it is most reasonable to understand it ; and
the literal translation of these three passages, as the text
appears to have stood in the copies which the Greek
translators followed, will be thus: Of the two first, "Thou
shalt be," or " I have appointed thee to be for a preacher
of the peoples:" of the third, " A nation, and the preacher
of nations shall come out of thee." It is no great objec-
tion to this interpretation, that the Seventy missed it:
these translators were Jews, and would be little inclined
to admit a sense of any text which should make it a pre-
diction of the Messiah in the express character of a teacher
z

338

of the Gentiles. They took up, therefore, with another
meaning, which the word, considered by itself, might
equally bear, though it rendered the sentence less perspi-
cuous. The want of perspicuity was a circumstance in
which they found a shelter for their prejudices. They
perhaps imagined, that " the gathering of the nations,"
though by the proper import of the Hebrew words it
expressed " a gathering of the nation for the purpose of
instruction and salvation," was only an obscure pre-
diction of a universal monarchy of the Jews, to be esta-
blished by the Messiah, and a gathering of the Gentiles
under that monarchy by conquest: and an obscure predic-
tion of this exaltation of their own nation was more to
their taste than an explicit prophecy of the Messiah as a
general benefactor. The Samaritans, who had no interest
in the national prosperity of the Jews, their enemies, were
better interpreters.

To sum up the whole of this long but interesting dis-
quisition, it appears that the promises to Jacob, conveyed
first in his father Isaac's parting blessing — repeated in the
patriarch's dream at Luz, and, for the last time, when God
appeared at Peniel — in any sense in which they can be
taken, contain, especially the last of them, a clear pro-
phecy of the Messiah as a universal teacher. The precise
terms in. which these promises were conveyed, are in
some small degree uncertain ; for we find, in the transla-
tion of the Seventy, the plainest indications of a small dif-
ference, in all the three texts, between their copies and
those which are now received. The difierence is only of
a single letter in the ancient copies, which is not found in
those of the present day ; and this variety afiects not the
sense of the promise, but makes some diflference in the
degree of precision with which the sense is expressed.
The terms of the promise, according to the one or the
other of these two different readings — according to the
ancient or the later copies, are unquestionably correct ;
and according to either, the general purport is the same :

3;h9

hut it' the gTeator correctness lie in the later copies, then
the Messiah's character of a teacher of the nations is only
to be di-awn from the general character of a gatherer, in
which it is contained, or his particular business of teach-
ing the nations, from the general business of gathering
them. If the ancient copies gave the truer reading, then
the Messiah is expressl}^ announced under the specific cha-
racter of a " preacher of the nations."

In either way, we have found, in these promises in the
book of Genesis, of which the Samaritans acknowledo^ed
tlie authority, an explicit prophecy of the Messiah as an
universal preacher. Two prophecies, therefore, of this
import, seem to be yet legible in the books of Moses ;
and, by bringing these prophecies to light, we discover a
new circumstance of agreement between the character
which our Lord sustained and the prophecies that went
before concerning him.

I would now turn your attention for a moment to a sub-
ject which might well deserve a particular discussion, —
the evidence upon which the Samaritans, looking for a
Christ to come, were induced to believe that Jesus was
the person. What was the evidence which produced this
belief? — What is the evidence on which we believe?
We are curious to examine the philosophy of the doctrine :
we seek for the completion of prophecies, and for the evi-
dence of miracles : unless we see signs and wonders, we
will not believe ; — but upon what evidence did the Sama-
ritans believe? We read of no miracles performed among
the Sycharites. That we read of none is not a proof that
none were performed: but if any were, it was not evidence
of that kind which took possession of the hearts of the
Samaritans; — they allege our Saviour's doctrine as the
ground of their conviction; and our Saviour's doctrine
carries with it such internal evidence, — it is in itself so
rational and consistent — in its consequences so conducive
to that which must be the great end of a Divine revelation,
if any such be extant, — it discovers a scheme of salvation
z 2

340

so wonderfully adapted both to tlie perfections of God and
the infirmities of man, that a mind which hath not lost, by
the force of vicious habits, its natural sense of right and
wrong' — its natural approbation of what is good and great
and amiable, will always perceive the Christian doctrine
to be that which cannot easily be disbelieved when it is
fairly propounded. The Samaritans heard this doctrine
from the Divine Teacher's mouth for the short space of two
days: we, in the writings of the evangelists, have a com-
plete summary of his triennial preaching; we have, joined
with the detail of many of his miracles, the delineation of
his character, and the history of his wonderful life of piety
and love : we have seen the fortitude with which he re-
pelled temptation — the patience with which he endured
reproach — the resignation with which he underwent the
punishment of others' crimes: in the figured language
of the apostle, we ourselves have heard him preach, — we
have seen him crucified, — we have seen him rise ao-ain:
we experience his present power, in the providential pre-
servation of his church and support of his doctrine. The
Samaritans were convinced by a preaching of two days:
how, then, shall we escape, if we neglect so great sal-
vation !

SERMON XXVII.

Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, he thus minded ; and if in any
thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
— Philippians lii. 15.

The obscurity of this text arises from two causes, —
from a double sense of the word " minded," and from an
improper use of the word "otherwise."

The word "minded" predicates indift'erently any state
of mind, — this or that particular state, according as the

341

occasion upon wliicli it is used, and tlie words with
wliicli it is connected, may limit and qualify its general
meaning. A state of the mind may be either a state of
its dispositions and affections toward external objects, — a
state of its hopes and fears — its desires and aversions — its
schemes, purposes, and machinations; or a state of the in-
tellect with respect to its internal faculties — the quickness
of the apprehension — the strength of the memory — the
extent of knowledge, and the truth or error of opinion.
The condition of a man's mind with respect to these or any
other circumstances of its appetites — its native powers or
acquired endowments, may be expressed in our language
by his being thus or thus minded. By this great latitude
of its signification, the English word " minded" serves to
convey the meaning of a great variety of words in the
original languages of the holy Scriptures. In this particu-
lar text, however, it is one and the same word in the origi-
nal which answers in both parts of the sentence to the
word " minded :" and this original word might seem, by
its nature and derivation, to be capable of the same variety
of meaning as the English ; but, by the usage of the sacred
writers, its signification, so far as it corresponds at all with
the English word" minded," is far more restrained; for it
is never applied to the intellectual part of the mind, but
with respect to the opinions, — nor to the disposition, but
in a religious sense, to express the state of moral taste and
sentiment. It carries, however, a double meaning, seeing
it may express a state of mind w ith respect either to opi-
nion or religious disposition. It is used in these two
different senses in the different branches of the text; and
this double application of the same word, in different
clauses of the same sentence, makes the whole difficulty of
the passage as it lies in the original.

But, in our English translation, this difficulty is greatly
heightened by the improper use of the word " otherwise,"
which in our language is a word of comparison between
individual things, insomuch that it can never be used with

342

propriety unless it is answered by the comparative " tlian,"
either expressed or understood ; and the expression " to be
otherwise minded," in the English language, properly sig-
nifies to be in a state of mind other than some certain state
afterward mentioned or already described. In the text, I
doubt not but the generality of the readers of the English
Bibles imagine an opposition is intended between " thus
minded" and " otherwise minded," and would perhaps
supply the sentence thus : " Let us, as many as be perfect,
be thus minded ; and if in any thing you be otherwise
minded than thus, God shall reveal even tliis unto you."
This, at least, seems to be the exposition to which the
English expressions naturally lead : but this exposition
will lead us far away from any thing that may be sup-
posed to be a wise man's meaning.

Now, the original word which is here rendered " other-
wise," is frequently indeed used, like the English word,
to indicate comparison ; yet, in its primary and most pro-
per meaning, in which I think it is to be taken here, it
predicates generally, without reference to individual terms
of comparison, the opposite of sameness or uniformity, —
that is, difference or variety; and it might perhaps be
better rendered by the English word " variously." We
will take the liberty, therefore, to substitute " variously'
in the place of " otherwise" in the text; and, bearing in
remembrance the double meaning of the word " minded,"
let us see what sense the passage, thus corrected, will pre-
sent : " Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded ;
and if in any thing you be variously minded, God shall
reveal even this unto you." Light seems to open on the
passage : the opposition which before perplexed us be-
tween " thus minded" and " otherwise minded" now dis-
appears. The deficiency of the sentence is in another
part than we at first suspected, and is to be very diffe-
rently supplied. " Let us, as many as are perfect, be thus
minded : and if in any thing ye be variously minded, God
shall reveal to you even this thing concerning which you

343

have various minds." I doubt not but you now perceive
that the exhortation to be " thus minded " respects certain
virtuous habits of the mind — certain sentiments with re-
spect to religious practice, which the apostle would recom-
mend it to the Philippians to assume : and the supposition
of their being variously minded, regards certain differences
of opinion which he apprehended might subsist among
them when this epistle was v/ritten, and which, he assures
them, the good habits lie prescribes, were they once be-
come universal, would in a great measure abolish, by that
especial blessing of God's overruling providence and en-
lightening Spirit which ever accompanies the upright and
sincere.

The disposition or habit of the mind which the apostle
recommends, is that which in the verses immediately pre-
ceding the text he has described as his own, — namely, such
a constant and earnest desire of continual improvement in
the habits of a Christian life, as made him think lightly of
any proficiency he had actually made in it, otherwise than '
as a necessary step toward farther attainments. Having
expressed his high sense of the importance of the Christian
doctrine, and the merit of that righteousness which consists
in the exercise of Christian duties, and arises from a true
and lively faith in Christ, he declares, in the tenth and
eleventh verses, that he is content to be conformed to his
Master's death, — that is, to suffer and to die, as he did,
for the good of mankind, and for the interests of the true
religion, if by any means he might " attain unto the resur-
rection of the dead. Not," says he, " that I have yet got-
ten hold, — not that I am secure of attaining the great prize
to which I aspire, or am already perfect, — but I persevere
in the pursuit, if, by my utmost diligence, I may at last lay
hold of it : for which purpose, — that I might persevere in
this great pursuit, and at last lay hold upon the prize, hold
has been taken of me by Jesus Christ." There is in the
original, a certain animated play (not unusual in the most
serious discourse, nor abating any thing of its seriousness,

344

but adding to its force) upon the double meaning of the
word " lay hold/" A person lays hold upon a thing, when
he takes possession of it, and claims it as his right and
property. In this sense, the apostle speaks with much
diffidence and humility of his hope of laying hold of his
reward. A guide lays hold of a person that is going out
of his way, to lead him into it, or of a feeble person, to
support him. In this sense the apostle speaks of Christ's
laying hold on him, to conduct him into the path of life,
and to support him in it; at the same time, not without
some oblique allusion to the miraculous manner of his first
conversion, under the image of a sudden and violent seizure.
The apostle goes on. " Brethren, I do not so account of
myself as if I had already gotten hold; — zealous as I have
been in the propagation of the faith, — patient as I am
under all the sufferings in which it has involved me, — pre-
pared as I am to sacrifice my life in its support, yet 1 do
not entertain the arrogant opinion, that, by these services
or these dispositions, 1 have already earned my reward. I
pretend to no merit beyond this one thing, that, forgetting
what is behind, — thinking little of attainments already
made, — I stretcli forward to what is yet before, endea-
vouring at continual improvement. I make toward the
goal, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus. This is my mind: these are my notions of our
duty : these are my views of our perfection ; and let us
all, as many as be perfect, — as many as pretend to per-
fection, or would aspire after it, — be thus minded ; and if
in any thing ye be variously minded, — if in certain points
of doctrine, or concerning some particulars of external
worship, you eu-e not all agreed, provided you arc sincere
in the desire, and constant in the endeavour to improve,
God will enlighten your understandings, and bring you,
by a general apprehension of the truth, to agree no less in
your opinions than in the o^eneral principles of life." The
apostle goes on, in the following verse : " Be that as it
may, so far as we have already attained, walk by the same

345

rule ; have your minds upon the same thing."' This is the
exact rendering of the sixteenth verse. The words " let
US;" which occur twice in tire English translation. — " let
us walk by the same rule,"' and " let us mind the same
thing,"" — the words " let us"' are in both places an addition
of the translators, and darken the meaning. " But, what-
ever differences of opinion may remain among you," says
the apostle, " in that which I for my part consider as the
only perfection to which I have yet attained, agree in fol-
lowing my example : walk by the same rule by which I
walk, of neglectino- the thino-s that are behind, and makino-
for the goal ; have your minds upon the same thing which
my mind is set upon — a continual progress and improve-
ment."

Thus I have opened to you w-hat I conceive to be the
true meaning of the text. Indeed, it is the only one that
can be drawn without violence from the words, and is the
best suited to the purport of the apostle's discourse : and,
among a great variety of expositions that have been pro-
posed, there is but one other that seems to deserve the least
attention, — which is that of those who, in the expression
" thus minded," refer the word " thus" to the opinion
which the apostle expresses in the beginning of this chap-
ter, concerning the ceremonies of the Mosaic law,— that
they make no part of a Christian s duty ; and the dif-
ference of opinion expressed in the words " otherwise
minded," they understand of a difference of opinion be-
tween the apostle himself and some members of the church
to which he writes, upon that particular question concern-
ing the importance of the Jewish ceremonies : and thus
they bring the sense of the text to nothing more than a
declaration concerning those who might stand for the obli-
gation of the ceremonial law under the Christian dispensa-
tion,— that God would, at some time or other, open their
minds to perceive the error of this particular opinion. As
this exposition has been pretty much received, and has
found its way into some of the best English paraphrases

346

of this epistle, it may be proper briefly to mention our rea-
sons for rejecting it. One great objection to this interpre-
tation is, that it turns the text into a very singular promise
of illumination, upon a particular question, to all who
should dissent from the apostle's doctrines, without the
stipulation of any condition which might render them in
any degree worthy of such extraordinary favour. It is far
more reasonable to understand the promise of a general
illumination of the mind upon religious subjects, limited
to those wlio, under much darkness and imbecility of
understanding, should distinguish themselves by a sin-
cerity of good intention. But an objection of still greater
weight than this is, that by the evident connexion of the
text with the following verse this exposition is clearly set
aside. Read the two verses, the fifteenth and sixteenth, in
connexion, and you will easily decide whether the sum of
the admonition, according to this view of the passage, is
such as the apostle can be supposed to give. " Let us,
as many as be perfect, be thus minded with respect to the
rites of the Jewish religion, that under the Christian esta-
blishment they are of no importance toward salvation ; and
if any of you think otherwise about them, God will, at
some time or other, bring you to a better mind. But, be
that as it may, — whether you are brought to that better
mind or no, as far as we have attained, walk by the same
rule." By what same rule ? Why, according to this expo-
sition, by the rule of neglecting the Jewish ordinances.
" Have this same mind." What same mind? That which
it has been just supposed they might not have, — the opi-
nion that the ritual part of the Jewish religion is superseded
by the gospel. He that would stand for this interpretation
of the text, let him find another instance, in the apostle's
writings, where the apostle enjoins an hypocritical assent
to opinions which the understanding has not received, or
requires of any man to walk by a rule which has not the
entire approbation of his conscience.

I have thought proper to examine this exposition more

M7

particalariy tban I should odterwis^ have d^ae, becao^e 1
find it is mcdi received, and has fomid its way into s(»De
of the best English paraphrase of dds ^listle. But, har-
mg shoyra. yoa that it biii^ die text to a meanii^ tittle
consisTeDt with the gmetal sesise and spirit oCtlie go^pd,
I shall think it needless to dwell upcm the feidaer coirfiita-
tioo of it. Some other expositiaGs are to be lound zxaang
the Latin ^oheis, which aU lest npoa a cormptiOD of sone
aocioit copies of the Latin T»aoo. Of the two which the
gtenuine text of the apostle may bear, that which I adcipt
is what the words in their natural meaning^ most obvioaslT
present, and the foAy one that i!be context will admit. We
may therefore safely rest in this as die tme expositicHi of
the apostle's meanii^ : and I shall acccMrdingbr proceed to
set before you the is^portant lessons whidi &e text- in
this view oi it. suggests ; which are these two. First, it
tc2^ciies us in what the tme perfecdicn of the Christian cha-
racter consists : and. secondly, what the immediate ad^an-
tages to the Christian comniunity would be, if that good
habit of the mind which constitotes perfecticHi wesTC c«ace
become universal : which would be iK)thing: le^ than this.
— that ail diaerences of cpinicn at least aU c<Hitieiiti<Nis
disagreement, the great baue of Christian love and har-
mony) would be abolished, by God's bl^sing^ cm the na-
tural operation of this happy temper : and Christians
would be established in that univo^ peace and cjiarity
whicb is so generally professed and preached, and is so
little practised.

First, the text teaches us in what the perfection of the
Christian cbaracter consists. — namely, in an earnest de-
sire and steady pursuit of perpetual improviMneat. This,
at least, the apostie declares, was the hio[liest attaiimient he
himself could boast : and what was the hei^t of the apes-
tie's virtue may well be allowed to be the perteciion ct
every private Christian, especially as it is in this circum-
stance that he proposes himself as an example to all who
would be perfect. " Let us. as many as be perfect, be

348

thus minded/" Perhaps you will imagine, that if this be
perfection, it is an attainment easily made, or rather, that
it is a quality of which none are destitute, since all men
have more or less of a desire of being better than they feel
themselves to be. But that desire of improvement in
which the apostle places his own and every Christian's
perfection, is not a desire terminated in the mind itself,
unproductive of any real effort to improve. This is so
little the perfection of a Christian, that it seems to be only
a necessary part of the human character in its utmost state
of depravation : it is the necessary result of that natural
perception of right and wrong of which the worst of men
are never totally divested. He that should be divested of
it would from that moment cease to be a man : he would
cease to be a moral agent, inasmuch as, having lost all
natural sense of the moral quality of his actions, he would,
to all intents and purposes, with respect to moral good and
evil, be irrational : he would have lost the faculty of rea-
soning upon that subject, and could no longer be account-
able for the violation of rules which he would no longer
understand. These perceptions, therefore, from which our
whole capacity of being good or bad arises, must be of
the nature of man, if man by his nature be a moral agent :
and the difference between good men and bad is not that
the latter do really lose the perceptions wdiich the other
retain, but that, retaining the same original perceptions,
they lose the benefit of them in the conduct of their lives,
turning the attention, by a voluntary effort of the mind,
to other objects. These perceptions being of the nature
of man, it is of the nature of man, even of wicked men, to
approve virtue and to disapprove its opposite : and from
a natural desire of being in friendship with himself, the
wicked man, when he reflects upon his own character,
and perceives that it is destitute of those qualities which
might naturally claim his own respect and love, cannot
but wish that he were the opposite of what he is, — respect-
able rather than contemptible — amiable rather than odious.

349

Hence it is, that nothing is more common than for persons
of the most debauched and abandoned lives, to acknow-
ledge that they are not what they ought to be, and to ex-
press a wish that they were better, — at the same time that
they, speak upon a subject of such great concern with a
tranquillity and coolness that shows that nothing is farther
from their thoughts than the purpose of making any vigor-
ous eft'orts toward their own reformation. These wishes
are not insincere ; but they are involuntary, resulting, by
a natural necessity, from that constitution of the human
mind which is indeed its perfection, considered as the
work of God, but is no more a part of the moral virtue of
the man, considered as a free agent, than any other of his
natural endowments,' — the strength of his memory, for in-
stance, or the quickness of his apprehension, or even than
the exterior comeliness of his person, his muscular strength,
or the agility of his limbs. In all these natural gifts and
faculties, among which conscience is the first in worth
and dignity, there is reason to admire the good and per-
fect work of God : but it is in the application of them, by
the effort of the will, to God's service, to the good of man-
kind, and to self-improvement, that we are to seek the true
perfection of the human character. The bare, unprevailing
wish that we were what we necessarily understand we
ought to be, hath nothing more in it of moral merit than
the involuntary assent of the mind to any other self-evi-
dent truth. In the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul, de-
scribing the condition of the mind in its most corrupt and
ruined state, when reason is become the slave of appetite,
and the prohibitions of God's pure and holy law serve
only to irritate the passions which they ought to control,
— in this ruined condition of the mind, St. Paul supposes
that the natural sense of what is right remains, accompa-
nied with an ineffectual desire of performing it : and it is
not to be supposed that he speaks of that quality here
as the perfection of a Christian, which there he attributes
to the reprobate. That desire of improvement which

350

makes tite perfect Christian, the apostie describes in him-
self as an active principle, maintaining the ascendant in
his heart over every other appetite, and displaying its
energy in the whole tenor of his life. He describes it as
derived from a conviction of the understanding that the
proper business of this life is to prepare for the next.
The formal nature of it he places in this, — that its imme-
diate object is rather virtue itself than any exterior prospe-
rity of condition with which virtue may be rewarded: for
he compares his thirst of virtuous attainments to the pas-
sion that stimulated the competitors in the Grecian games ;
and he describes the reward which the Christian seeks
under the image of the prize to be bestowed on him that
should be foremost in the race. The passion which fires
the competitors in any honourable contest is a laudable
ambition to excel ; and the prize is no otherwise valued
than as the mark and seal of victory. Of that reward
which is the object of the Christian's hope, it were mad-
ness to affirm that it has not an intrinsic value ; for we are
taught that it will consist in a state of perfect happiness :
but that happiness is therefore perfect, because it is the
condition of a nature brought to perfect holiness ; and that
desire of improvement, in which the apostle places our per-
fection, hath for its immediate object those virtuous attain-
ments which insure the reward, rather than the reward
itself, otherwise considered than as the honourable distinc-
tion of the approved servants of God. It is easy to per-
ceive that this thirst for moral excellency must be in its
nature what the apostle in himself experienced — a princi-
ple of growing energy ; for, wherever this principle is sin-
cere, as long as any degree of imperfection remains, or,
to speak more accurately, as long as any farther excellence
is attainable, farther improvement must be the object.
The true Christian, therefore, never can rest in any habits
of virtue already attained : his present proficiency he va-
lues only as a capacity of better attainments ; and, like
the great Roman whose appetite of conquest was inflamed

351

by every new advantage gahied, lie thinks nothing done
wliile aught remains which prowess may achieve.

Such is the principle, as may be collected from the
apostle's description of his own feelings and his own prac-
tice,— such is the principle in which he places the per-
fection of a Christian; in its origin rational, in its object
disinterested, in its energies boundless : and in these three
properties its perfective quality consists. And this I
would endeavour more distinctly to prove : but, for this
purpose, it will be necessary to explain what man's proper
goodness naturally is, and to consider man both in his first
state of natural innocence, and in his present state of re-
demption from the ruin of his fall. But this is a large
subject, which we shall treat in a separate Discourse.

SERMON XXVIII.

Let us tlieiefore, as many as he perfect, be thus miiidedj and if in any
thing \e be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. —
Philippians iii. 15.

The perfection of the Christian character, as may be
collected from the apostle's description of his own feelings
and his own practice, consists, it seems, in an earnest desire
of perpetual progress and improvement in the practical
habits of a good and holy life. When the apostle speaks
of this as the highest of his own attainments, he speaks of
it as the governing principle of his whole life; and the
perfective quality that he ascribes to it seems to consist
in these three properties, — that it is boundless in its energy,
disinterested in its object, and yet rational in its origin.
That these are the properties which make this desire of
proficiency truly perfective of the Christian character, I
shall now attempt to prove; and, for this purpose, it will
be necessary to inquire what man's proper goodness is, and

352

to take a view of jnan, botli in iiis first state of natural inno-
cence, and in his actual state of redemption from the ruin
of his fall.

Absolute perfection in moral goodness, no less than in
knowledge and power, belongs incommunicably to God ;
for this reason, that goodness in the Deity only is original :
in the creature, to whatever degree it may be carried, it is
derived. If man hath a just discernment of what is good,
to whatever degree of quickness it may be improved, it is
originally founded on certain first principles of intuitive
knowledge which the created mind receives from God. If
he hath the will to perform it, it is the consequence of a
connexion which the Creator hath established between the
decisions of the judgment and the effort of the will; and
for this truth of judgment and this rectitude of the original
bias of the will, in whatever perfection he may possess
them as natural endowments, he deserves no praise, any
otherwise than as a statue or a picture may deserve praise,
in which what is really praised is not the marble nor the
canvass — not the elegance of the figure nor the richness of
the colouring, but the invention and execution of the artist.
This, however, properly considered, is no imperfection in
man, seeing it belongs by necessity to the condition of a
creature. The thing made can be originally nothing but
what the maker makes it: therefore the created mind can
have no original knowledge but what the Maker hath
infused — no original propensities but such as are the neces-
sary result of the established harmony and order of its fa-
culties. A creature, therefore, in whatever degree of ex-
cellence it be supposed to be created, cannot originally
have any merit of its own ; for merit must arise from volun-
tary actions, and cannot be a natural endowment : and it
is owing to a wonderful contrivance of the beneficent Crea-
tor, in the fabric of the rational mind, that created beings
are capable of attaining to any thing of moral excellence
— that they are capable of becoming what the Maker of
them may love^ and their own understandings approve.

353

The contrivance that 1 speak of consistja ia a principle of
which we have large experience in ourselves, and may with
good reason suppose it to subsist in every intelligent being,
except the First and Sovereign intellect. It is a principle
which it is in every man's power to turn, if he be so pleased,
to his own advantage : but if he fail to do this, it is not in
his power to hinder that the deceiving spirit turn it not to
his detriment. In its own nature it is indifferent to the
interests of virtue or of vice, being no propensity of the
mind to one thing or to another, but simply this property,
— that whatever action, either good or bad, hath been done
once, is done a second time with more ease and with a
better liking ; and a frequent repetition heightens the ease
and pleasure of the performance without limit. By virtue
of this property of the mind, the having done any thing
once becomes a motive to the doing of it again: the having
done it twice is a double motive; and, so many times as
the act is repeated, so many times the motive to the doing
of it once more is multiplied. To this principle, habit
owes its wonderful force ; of which it is usual to hear men
complain, as of something external that enslaves the will.
But the complaint, in this, as in every instance in which
man presumes to arraign the ways of Providence, is rash
and unreasonable. The fault is in man himself, if a prin-
ciple implanted in him for his good becomes by negligence
and mismanagement the instrument of his ruin. It is
owing to this prhiciple that every faculty of the understand-
ing and every sentiment of the heart is capable of being im-
proved by exercise. It is the leading principle in the whole
system of the human constitution, modifying both the phy-
sical qualities of the body and the moral and intellectual
endowments of the mind. We experience the use of it in
every calling and condition of life. By this the sinews of
the labourer are hardened for toil ; by this the hand of the
mechanic acquires its dexterity : to this we owe the amazing
progress of the human mind in the politer arts and the ab-
struser sciences. And it is an engine which it is in our
2 A

354

power to employ to nobler and more beneficial purposes.
By the same principle, when the attention is turned to
moral and religious subjects, the understanding may gra-
dually advance beyond any limit that may be assigned, in
quickness of perception and truth of judgment; and the
will's alacrity to conform to the dictates of conscience and the
decrees of reason will be gradually heightened, to corre-
spond in some due proportion with the growth of intellect.
'' Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the
son of man, that so regardest him! Thou hast made
him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and
honour!"' Destitute as he is of any original perfection,
which is thy sole prerogative, who art alone in all thy
qualities original, yet in the faculties of which thou hast
given him the free command and use, and in the power of
habit which thou hast planted in the principles of his
system, thou hast given him the capacity of infinite attain-
ments. Weak and poor in his beginnings, what is the
height of any creature's virtue, to which he has not the
power, by a slow and gradual ascent, to reach? The im-
provements which he shall make by the vigorous exertion
of the powers he hath received from thee, thou permittest
him to call his own, imputing to him the merit of the ac-
quisitions which thou hast given him the ability to make.
What, then, is the consummation of man's goodness, but
to co-operate with the benevolent purpose of his Maker,
by forming the habit of his mind to a constant ambition of
improvement, which, enlarging its appetite in proportion
to the acquisitions already made, may correspond with the
increase of his capacities, in every stage of a progressive
virtue, in every period of an endless existence? And to
what purpose but to excite this noble thirst of virtuous
proficiency, — to what purpose but to provide that the ob-
ject of the appetite may never be exhausted by gradual
attainment, hast thou imparted to thy creature's mind the
idea of thine own attribute of perfect, uncreated good-

355

But man, alas! hath ahiised thy gifts; and the tilings
that should have been for his peace are become to him an
occasion of falling-. Unmindful of the heioht of glory to
which he might attain, he has set his affections upon
earthly things. The first command, which was imposed
that he might form himself to the useful habit of implicit
obedience to his Maker's will, a slight temptation — the fair
show and fragrance of the forbidden fruit, moved him to
transgress. From that fatal hour, error hath seized his
understanding, appetite perverts his will, and the power of
habit, intended for the infinite exaltation of his nature,
operates to his ruin.

Man hath been false to himself; but his Maker's love
hath not forsaken him. By early promises of mercy, by
Moses and the prophets, and at last by his Son, God calls
his fallen creature to repentance. He hath provided an
atonement for past guilt. He promises the effectual aids
of his Holy Spirit, to counteract the power of perverted
habit, to restore light to the darkened understanding, to
tame the fury of inflamed appetite, to purify the soiled ima-
gination, and to foil the grand deceiver in every new at-
tempt. He calls us to use our best diligence to improve
under these advantages ; and it is promised to the faithful
and sincere, that by the perpetual operation of the Holy
Spirit on their minds, and by an alteration which at the ge-
neral resurrection shall take place in the constitution of the
body, they shall be promoted to a degree of perfection,
which, by the strength that naturally remains in man in his
corrupted state, they never could attain. They shall be
raised above the power of temptation, and placed in a con-
dition of happiness not inferior to that which, by God's ori-
ginal appointment, might have corresponded with the im-
provement of their moral state, had that improvement been
their own attainment, by a gradual progress from the
first state of innocence. That the devout and well-dis-
posed are thus by God's power made perfect, is the free gift
of God in Christ — the effect of undeserved mercy, exer-
2 A 2

356

cised in consideration of Christ's intercession and atone-
ment. Thus it is that fallen man is in Christ Jesus
" created anew unto those good works which God had be-
fore ordained that we should walk in them."' His lost ca-
pacity of improvement is restored, and the great career of
virtue is again before him. What, then, is the perfection
of man, in this state of redemption, but that which might
have been Adam's perfection in Paradise, — a desire of
moral improvement, duly proportioned to his natural ca-
pacity of improving ; and, for that purpose, expanding
without limit, as he rises in the knowledge of what is good,
and gathers strength in the practical habits of it?

Thus, you see, the proper goodness of man consists in
gradual improvement : and the desire of improvement, to
be truly perfective of his character, and to keep pace with
the growth of his moral capacities, must be boundless ia
its energies, or capable of an infinite enlargement.

Another property requisite in this desire of improvement,
to give it its perfective equality, is, that it should be disin-
terested. Virtue must be desired for its own sake, — not
as subservient to any farther end, or as the means of any
greater good. It has been thought an objection to the
morality of the Christian system, that as it teaches men to
shun vice on account of impending punishments, and to
cultivate virtuous habits in the hope of annexed rewards,
that therefore the virtue which itafiects to teach it teaches
not, teaching it upon mean and selfish motives. The ob-
jection perhaps may claim a hearing, because it is founded
on principles which the true Christian will of all men be
the last to controvert, — namely, that good actions, if they
arise from any other motive than the pure love of doing
good, or, which is the same thing, from the pure desire of
pleasing God, lose all pretension to intrinsic worth and
merit. God himself is good, by the complacenc}'^ which
his perfect nature finds in exertions of power to the pur-
poses of goodness ; and men are no otherwise good than
as they deiight in virtuous actions from the bare appre-

357

hensioii that they are good, without any selfish views to ad-
vantageous consequences. He that denies these principles
confounds the distinct ideas of the useful and the fair, and
leaves nothing remaining of genuine virtue but an empty
name. But our answer to the adversary is, that these are
the principles of Christianity itself; for St. Paul himself
places the perfection of the Christian character in that
quality of disinterested virtue which some have injuriously
supposed cannot belong to it. It may seem, perhaps, that
the strictness and purity of the precepts of Christianity ra-
ther heighten the objection than remove it ; that the ob-
jection, rightly understood, is this, — that the Christian
system is at variance with itself, its precepts exacting a
perfection of which the belief of its doctrines must neces-
sarily preclude the attainment ; for how is it possible that
a love of virtue and religion should be disinterested, which
in its most improved state, is confessedly accompanied
with the expectation of an infinite reward? A little atten-
tion to the nature of the Christian's hope — to the extent of
his knowledge of the reward he seeks, will solve this diffi-
culty. It will appear, that the Christian's desire of that
happiness which the gospel promises to the virtuous in a
future life, — that the desire of this happiness, and the pure
love of virtue for its own sake, paradoxical as the assertion
may at first seem, are inseparably connected : for the truth
is, that the Christian's love of virtue does not arise from a
previous desire of the reward ; but his desire of the reward
arises from a previous love of virtue. Observe that I do
not speak of any love of virtue previous to his conversion
to Christianity : but I affirm, that the first and immediate
efi'ect of his conversion is to inspire him with the genuine
love of virtue and religion; and that his desire of the
reward is a secondary and subordinate eflfect — a conse-
quence of the love of virtue previously formed in him: for,
of the nature of the reward it promises, what does the
gospel discover to us more than this — that it shall be great
and endless, and adapted to the intellectual endowments and
moral qualities of the human soul in a state of high im-

358

proveiiieiit ? — and, from this general view of it, as the
proper condition of the virtuous, it becomes the object of
the Christian's desire and his hope. " It doth not yet ap-
pear," saith St. John, " what we shall be : but we know that
when he shall appear (that is, v/hen Christ shall appear) we
shall be like him; for we shall see hira as he is." This,
you see, is our hope, — to be made like to Christ our
Saviour, in the blessed day of his appearance : and "he
that hath this hope in him" — this general hope of being
transformed into the likeness of his glorified Lord, of
whose glory, which, as he hath not seen, he hath no dis-
tinct and adequate conception — " purifies himself, as he
is pure." Of the particular enjoyments in which his
future happiness will consist, the Christian is ignorant.
The gospel describes them by images only and allusions,
which lead only to this general notion, that they will be
such as to give entire satisfaction to all desires of a virtu-
ous soul. Our opinion of their value is founded on a
sense of the excellence of virtue, and on faith in God as
the protector of the virtuous. The Christian gives a
preference to that particular kind of happiness to which a
life of virtue and religion leads, in the general persuasion,
that of all possible happiness that must be the greatest
which so good a being as God hath annexed to so excellent
a thing in the creature as the shadow of his own perfec-
tions. But the mind, to be susceptible of this persuasion,
must be previously possessed with an esteem and love of
virtue, and with just apprehensions of God's perfections :
and the desire of the reward can never divest the mind of
that disinterested love of God and goodness on which it is
itself founded ; nor can it assume the relation of a cause
to that of which it is itself the effect. It appears, therefore,
that the Christian's love of goodness — his desire of virtu-
ous attainments, is, in the strict and literal meanina: of the
word, disinterested, notwithstanding the magnitude of the
reward which is the object of his hope. The magnitude
of that reward is an object of faith, not of sense or know-
ledge ; and it is commended to his faith, by his just sense

359

ot" the importance of the attainments to whicli it is pro-
raised.

If any one imagines he can be actuated by principles
more disinterested than these, he forgets that he is a man
and not a god. Happiness must be a constant object of
desire and pursuit to every intelligent being, — that is, to
every being, who, besides the actual perception of present
pleasure and present pain, hath the power of forming gene-
ral ideas of happiness and misery as distinct states arising
from different causes. Every being that hath this degree of
intelligence is under the government of final causes ; and
the advancement of his own happiness, if it be not already
entire and secure, must be an end. It is impossible, there-
fore, that any rational agent, unless he be either sufficient
to his own happiness, which is the prerogative of God, or
hath some certain assurance that his condition will not be
altered for the worse, which will hereafter be the glorious
privilege of the saints who overcome, — but without this
prerogative or this privilege, it is impossible that any rati-
onal being should be altogether unconcerned about the
consequences of his moral conduct, as they may affect his
own condition. In the present life, the advantages are
not on the side of virtue : all comes alike to all — " to him
that sacrificeth and him that sacrificeth not — to him that
sweareth and to him that feareth an oath :" and if a con-
stitution of things were to continue for ever in which virtue
should labour under disadvantages, man might still have
tlie virtue to regret that virtue was not made for him ; but
discretion must be his ruling principle ; and discretion, in
this state of things, could propose no end but immediate
pleasure and present interest. The gospel, extending our
views to a future period of existence, delivers the believer
from the uneasy apprehension that interest and duty may
possibly be at variance. It delivers him from that distrust
of Providence, which the present face of things, without
some certain prospect of futurity, would be too apt to
create ; and sets him at liberty to pursue virtue, with all

360

that ardour of affection which its native worth may claim,
and gratitude to God, his Maker and Redeemer, may excite.
It is true, the alternative which the gospel holds out is
endless happiness in heaven or endless suffering in hell ;
and the view of this alternative may well be supposed to
operate to a certain degree on base and sordid minds, — ■
on those who, without any sense of virtue, or any prefer-
ence of its proper enjoyments as naturally the greatest
good, make no other choice of heaven than as the least of
two great evils. To be deprived of sensual gratifications,
they hold to be an evil of no moderate size, to which they
must submit in heaven ; but yet they conceive of this ab-
sence of pleasure as more tolerable than positive torment,
which they justly apprehend those who are excluded from
heaven must undergo in the place of punishment. On
minds thus depraved, the view of the alternative of endless
happiness or endless misery was intended to operate ; and
it is an argument of God's wonderful mercy, that he has
been pleased to display such prospects of futurity as may
affect the human mind in its most corrupt and hardened
state, — that men in this unworthy state, in this state of
enmity with God, are yet the objects of his care and pity,
— that " he willeth not the death of a sinner, but that the
sinner should turn from his way and live." But, to ima-
gine that any one v/hom the warnings of the gospel may
no otherwise affect than v.'ith the dread of the punishment
of sin, — that any one in whom they may work only a re-
luctant choice of heaven as eligible only in comparison
with a state of torment, does, merely in those feelings, or
by a certain pusillanimity in vice, v/hich is the most those
feelings can affect, satisfy the duties of the Christian call-
ing,— to imagine this, is a strange misconception of the
whole scheme of Christianity. The utmost good to be
expected from the principle of fear is that it may induce a
state of mind in which better principles may take effect.
It may bring the sinner to hesitate between self-denial
here with heaven- in reversion, and gratification here with

361

future sufferings. In this state of ambiguity, the mind
deliberates : while the mind deliberates, appetite and pas-
sion intermit : while they intermit, conscience and reason
energize. Conscience conceives the idea of the moral
good : reason contemplates the new and lovely image with
delight ; she becomes the willing pupil of religion ; she
learns to discern in each created thing the print of sove-
reign goodness, and in the attributes of God descries its
first and perfect form. New views and new desires occupy
the soul. Virtue is understood to be the resemblance of
God : his resemblance is coveted, as the highest attain-
ment : heaven is desired, as the condition of those who
resemble him ; and the intoxicating cup of pleasure is re-
fused,— not that the mortal palate might not find it sweet,
but because vice presents it. When the habit of the mind
is formed to these views and these sentiments, then, and
not before, the Christian character, in the judgment of
St. Paul, is perfect ; and the perfective quality of this dis-
position of the mind lies principally in this circumstance,
that it is a disinterested love of virtue and religion as the
chief object. The disposition is not the less valuable nor
the less good, when it is once formed, because it is the last
stage of a gradual progress of the mind which may too
often perhaps begin in nothing better than a sense of guilt
and a just fear of punishment. The sweetness of the
ripened fruit is not the less delicious for the austerity of
its cruder state : nor is this Christian righteousness to be
despised, if, amid the various temptations of the world, a
sense of the danger, as well as the turpitude of a life of
sin, should be necessary not only to its beginning but to
its permanency. The whole of our present life is but the
childhood of our existence : and children are not to be
trained to the wisdom and virtues of men without more
or less of a compulsive discipline ; at the same time that
perfection must be confessed to consist in that pure love of
God and of his law which casteth out fear.

We have now seen, that the perfective quality which

362

the apostle ascribes to the Christian's desire of improve-
ment consists much in these two properties, — that it is
boundless in its energies, and disinterested in its object.
A third renders it complete ; which is this, — that this ap-
petite of the mind (for such it may be called, although in-
satiable, and, in the strictest sense of the word, disinterested)
is nevertheless rational ; inasmuch as its origin is entirely
in the understanding, and personal good, though not its
object, is rendered by the appointment of Providence, and
by the promises of the gospel, its certain consequence.
Upon the whole, it appears that the perfection of the Chris-
tian character, as it is described by the apostle, consists in
that which is the natural perfection of the man, — in a
principle which brings every thought and desire of the
mind into an entire subjection to the will of God, render-
ing a religious course of life a matter of choice no less
than of duty and interest.

SERMON XXIX.

This matter is by the decree of the Watchers, and the demand by the
word of the Holy Ones ; to the intent that the living raay know that
the Most High ruletli in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whom-
soever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.* — Daniel
iv. 17.

The matter which the text refers to the " decree of the
Watchers," and " the demand of the Holy Ones," is the
judgment which, after no long time, was about to fall
upon Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of whom we read
so much in history, sacred and profane. His conquest of
the Jewish nation, though a great event in the history of

* Preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Asaph, on Thursday, De-
cember 5, 1805; being the day of public thanksgiving for the victory
obtained by Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, over the combined fleets of
France and Spain, off Cape Trafalgar.

SCy'S

the church, was but a small part of this prince's story.
The kingdom of Babylon came to him by inheritance from
his father. Upon his accession, he made himself master
of all the rest of the Assyrian empire ; and to these vast
dominions he added, by a long series of wars of unparal-
leled success, the wdiole of that immense tract of country
which extends from the banks of the Euphrates westward
to the sea-coasts of Palestine and Phoenicia and the border
of Egypt. Nor was he more renowned in war than justly
admired in peace, for public works of the highest utility
and magnificence. To him the famous city of Babylon
owed whatever it possessed of strength, of beauty, or con-
venience,— its solid walls with their hundred gates, immense
in circuit, height, and thickness — its stately temple and its
proud palace, with the hanging gardens — its regular streets
and spacious squares — the embankments, which confined
the river — the canals, which carried off the floods — and
the vast reservoir, which in seasons of drought (for to the
vicissitudes of immoderate rains and drouo^ht the climate
was liable) supplied the city and tl>e adjacent country with
water. In a word, for the extent of his dominion, and the
great revenues it supplied — for his unrivalled success in
war — for the magnificence and splendour of his court —
and for his stupendous works and improvements at Baby-
lon, he was the greatest monarch, not only of his own
times, but incomparably the greatest the world had ever
seen, without exception even of those whose names are
remembered as the first civilizers of mankind — the Egyp-
tian Sesostris and the Indian Bacchus. But great as this
prince's talents and endowments must have been, his un-
interrupted and unexampled prosperity was too much for
the digestion of his mind. His heart grew vain in the
contemplation of his grandeur : he forgot that he was a
man ; and he affected divine honours. His impious pride
received indeed a check, by the miraculous deliverance of
the three faithful Jews from the furnace to which they had
been condemned. His mind at first was much affected by

364

the miracle ; but the impression in time wore off, and the
intoxication of power and prosperity returned upon him.
God was therefore pleased to humble him, and to make
him an example to the world and to himself, of the frailty
of all human power — the instability of all human greatness.
I say, an example to the world and to himself; for it is
very remarkable, that the king's own conversion was in
part an object of the judgment inflicted upon him : and,
notwithstanding what has been said to the contrary, upon
no ground at all, by a foreign commentator of great name,
it is evident, from the sacred history, that object was accom-
plished ; and it was in order to the accomplishment of it
that the king had warning of the impending visitation in
a dream. That a dispensation of judgment should be tem-
pered with such signal mercy to a heathen prince, not, like
Cyrus, eminent for his virtues, however distinguished by
his talents, is perhaps in some degree to be put to the ac-
count of the favour he showed to many of the Jews his
captives, and in particular to his constant patronage of the
prophet Daniel. At a time when there was nothing in his
situation to fill his mind with gloomy thoughts, " for he
was at rest in his house, and flourishing in his palace," he
saw in a dream a tree strong and flourishing: its summit
pierced the clouds, and its branches overshadowed the
whole extent of his vast dominions : it was laden with
fruit, and luxuriant in its foliage : the cattle reposed in its
shade, and the fowls of the air lodged in its branches ;
and multitudes partook of its delicious fruit. But the
king saw a celestial being, a Watcher and a Holy One,
come down from heaven ; and heard him give order with
a loud voice, that the tree should be hewn down, its branches
lopped off, and its fruit scattered, and nothing left of it but
" the stump of its roots in the earth," which was to be se-
cured, however, with a " band of iron and brass, in the
tender grass of the field." Words of menace follow, which
are applicable only to a man, and plainly show that the
whole vision was typical of some dreadful calamity, to fall

365

for a time, but tor a time ouly^ on some one of the sons of
men.

The interpretation of this dream was beyond the skill of
all the wise men of the kingdom. Daniel was called, who,
by the interpretation of a former dream, which had been
too hard for the Chaldeans and the Magi, and for the pro-
fessed diviners of all denominations, had acquired great
credit and favour with the king; and before this time had
been promoted to the highest offices in the state, and,
amongst others, to that of president of the college of the
Mao;i. Daniel told the king that the tree which he had
seen so strong and flourishing was himself, — that the hew-
ing down of the tree was a dreadful calamity that should
befall him, and continue till he should be brought to know
" that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and
giveth it to whomsoever he will."

Strange as it must seem, notwithstanding Daniel's weight
and^ credit with the King — notwithstanding the conster-
nation of mind into which the dream had thrown him, this
warning had no permanent effect. He was not cured of
his overweening pride and vanity, till he was overtaken
by the threatened judgment. " At the end of twelve
months, he was walking in the palace of the kingdom of
Babylon," — probably on the flat roof of the building, or
perhaps on one of the highest terraces of the hanging
gardens, where the whole city would lie in prospect
before him; and he said, in the exultation of his heart,
" Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the
seat of empire, by the might of my power, and for the
honour of my majesty?" The words had scarcely passed
his lips, when '• the might of his power and the honour
of his majesty " departed from him. The same voice
which in the dream had predicted the judgment, now
denounced the impending execution; and the voice had
no sooner ceased to speak than the thing was done.

This is " the matter," — this judgment, thus predicted
and thus executed, is the matter which the text refers to

366

*' the decree of the Watchers" and " the word of the Holy
Ones." " The matter is by the decree of the Watchers,
and the requisition is by the word of the Holy Ones ;" and
the intent of the matter is to oive mankind a proof, in the
fall and restoration of this mighty monarch, that the fortunes
of kings and empires are in the hand of God, — that his
providence perpetually interposes in the aftairs of men,
distributing crowns and sceptres, always for the good of
the faithful primarily, ultimately of his whole creation, but
according to his will.

To apprehend rightly how the judgment upon Nebuchad-
nezzar, originating, as it is represented in the text, in the
"decree of the Watchers, and in the word of the Holy
Ones,'' affords an instance of the immediate interference of
God's providence in the affairs of men, it is very necessary
that the text should be better than it generally has been
hitherto understood : and the text never can be rightly
understood, until we ascertain loho they are, and to what
class of be'mgs they belong, who are called " the Watchers"
and " the Holy Ones ;'" for, according as these terms are
differently expounded, the text will lead to very different,
indeed to opposite conclusions, — to true conclusions, if
these terms are rightly understood — to most false and
dangerous conclusions, if they are ill interpreted.

I am ashamed to say, that if you consult very pious and
very learned commentators, justly esteemed for their illus-
trations of the Bible generally, you will be told these
" Watchers" and '* Holy Ones" are angels, — principal
angels, of a very high order, they are pleased to say, such
as are in constant attendance upon the throne of God.
And so much skill have some of these good and learned
men affected in the heraldry of angels, that they pretend
to distinguish the different rank of the different denomi-
nations. The " Watchers," they say, are of the highest
rank; the "Holy Ones," very high in rank, but inferior
to the "Watchers:" and the angels are introduced upon
this occasion, they say, in allusion to the proceeding* of

3G7

earthly princes, who publish their decrees with the advice
of their chief ministers.

This interpretation of these words is founded upon a
notion which got ground in the Christian church many
ages since, and unfortunately is not yet exploded ; name-
ly, that God's government of this lower world is carried on
by the administration of the holy angels, — that the dif-
ferent orders (and those who broached this doctrine could
tell us exactly how many orders there are, and how many
angels in each order) — that the different orders have their
different departments in government assigned to them :
some, constantly attending in the presence of God, form
his cabinet council ; others are his provincial governors ;
every kingdom in the w^orld having its appointed guardian
angel, to whose management it is intrusted : others again
are supposed to have the charge and custody of indivi-
duals. This system is in truth nothing better than the
Pagan polytheism, somewhat disguised and qualified ; for,
in the Pagan system, every nation had its tutelar deity, all
subordinate to Jupiter, the sire of gods and men. Some
of those prodigies of ignorance and folly, the rabbin of the
Jews who lived since the dispersion of the nation, thought
all would be well if for tutelar deities they substituted tu-
telar angels. From this substitution the system which I
have described arose ; and from the Jews, the Christians,
with other fooleries, adopted it. But, by whatever name
these deputy gods be called, — whether you call them gods,
or demigods, or demons, or genii, or heroes, or angels, —
the difference is only in the name ; the thing in substance
is the same; they still are deputies, invested with a sub-
ordinate, indeed, but with an high authority, in the exer-
cise of which they are much at liberty, and at their own
discretion. If this opinion were true, it would be difficult
to show that the heathen were much to blame in the wor-
ship which they rendered to them. The officers of any
great king are entitled to homage and respect in propor-
tion to the authority committed to them; and the grant of

368

the power is a legal title to such respect. These officers,
therefore, of the greatest of kings, will be entitled to the
greatest reverence; and as the governor of a distant pro-
vince will, in many cases, be more an object of awe and
veneration to the inhabitants than the monarch himself,
with whom they have no immediate connexion, so the
tutelar deity or angel will, with those who are put under
him, supersede the Lord of all: and the heathen, who
worshipped those who were supposed to have the power
over them, were certainly more consistent with themselves
than they who, acknowledging the power, v/ithhold the
worship.

So neai'ly allied to idolatry — or rather so much the
same thing with polytheism, is this notion of the admi-
nistration of God's government by the authority of angels.
And surely it is strange, that, in this age of light and
learning, Protestant divines should be heard to say that
*^ this doctrine seems to be countenanced by several pas-
sages of Scripture."

That the holy angels ai-e often employed by God, in
his government of this sublunary world, is indeed clearly
to be proved by holy writ: that they have powers over the
matter of the universe, analogous to the powers over it
which men possess, greater in extent, but still limited, is
a thing which might reasonabl}^ be supposed, if it were
not declared ; but it seems to be confirmed by many pas-
sages of holy writ, from which it seems also evident that
they are occasionally, for certain specific purposes, com-
missioned to exercise those powers to a prescribed extent.
That the evil angels possessed before their fall the like
powers, which they are still occasionally permitted to
exercise for the punishment of wicked nations, seems also
evident. That they have a power over the human sensory
(which is part of the material universe), which they are
occasionally permitted to exercise, by means of which they
may inflict diseases, suggest evil thoughts, and be the
instruments of temptations, must also be admitted. But

369

all this amounts not to aii}^ thing of a discretional autho-
rity placed in the hands of tutelar angels, or to an au-
thority to advise the Lord God with respect to the mea-
sures of his government. Confidently I deny that a single
text is to be found in holy writ, which, rightly understood,
gives the least countenance to the abominable doctrine of
such a participation of the holy angels in God's govern-
ment of the world.

In what manner, then, it may be asked, are the holy
angels made at all subservient to the purposes of God's
government? — This question is answered by St Paul in
his Epistle to the Hebrews, in the last verse of the first
chapter: and this is the only passage in the whole Bible
in which we have any thing explicit upon the oflice and
employment of angels. " Are they not all,'' saith he, " mi-
nistering spirits, sent forth to minister for them that shall
be heirs of salvation?"' They are all, however high in
rank and order, — they are all nothing more than "minis-
tering spirits," or, literally, "serving spirits; "not invested
with authority of their own, but " sent forth" — occasionally
sent forth to do such service as may be required of them,
"for them that shall be heirs of salvation." This text is
the conclusion of the comparison which the apostle insti-
tutes between the Son of God and the holy angels, in order
to prove the great superiority in rank and nature of the
Son ; and the most that can be made of angels is, that
they are servants, occasionally employed by the Most
High God to do his errands for the elect.

An accurate discussion of all the passages of Scripture
which have been supposed to favour the contrary opinion,
would much exceed the just limits of this Discourse; I
shall only say of them generally, that they are all abused
texts, wrested to a sense which never would have been
dreamed of in any one of them, had not the opinion of the
government of angels previously taken hold of the minds
of too many of the learned. In the consideration of par-
ticular texts so misinterpreted, I shall confine myself to
2 b

370

such as occur in the prophet Daniel, from vvliose writings
til is monstrous doctrine has been supposed to have received
great support; and of these I shall consider my text last
of all.

In the prophet Daniel, we read of the angel Gabriel by-
name, who, together with others unnamed, is employed to
exhibit visions typical of future events to the prophet, and
to expound them to him : but there is nothing in this
employment of Gabriel and his associates which has the
most remote connexion with the supposed office of guar-
dian angels, either of nations and states, or of individuals.
We read of another personage superior to Gabriel, who
is named Michael. This personage is superior to Gabriel,
for he comes to help him in the greatest difficulties; and
Gabriel, the servant of the Most High God, declares that
this Michael is the only supporter he has. This is well
to be noted. Gabriel, one of God's ministering spirits,
sent forth, as such spirits are used to be, to minister for
the elect people of God, has no supporter in this business
but Michael. This great personage has been long distin-
guished in our calendars by the title of " Michael the
archangel.'' It has been for a long time a fashion in the
church to speak very frequently and familiarly of arch-
angels, as if they were an order of beings with which we
are perfectly well acquainted. Some say there are seven
of them. Upon what solid ground that assertion stands,
I know not: but this I know, that the word "archangel"
is not to be found in any one passage of the Old Testa-
ment. In the New Testament, the word occurs twice,
and only twice. One of the two passages is in the First
Epistle to the Thessalonians, where the apostle, among the
circumstances of the pomp of our Lord's descent from
heaven to the final judgment, mentions " the voice of the
archangel." The other passage is in the Epistle of St.
Jude, where the title of archangel is coupled with the
name of Michael. " Michael the archangel." This pas-
sage is so remarkably obscure, that I shall not attempt

371

to draw any conclu>;ion from it, but this, which manifestly
follows, be the particular sense of the passage what it
may : since this is one of two texts in, which alone the
word "archangel" is found in the whole Bible, — since in
this one text only the title of archangel is coupled with
any name, — and since the name with Avhich it is here
coupled is Michael, it follows undeniably that the arch-
angel Michael is the only archangel of whom we know
any thing from holy writ. It cannot be proved from holy
writ, — and if not from holy writ, it cannot be proved at
all, that any archangel exists but the one archangel Mi-
chael; and this one archangel Michael is unquestionably
the Michael of the book of Daniel.

I must observe, by the way, with respect to the import
of the title of archangel, that the word, by its etymology,
clearly implies a superiority of rank and authority in the
person to whom it is applied. It implies a command
over angels ; and this is all that the word of necessity
implies. But it follows not, by any sound rule of argu-
ment, that because no other superiority than that of rank
and authority is implied in the title, no other belongs to
the person distinguished by the title, and that he is in all
other respects a mere angel. Since we admit various
orders of intelligent beings, it is evident that a being
highly above the angelic order may command angels.

To ascertain, if we can, to what order of beings the
archangel Michael may belong, let us see how he is de-
scribed by the prophet Daniel, who never describes him
by that title; and what action is attributed to him in the
book of Daniel, and in another book, in which he bears a
very principal part.

Now Daniel calls him "one of the chief princes," or
" one of the capital princes," or " one of the princes that
are at the head of all :" for this I maintain to be the full,
and not more than the full import of the Hebrew words.
Now, since w^e are clearly got above the earth, into the
order of celestials, who are the princes that m'ejirst, or at
2 b2

372

the head of all? — are they any other than the Three Per-
sons in the Godhead? Michael therefore is one of them ;
but which of them ? This is not left in doubt. Gabriel,
speaking of him to Daniel, calls him, "Michael, your
prince," and "the great prince which standeth for the
children of thy people ;" that is, not for the nation of the
Jews in particular, but for the children, the spiritual chil-
dren of that holy seed the elect people of God, — a descrip-
tion which applies particularly to the Son of God, and to
no one else. And in perfect consistence with this descrip-
tion of Michael in the book of Daniel, is the action as-
signed to him in the Apocalypse, in which we find him
fighting with the Old Serpent, the deceiver of the world,
and victorious in the combat. That combat who was to
maintain, — in that combat who was to be victorious, but
the seed of the woman ? From all this it is evident, that
Michael is a name for our Lord himself, in his particular
character of the champion of his faithful people, against
the violence of the apostate faction and the wiles of the
Devil. In this point I have the good fortune to have a
host of the learned on my side ; and the thing will be
farther evident from what is yet to come.

We have as yet had but poor success in our search for
guardian angels, or for angels of the cabinet, in the book
of Daniel ; but there are a sort of persons mentioned in it
whom we have not yet considered, — namely, those who
are called "the princes of Persia and of Grsecia." As
these princes personally oppose the angel Gabriel, and
Michael his supporter, I can hardly agree with those who
have taken them for princes in the literal acceptation of
the word, — that is, for men reigning in those countries.
But if that interpretation could be established, these princes
would not be angels of any sort ; and my present argu-
ment would have no concern with them. If they are be-
ings of the angelic order, they must be evil angels ; for
good angels would not oppose and resist the great prince
Michael, and his angel Gabriel. If they were evil angels,

373

they could not be tutelar angels of Persia and of Grsecia
respectively, or of any other country. But, to come di-
rectly to the point : since they fight with Michael, to those
who are conversant with the prophetic style, and have ob-
served the imiformity of its images, it will seem highly
probable that the angels which fight with Michael in the
book of Daniel are of the same sort with those who fight
with Michael, under the banners of the Devil, in the
twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. " There was war in
heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the Dragon ;
and the Dragon fought and his angels." The vision of
the war in heaven, in the Apocalypse, represents the vehe-
ment struggles between Christianity and the old idolatry
in the first ages of the gospel. The angels of the two op-
posite armies represent two opposite parties in the Roman
state, at the time which the vision more particularly re-
gards. Michael's angels are the party v/hich espoused
the side of the Christian religion, the friends of which
had for many years been numerous, and became very
powerful under Constantine the Great, the first Christian
emperor: the Dragon's angels are the party which endea-
voured to support the old idolatry. And, in conformity
with this imagery of the Apocalypse, the princes of Persia,
in the book of Daniel, are to be understood, I think, of a
party in the Persian state which opposed the return of the
captive Jews, first after the death of Cyrus, and again
after the death of Darius Hystaspes. And the prince of
Grsecia is to be understood of a party in the Greek empire
which persecuted the Jewish religion after the death of
Alexander the Great, particularly in the Greek kingdom
of Syria.

We have now considered all the angels and supposed
ano-els of the book of Daniel, except the personages in my
text ; and we have found as yet no tutelar angel of any
province or kingdom — no member of any celestial senate
or privy council. Indeed, with respect to the latter no-
tion of angels of the presence, although it has often been

374

assumed in exposition of some passages in Daniel, the
confirmation of it has never been attempted, to the best of
my recollection, by reference to that book. Its advocates
have chiefly relied on Micaiah's vision, related in the
twenty-second chapter of the First Book of Kings ; in
which, they say, Jehovah is represented as sitting in coun-
cil with his angels, and advising with them upon mea-
sures. But, if you read the account of this vision in the
Bible, you will find that this is not an accurate recital of
it. " Micaiah saw Jehovah sitting on his throne, and all
the host of heaven standing by him, on his right-hand and
on his left." Observe, the heavenly host are not in the
attitude of counsellors, sitting ; they are standing, in the
attitude of servants, ready to receive commands, and to be
sent forth each upon his proper errand. " And Jehovah said
— Whoshallpersuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at
Ramoth Gilead?" Here is no consultation : no advice is
asked or given. The only question asked is — Who, of
the whole multitude assembled, will undertake a particular
service ? The answers were various. " Some spake on
this manner, and some on that ;" none, as it should seem,
showing any readiness for the business, till one, more for-
ward than the rest, presented himself before the throne,
and said — " I will persuade him." He is asked, by way
of trial of his qualifications, "How?" He gives a satis-
factory answer ; and, being both ready for the business
and found equal to it, is sent forth. If this can be called
a consultation, it is certainly no such consultation as a
great monarch holds with his prime ministers, but such
as a military commander might hold with privates in the
ranks.

Having thus disposed, I think, of all the passages in the
book of Daniel which mention beings of the angelic or of
a superior order, except my text, I can now proceed to the
exposition of that, upon very safe and certain grounds.

Among those who understand the titles of " Watchers"
and " Holy Ones" of angelic beings, it is not quite agreed

375

wliether they are angels of the cabinet, or the provincial
g-overnors — the tutelar angels, to whom these appellations
belong. The majority, I think, are for the former. But
it is agreed by all, that they must be principal angels —
angels of the highest orders; which, if they are angels at
all, must certainly be supposed : for it is to be observed,
that it is not the mere execution of the judgment upon
Nebuchadnezzar, but the decree itself, which is ascribed
to them. The whole matter originated in their decree ;
and at their command the decree was executed. " The
Holy Ones" are not said to hew down the tree, but to give
command for the hewing of it down. Of how high order,
indeed, must these " Watchers and Holy Ones" have been,
on whose decrees thejudgments of God himself are founded,
and by whom the warrant for the execution is finally is-
sued ! It is surprising, that such men as Calvin among
the Protestants of the Continent* — such as Wells and the
elder Lowth in our own church — and such as Calmet in
the Church of Rome, should not have their eyes open to
the error and impiety indeed of such an exposition as this,
which makes them angels ; especially when the learned
Grotius, in the extraordinary manner in which he recom-
mends it, had set forth its merits, as it should seem, in the
true light, when he says that it represents God as acting-
like a great monarch "upon a decree of his senate," —
and when another of the most learned of its advocates
imagines something might pass in the celestial senate
bearing some analogy to the forms of legislation used in
the assemblies of the people at Rome, in the times of the
republic. It might have been expected that the exposition
would have needed no other confutation, in the judgment

* Calvin, indeed, seems to have had some apprehension that this ex-
position (which, however, he adopted) makes too much of angels, and
to have been embarrassed with the difficulty. He has recourse to an
admirable expedient to get over it. He says the whole vision was ac-
commodated to the capacity of a heathen king, who had but a confined
knowledge of God, and could not distinguish between him and the
angels.

376

of men of piety and sober minds, than this lair statement
of its principles by its ablest advocates.

The plain truth is, and some learned men, though but
few, have seen it, that these appellations, " Watchers'
and " Holy Ones," denote the Persons in the Godhead ;
the first describing them by the vigilance of their univer-
sal providence, — the second, by the transcendent sanctity
of their nature. The word rendered " Holy Ones" is so
applied in other texts of Scripture, which make the sense
of the other word coupled with it here indisputable. In
perfect consistency with this exposition, and with no other,
we find, in the twenty-fourth verse, that this decree of the
" Watchers" and the " Holy Ones" is the decree of the
Most High God : and in a verse preceding my text, God,
who, in regard to the plurality of the persons, is afterward
described by these two "plural nouns, " Watchers" and
" Holy Ones," is, in regard to the unity of the essence,
described by the same nouns in the singular number,
"Watcher" and "Holy One." And this is a fuller con-
firmation of the truth of this exposition : for God is the
only being to whom the same name in the singular and in
the plural may be indiscriminately applied ; and this
change from the one number to the other, without any
thing in the principles of language to account for it, is
frequent, in speaking of God, in the Hebrew tongue, but
unexampled in the case of any other being.

The assertion, therefore, in my text is, that God had
decreed to execute a signal judgment upon Nebuchadnez-
zar for his pride and impiety, in order to prove, by the
example of that mighty monarch, that " the Most High
ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomso-
ever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men."
To make the declaration the more solemn and striking, the
terms in which it is conceived distinctly express that con-
sent and concurrence of all the persons in the Trinity in
the design and execution of this judgment, which must be
understood indeed in every act of the Godhead. And in

377

truth, we shall not find in history a more awful example
and monument of Providence than the vicissitudes of Ne-
buchadnezzar's life afford.

Raised gradually to the pimiacle of power and human
glory, by a long train of those brilliant actions and suc-
cesses which man is too apt to ascribe entirely to himself
(the proximate causes being indeed in himself and in the
instruments he uses, although Providence is always the
prime efficient), he was suddenly cast down from it, and,
after a time, as suddenly restored, without any natural or
human means. His humiliation was not the effect of any
reverse of fortune, of any public disaster, or any mis-
management of the affairs of his empire. At the expira-
tion of a twelvemonth from his dream, the king, still at
rest in his house and flourishing in his palace, surveying
his city, and exulting in the monuments of his own great-
ness which it presented to his eye, was smitten by an in-
visible hand. As tlie event stood unconnected with any
known natural cause, it must have been beyond the ken
of any foresight short of the Divine ; and it follows incon-
testibly, that the prediction and. the accomplishment of it
were both from God. The king's restoration to power and
grandeur had also been predicted ; and this took place at
the predicted time, independently of any natural cause,
and without the use of any human means. And the evi-
dence of these extraordinary occurrences — of the predic-
tion, the fall, and the restoration — is, perhaps, the most
undeniable of any thing that rests upon mere human testi-
mony. The king himself, upon his recovery, published
a manifesto in every part of his vast empire, giving an
account of all which had befallen him, and in conclusion
giving praise and honour to the King of heaven ; acknow^-
ledging that "all his works are truth, and his ways judg-
ment, and that those who walk in pride he is able to abase."
The evidence of the whole fact, therefore, stands upon
this public record of the Babylonian empire, which is
preserved verba tun in the fourth chapter of the book of

378

Dciiiiel, of vvhicli it makes indeed the vvliole. That cliap-
ter therefore is not Daniel's writing, but Nebucliadnez-
zar's.

Nothing can so much fortify the minds of the faithful
against all alarm and consternation, — nothing so much
maintain them in an unruffled composure of mind, amid
all the tumults and concussions of the world around them,
as a deep conviction of the truth of the principle incul-
cated in my text, and confirmed by the acknowledgment
of the royal penitent Nebuchadnezzar, "that the Most
High ruleth in the kingdom of men." But as this doctrine,
so full of consolation to the godly, is liable to be perverted
and abused by that sort of men who wrest the Scriptures
to the destruction of themselves and others, — notwith-
standing that my Discourse has already run to a greater
length than I intended, the present occasion demands of
me to open the doctrine in some points more fully, and to
apply it to the actual circumstances of the world and of
ourselves.

It is the express assertion of the text, and the language
indeed of all the Scriptures, that God governs the world
according to his will ; — by which we must understand a
will perfectly independent, and unbiassed by any thing
external ; yet not an arbitrary will, but a will directed by
the governing perfections of the Divine intellect — by Gods
own goodness and wisdom : and as justice is included in
the idea of goodness, it must be a will governed by God's
justice. But God's justice, in its present dispensations, is
a justice accommodated to our probationary state, — a jus-
tice which, making the ultimate happiness of those who
shall finally be brought by the probationary discipline to
love and fear God, its end, regards the sum-total and ulti-
mate issue of things — not the comparative deserts of men
at the present moment. To us, therefore, who see the pre-
sent moment only, the government of the world will appear
upon many occasions not conformable, in our judgments,
formed upon limited and narrow views of things, to the

379
maxims of distributive justice. We see power unci pros-
perity not at all proportioned to merit; for " the Most
High, who ruleth in the kingdom of men, giveth it to
whomsoever he ivili, and setteth up over it the basest of
men," — men base by the turpitude of their wicked lives,
more than by the obscurity of their original condition ;
while good kings are divested of their hereditary domi-
nions, dethroned, and murdered : insomuch, that if power
and prosperity were sure marks of the favour of God for
those by whom they are possessed, the observation of the
poet, impious as it seems, would too often be verified :

" The conqueror is Heaven's favourite ; but on earth.
Just men a])prove and honour more the vanquisli'd."'*

As at this moment the w^orld beholds with wonder and dis-
may the low-born usurper of a great monarch's throne,
raised, by the hand of Providence unquestionably, to an
eminence of power and grandeur enjoyed by none since
the subversion of the Roman empire ; — a man whose un-
daunted spirit and success in enterprise might throw a
lustre over the meanest birth, while the profligacy of his
private and the crimes of his public life would disgrace
the noblest. When we see the imperial diadem circling
this monster's brows, — while we confess the hand of God
in his elevation, let us not be tempted to conclude from
this, or other similar examples, that He who ruleth in the
kingdom of men delights in such characters, or that he is
even indifferent to the virtues and to the vices of men. It
is not for his own sake that such a man is raised from the
dunghill on which he sprang, but for the good of God's
faithful servants, who are the objects of his constant care
and love even at the time when they are suffering under
the tyrant's cruelty : for who can doubt that the seven
brethren and their mother were the objects of God's love,
and their persecutor Antiochus Epiphanes of his hate ?
But such persons are raised up and permitted to indulge

f * " \'ictri.\ causa Diis placuit ; sed victa Catoni. "

380

their lerocious passions, their ambition, their cruelty, and
their revenge, as the instruments of God's judgments for
the reformation of his people ; and when that purpose is
answered, vengeance is executed upon them for their own
crimes. Thus it was with the Syrian we have just men-
tioned, and with that more ancient persecutor Sennacherib,
and many more ; and so, we trust, it shall be with him
who now " smiteth the people in his wrath, and ruleth the
nations in his anger." When the nations of Europe shall
break off their sins by righteousness, the Corsican " shall
be persecuted with the fury of our avenging God, and none
shall hinder."

Again, if the thought that God ruleth the affairs of the
world according to his will were always present to the
minds of men, they would never be cast down beyond mea-
sure by any successes of an enemy, nor be unduly elated
with their own. The w^ill of God is a cause ever blended
with ajid overruling other causes, of which it is impossibl*^
from any thing past to calculate the future operation : what
is called the fortune of war, by this unseen and mysterious
cause, may be reversed in a moment.

Hence again it follows, that men, persuaded upon good
grounds of the justice of their cause, should not be discou-
raged even by great failures in the beginning of the con-
test, nor by sudden turns of ill fortune in the progress of
it. Upon such occasions, they should humble themselves
before God, confess their sins, and deprecate his judgments :
but they should not interpret every advantage gained by
the enemy as a sign that the sentence of God is gone forth
against themselves, and that they are already fallen not to
rise again. When the tribe of Benjamin refused to give
up " the children of Belial which were in Gibeah" to the
just resentment of their countrymen, the other tribes con-
federated, and with a great force made war upon them.
The cause of the confederates was just. The war, on their
part, was sanctioned by the voice of God himself; and it
was in the counsel and decree of God that they should be

381

ultimately victorious : yet, upon the attack of the town,
they were twice repulsed, with great slaughter. But they
were not driven to despair : they assembled themselves
before the house of God, and wept, and fasted. They re-
ceived command to go out again the third day. They
obeyed. They were victorious. Gibeah was burned to
the ground, and the guilty tribe of Benjamin was all but
extirpated ; — an edifying example to all nations to put their
trust in God in the most unpromising circumstances.

Again, a firm belief in God's providence, overruling the
fortunes of men and nations, will moderate our excessive
admiration of the virtues and talents of men, and particu-
larly of the great achievements of bad men, which are
always erroneously ascribed to their own high endow-
ments. Great virtues and great talents being indeed the
gifts of God, those on whom they are conferred are justly
entitled to respect and honour : but the Giver is not to be
forgotten, — the centre and source of all perfection, to whom
thanks and praise are primarily due even for those benefits
which are conve3^ed to us through his highly-favoured ser-
vants. But when the brilliant successes of bad men are
ascribed to themselves, and they are admired for those very
actions in which they are the most criminal, it is a most
dangerous error, and often fatal to the interests of man-
kind ; as, in these very times, nothing has so much con-
duced to establish the power of the Corsican and multiply
his successes, as the slavish fear of him which has seized
the minds of men, growing out of an admiration of his
boldness in enterprise on some occasions, and his hair-
breadth escapes on others, which have raised in the many
an opinion that he possesses such abilities, both in council
and in the field, as render him an overmatch for all the
statesmen and all the warriors of Europe, insomuch that
nothing can stand before him : whereas, in truth, it were
easy to find causes of his extraordinary success in the poli-
tical principles of the times in which he first arose, inde-
pendent of any uncommon talents of his own. — principally

382

in the revolutionary fi-enz}/, the spirit of treason and revolt,
which prevailed in the countries that were the first prey of
his unprincipled ambition. But, were this not the case,
yet were it impious to ascribe such a man's success to him-
self. It has been the will of God to set up over the king-
dom " the basest of men," in order to chastise the profane-
ness, the irreligion, the lukewarmness, the profligacy, the
turbulent, seditious spirit of the times ; and when this pur-
pose is eftected, and the wrath of God appeased, " wherein
is this man to be accounted of, whose breath is in his
nostrils?"

It is a gross perversion of the doctrine of Providence,
when any argument is drawn from it for the indifference
of all human actions in the sight of God, and the insigni-
ficance of all human efforts. Since every thing is settled
by Providence according to God's own will, to what avail,
it is said, is the interference of man ? At the commence-
ment of the disordered state which still subsists in Europe,
when apprehensions were expressed by many (apprehen-
sions which are still entertained by those who first expressed
them) that the great antichrist is likely to arise out of the
French revolution, it was argued by them who were friends
to the cause of France — " To what purpose is it then, upon
your own principles, to resist the French ? Antichrist is to
arise, — he is to prevail, — he is to exercise a wide dominion;
and what human opposition can set aside the fixed designs
of Providence?" Stranoe to tell, this aro-ument took with
many who were not friends to the French cause, so far at
least as to make them averse to the war with France. The
fallacy of the argument lies in this, that it considers Provir
dence by halves ; it considers Providence as ordaining an
end and effecting it without the use or the appointment at
least of means : whereas the true notion of Providence is,
that God ordains the means with the end ; and the means
which he employs are for the most part natural causes ;
and among them he makes men, acting without any know-
ledge of his secret will, from their own views as freeas:ents,

383

tlie instruments of his purpose. In tlie case of antichrist,
in particular, prophecy is explicit. So clearly as it is fore-
told that he shall rise, so clearly is it foretold that he shall
fall : so clearly as it is foretold that he shall raise himself
to power by successful war, so clearly it is foretold that
war — fierce and furious war, waged upon him by the
faithful, shall be in part the means of his downfall. So
false is all the despicable cant of Puritans about the un-
lawfulness of war. And, with respect to the present crisis,
if the will of God should be, that, for the punishment of
our sins, the enemy should prevail against us, we must
humble ourselves under the dreadful visitation : but if, as
we hope and trust, it is the will of God that the vile Cor-
sican shall never set his foot upon our shores, the loyalty
and valour of the country are, we trust, the appointed
means of his exclusion, " Be of good courage, then, and
play the men for your people ; and the Lord do that
which seemeth him good."

It is particularly necessary at this season that I should
warn you against another gross and dangerous perversion
of the doctrine of Providence, which is misconceived and
abused when we impute any successes with which we may
be blessed to any merit of our own engaging on our side
that will of God by which the universe is governed. If
we are successful in our contest with a tyrant who has
surpassed in crime all former examples of depravity in an
exalted station, we owe it not to ourselves, but to God's
unmerited mercy. Nor are we to ascribe it to any pre-
eminent righteousness of this nation, in comparison with
others, if we have suffered less and prospered more than
others engaged in the same quarrel. This country, since
the beginning of Europe's troubles to the present day, has
certainly been favoured beyond other nations : and at this
very crisis, — at the moment when the armies of our conti-
nental ally were flying before those of the common enemy,
— in that very moment, the combined fleets of France and
Spain, which were to have lowered the British flag, to have

384

wrested from us our ancient sovereigntj' of the ocean, and
to have extinguished our commerce in all its branches, —
this proud naval armament, encountered by a far inferior
force of British ships — a force inferior in every thing but
the intrepidity of our seamen and the skill of their leaders
— was dashed to pieces, at the mouth of its ovv^n harbour,
by the cannon of that great commander whose grave is
strewed with laurels and bedewed with his country's tears.
But let not this inspire the vain thought, that, because w^e
are righteous above all the nations of Europe, our lot has
therefore been happier than theirs. It has been ruled by
the highest authority, that they are not always the greatest
sinners on whom the greatest evils fall. The converse fol-
lows most undeniably, that those nations are not always
the most righteous who in peace are the most flourishing
and in war the most successful. Let us give therefore the
whole glory to God. In the hour of defeat, let us say —
" Why should man complain? — man, for the punishment
of his sins :" in the hour of victory — " Let us not be high-
minded, but fear."

SERMON XXX.

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even
the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Behold, he
shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may abide the day of
his coming ? and who shall stand when he appeareth r"'~MALACHi
iii. 1, 2.

For the general meaning of this passage, all expositors,
both Jewish and Christian, agree, and must indeed agree,
in one interpretation ; for the words are too perspicuous
to need elucidation or to admit dispute. The event an-
nounced is the appearance of that Great Deliverer who
had for many ages been the hope of Israel, and was to be
a blessinof to all the families of the earth. Concerning:

385

this Desire of Nations, this seed of the woman who was
to crush the serpent's head, Malachi in the text delivers
no new prediction; but, by an earnest asseveration, ut-
tered in the name and as it were in the person of the
Deity, he means to confirm that general expectation which
his predecessors in the prophetical office had excited.
"Behold he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts'' — Saith
the Lord of Hosts. This was a solemn form of words
with all the Jewish prophets, when they would express
the highest certainty of things to come, as fixed in the
decrees of Heaven, and notified to man by him to whom
power is never wanting to effect what his wisdom hath or-
dained. And the full import of the expression is nothing
less than this, — that the purpose of him whose counsels
cannot change, the veracity of God who cannot lie, stand
engaged to the accomplishment of the thing predicted.
" He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts." With this so-
lemn promise of the Saviour, Malachi, the last inspired
teacher of the Jewish church, closes the word of prophecy,
till a greater prophet should arise again to open it. It will
be a useful meditation, and well adapted to the present
season,* to consider the characters under which the person
is here described, whose coming is so pathetically foretold,
and the particulars of the business upon which he is said
to come; that we may see how exactly the one and the
other correspond to the person and performances of Jesus
of Nazareth. These meditations will both nmch contri-
bute to the general confirmation of our faith, and, in
particular, they will put us on our guard against those
gross corruptions of the Christian doctrine which the ca-
price and vanity of this licentious age have revived rather
than produced.

First, for the characters under which the person is de-
scribed whose coming is foretold. The first is, that he is
the Lord. The word, in the original, is the same which

* The season of Advent.
2 c

386

David uses in the hundred and tenth Psahn, when, speak-
ing of the Messiah, he says — "Jehovah said unto my
Lord." The original word in this passage of Malachi,
and in that of the hundred and tenth Psalm, is the same;
and in both places it is very exactly and properly rendered
by the English " Lord." The Hebrew word is not more
determinate in its signification than the English : it de-
notes dominion or superiority of any kind, — of a king-
over his subjects, of a master over his slave, of a husband
over his wife; and it seems to have been used, in com-
mon speech, without any notion of superiority, property,
or dominion, annexed to it, as a mere appellation of re-
spect, just as the word " Sir" is used in our language.
Nevertheless, in its primary signification, it denotes a
lord, in the sense of a governor, master, or proprietor;
and is used by the sacred writers as a title of the Deity
himself; expressing either his sovereign dominion over all,
as Lord of heaven and earth, or his peculiar property in
the Jewish people, as the family which he had chosen to
himself, and over which he was in a particular manner
their master and head. It is a word, therefore, of large
and various signification, denoting dominion of every sort
and degree, from the universal and absolute dominion of
God to the private and limited dominion of the owner
of a single slave. So that this title by itself would be no
description of the person to whom it is applied. But the
prophet has not left it undetermined what sort of lordship
he would ascribe to him whose coming he proclaims.
"The Lord shall come to his temple.'" The temple, in the
writings of a Jewish prophet, cannot be otherwise under-
stood, according to the literal meaning, than of the temple
at Jerusalem. Of this temple, therefore, the person to
come is here expressly called the lord. The lord of any
temple, in the language of all waiters, and in the na-
tural meaning of the phrase, is the d'win'iti) to whose wor-
ship it is consecrated. To no other divinity the temple of
Jerusalem was consecrated than the true and everlasting

387

ItoJ, the Lord Jehos^ah, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Here, then, we have the express testimony of Malachi,
that the Christ, the Deliverer, whose coming he announces,
was no other than the Jehov^ah of the Old Testament.
Jehovah by his angels had delivered the Israelites from the
Egyptian bondage ; and the same Jehovah was to come
in person to his temple, to eifect the greater and more
general deliverance of which the former was but an im-
perfect type.

It is strange that this doctrine should be denied by any
in the Christian church, when it seems to have been well
understood, and expressly taught, upon the authority of
the prophetical writings, long before Christ's appearance.
Nor does the credit of it rest upon this single text of Ma-
lachi: it was the unanimous assertion of all the Jewish
prophets, by whom the Messiah is often mentioned under
the name of "Jehovah;"' though this circumstance, it
must be confessed, lies at present in some obscurity in
our English Bibles, — an evil of which it is proper to ex-
plain to you the cause and rise. The ancient Jews had
a persuasion, which their descendants retain at this day,
that the true pronunciation of the word "Jehovah" was
unknown; and, lest they should miscall the sacred name
of God, they scrupulously abstained from attempting to
pronounce it; insomuch, that when the sacred books were
publicly read in their synagogues, the reader, wherever
this name occurred, was careful to substitute for it that
other word of the Hebrew language which answers to the
English " Lord."' The learned Jews who were employed
by Ptolemy to turn the Scriptures of the Old Testament
into Greek, have every where in their translation substi-
tuted the corresponding word of the Greek language.
Later translators have followed their mischievous example,
— mischievous in its consequences, though innocently
meant; and our English translators among the rest, in
innumerable instances, for the original "Jehovah,"
which ought upon all occasions to have been religiously
2 c 2

388

retained, }»ave put tlie more general title of " the Lord."
A flagrant instance of this occurs in that solemn proem of
the Decalogue, in the twentieth chapter of Exodus : " I
am the Lord thy God," so we read in our English Bibles,
"who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage." In the original it is, " I am Jehovah
thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage." Another example of the
same unhappy alteration we find in that famous passage
of the hundred and tenth Psalm which 1 have already had
occasion to produce: "The Lord said unto my Lord;"
which is in the Hebrew, "Jehovah said unto my Lord."
If translators have used this unwarrantable license of sub-
stituting a title of the Deity for his proper name in texts
where that name is applied to the Ahnighty Father, — and
in one, in particular, where the Father seems to be distin-
guished by that name from Jesus as man, — it is not to be
wondered that they should make a similar alteration in
passages where the Messiah is evidently the person in-
tended. It will be much to the purpose to produce some
examples of these disfigured texts,^ — not for the sake of
fastening any invidious imputation upon our translators,
Fvho were men too eminent for their piety, and have ac-
quitted themselves too faithfully in their arduous task, to
be suspected of any ill designs; but for the more im-
portant purpose of restoring the true doctrine to that
splendour of evidence which an undue deference to the
authority of tlie ancient Greek translation hath in some
degree unhappily obscured.

The passage I shall first produce is that famous predic-
tion of Jeremiah, " I will raise unto David a righteous
branch ; and a king shall reign and prosper, and execute
judgment and justice on the earth. In his days Judah
shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is
his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our
Righteousness."' In the Hebrew it is " Jehovah our
Righteousness/" " Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion !"

389

saith the prophet Zechariah ; " for lo, I come; and 1 dwell
ill the midst of thee, saith the Loud;" in the original,
" saith Jehovah." " In the year that kingUzziah died,
I saw the Loud," says Isaiah ; in the original it is, "I
saw Jehovah," "sitting upon a throne, high and lifted
up; and his train filled the temple: above it stood the
seraphim; and one cried unto another, and said Holy,
holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts !" in the original, "Je-
hovah, God of Hosts;" "the whole earth is full of his
glory." The same Spirit which displayed this glorious
vision to Isaiah has given the interpretation of it by the
evangelist St. John. St. John tells us that Christ was
that Jehovah whom the entranced prophet saw upon his
throne, — whose train filled the temple, — whose praises
were the theme of the seraphic song, — whose glory fills
the universe. " For these things said Esaias," saith St.
John, " when he saw his glory, and spake of him." St.
John had just alleged that particular prophecy of Isaiah
which is introduced with the description of the vision in
the year of Uzziah's death. This prophecy the evangelist
applies to Christ, the only person of whom he treats in
this place ; subjoining to his citation of Isaiah's words —
" These things said Esaias when he saw his glory, and
spake of him." It was Christ's glory, therefore, that
Esaias saw; and to him whose glory he saw the prophet
gives the name of Jehovah, and the worshipping angels
gave the name of Jehovah God of Sabaoth. Again, the
prophet Joel, speaking of the blessings of the Messiah's
day, saith — " And it shall come to pass, that whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord," in the original, " Je-
HOVAH," "shall be delivered." Here, again, the Holy
Spirit hath vouchsafed to be his own interpreter; and his
interpretation, one would think, might be decisive. St.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, alleges this passage
of Joel to prove that all men shall be saved by believing
in Christ Jesus. But how is the apostle's assertion that
all men shall be saved by faith in Christ confirmed by the

390

prophets promise of deliverance to all who should de-
voutly invocate Jehovah, unless Chrst were in the judg-
ment of St. Paul the Jehovah of the prophet Joel?

From the few passages which have been produced, —
more indeed might be collected to the same purpose, — but
from these few, I doubt not but it sufficiently appears to
you that the promised Messiah is described by the more
ancient prophets, as by Malachi in the text, as no other
than the Everlasting God, the Jehovah of the Israelites,
—that Almighty God, whose hand hath laid the founda-
tions of the earth, whose right-hand hath spanned the
heavens, — that jealous God who giveth not his glory to
another, and sparetli not to claim it for himself. These
explicit assertions of the Jewish prophets deserve the
serious attention of those zealous and active champions
of the Arian and Socinian tenets who have within these
few years become so numerous in this country; and who,
as they cannot claim the honour of any new inventions in
divinity (for their corruptions were indeed the produce of
an early age), are content to acquire a secondary fame by
defending old errors with unexampled rashness. They
are said to have gone so far in their public discourses as
to bestow on Christ our Lord the opprobrious appellation
of the " Idol of the Church of England." Let it be remem-
bered, that he who is called the Idol of our church is the
God who was worshipped in the Jewish tem.ple. They
have the indiscretion too to boast the antiquity of their
disguised and mutilated scheme of Christianity ; and tell
their deluded followers, with great confidence, that the
divinity of the Saviour is a doctrine that was never heard
of in the church till the third or fourth century, and was
the invention of a dark and superstitious age. This as-
sertion, were it not clearly falsified, as happily it is, by
the whole tenor of the apostolical writings, would cause
a more extensive ruin than they seem to apprehend : it
would not so much overturn any single article of doctrine,
such as men may dispute about, and yet be upon the

39 J

whole believers, — it would cut up by the roots the whole
faith ill Christ. Mahomet well understood this: he
founded his own pretensions prudently, however im-
piously, on a denial of the godhead of Christ. " There is
one God," said Mahomet, "who was not begotten, and
who never did beo;et." If the Father did not bep^et,
then Christ is not God ; for he pretended not to be
the Father: if he claimed not to be God, he claimed
not to be the person which the Messiah is described
to be by the Jewish prophets: if Christ was not
Messiah, the Messiah may come after Christ: if he was
a prophet only, a greater prophet may succeed. Thus,
Christ's divinity being once set aside, there would be room
enough for new pretensions. Mahomet, it should seem,
was an abler divine than these half-believers. With the
pernicious consequence, however, of their rash assertion,
they are not justly chargeable: they mean not to invali-
date the particular claims of Jesus of Nazareth as a pro-
phet, and the Deliverer promised to the Jews ; but they
would raise an objection to the notion of a plurality of
persons in the undivided substance of the Godhead. They
are particularly unfortunate in choosing for the ground of
their objection this imaginary circumstance of the late rise
of the opinion they would controvert. Would to God
they would but open their eyes to this plain historical
fact, of which it is strange that any men of learning should
be ignorant, and which will serve to outweigh all the ar-
guments of their erroneous metaphysics, — that the divinity
of the Messiah was no new doctrine of the first preachers
of Christianity ; much less the invention of any later age :
it was the original faith of the ancient Jewish church,
delivered, as I have shown you, by her prophets, em-
braced and acknowledged by her doctors, six hundred
years and more before the glorious era of the incarnation.
Nor was it even then a novelty : it was the creed of be-
lievers from the beginning ; as it was typified in the sym-
bols of the most ancient patriarchal worship. The cheru-

392

bini of glory, afterward placed in the sanctuary of the
Mosaic temple, and of Solomon's temple, had been origi-
nally placed in a tabernacle on the east of the garden of
Eden, immediately after the fall. These cherubim were
figures emblematical of the Triune persons in the Godhead
— of the mystery of redemption by the Son's atonement —
and of the subjection of all the powers of nature, and of
all created things, animate and inanimate, to the incarnate
God.

This therefore is the first character under which the
person is described whose coming is foretold, that of the
Lord Jehovah of the Jewish temple. Other characters
follow not less worthy of notice. The prosecution there-
fore of the subject demands a separate Discourse.

SERMON XXXI.

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even
the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Behold, he
shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts, But who may abide the day of
his coming ? and who shall stand when he appeareth. — jVL\lachi
iii. 1,2.

Although the words of my text are too perspicuous
in their general sense and meaning to need elucidation,
yet the characters by which the person is described whose
coming is announced, and the particulars of the business
upon which he is said to come, deserve a minute and
accurate explication. The first ch-aracter of the person,
that he is the Lord of the Jewish temple, has already been
considered. It has been shown to be agreeable to the
descriptions which had been given of the same person by
the earlier prophets; who unanimously ascribe to him
both the attributes and works of God, and frequently
mention him by God's peculiar name, "Jehovah;"
which, though it be the proper and incommunicable name
of God, is not exclusively the name of the Almighty

393

Father, but equally belongs indift'ereutly to every person
in the Godhead, since by its etymology it is significant of
nothing but what is common to them all, self-e.vistcncc.

The next character that occurs in the text of him whose
coming is proclaimed, is that of a messenger of a covenant:
"The Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in."
The covenant intended here cannot be the Mosaic ; for of
that the Messiah was not the messenger. The Mosaic
covenant was the word spoken by angels ; it is the supe-
rior distinction of the gospel covenant, that it was begun
to be spoken by the Lord. The prophet Jeremiah, who
lived long before Malachi, had already spoken in very ex-
plicit terms of a neiv covenant which God should establish
with his people, by which the Mosaic should be super-
seded, and in which the faithful of all nations should be
included: "Behold, the days come, saith the Jehovah,
that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah : not according to the cove-
nant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took
them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt ;
but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, saith the Jehovah, — I
will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their
hearts ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people." In a subsequent prophecy he mentions this co-
venant again, and calls it an everlasting covenant. He
had mentioned it before, in less explicit terms ; but in
such which perspicuously though figuratively express the
universal comprehension of it, and the abrogation of the
ritual law: "In those days, saith the Jehovah, they
shall say no more. The ark of the covenant of the Je-
hovah ! neither shall it come to mind ; neither shall they
visit it; neither shall any more sacrifice be offered there.
At that time, they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the
Jehovah ; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it —
to the name of the Jehovah, to Jerusalem. Neither
shall they,'' that is, the Gentiles, " walk anymore after the

394

stubbornness of their evil heart." Of this neiv covenant
w^e have another remarkable prediction, in the prophecies
of Ezekiel : " Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant
with thee in the days of thy youth; and I will establish
vinto thee an everlasting covenant." The youth of any
people is a natural metaphor in all languages to denote the
time of their first beginnings, when they were few, and
weak, and inconsiderable. Here, therefore, by the days of
Judah's youth, I think is to be understood the very first
beginnings of the Jewish people, when they existed only
in the persons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The cove-
nant made with Judah in these days of his youth signifies,
as I apprehend, the original promises made to those pa-
triarchs long before the promulgation of the Mosaic law.
God says by the prophet here, that he will remember the
original promises, the same which the Psalmist calls "the
covenant which he made with Abraham, and the oath that
he sware with Isaac ;" and that the effect of this remem-
brance shall be, that " he will establish with Judah an
everlasting covenant:" for the establishment of the ever-
lasting covenant of the gospel is the completion of the
promises made to Abraham, and renewed to the succeed-
ing patriarchs. The prophet goes on: "Then shalt thou
remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt re-
ceive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger." You will
observe, that the sisters of Judah are the nations of Sa-
mapia and Sodom ; which, in that masculine style of me-
taphor which characterizes Ezekiel's writings, had been
called her sisters in a former part of the Discourse, — Sa-
maria her eldest sister, Sodom her younger : her sisters,
it is meant, in guilt and in punishment. Now, it is pro-
mised that she shall receive these sisters. The prophet
adds — " I will give them unto thee for daughters ;" that
is, the most wicked of the idolatrous nations shall be
brought to the knowledge of the true God, and ingrafted
into his church ; "but not by thy covenant, — not by that
covenant that now subsists with thee ; but by the terms of

395

the everlasting covenant hereafter to be established." Of
this covenant, so clearly foretold and so circumstantially
described by the preceding prophets Jeremiah and Eze-
kiel, Malachi thinks it unnecessary to introduce any par-
ticular description. He supposes that it will be suffi-
ciently known by the simple but expressive title of the
covenant, — a title which by pre-eminence it might justly
bear away from all other covenants, both for the general
extent of it and for the magnitude of the blessings it holds
out. Nor was it unusual with the Jewish prophets to re-
fer in this short and transient manner to remarkable and
clear predictions of their predecessors ; a circumstance
which I mention, that it may not seem improbable that
Malachi should pass over with so brief a mention that
covenant to which the law was to give place, — the law
which had been delivered on Mount Sinai with so much
awful pomp upon the part of God, and embraced with
such solemn ceremony by the people. That such brief
and indirect reference to a former prophecy is not unex-
ampled, will appear by a remarkable instance of it in the
prophet Micah. In the fourth chapter of his prophecies,
he speaks very openly of the conversion of the Gentiles ;
and in the beginning of the fifth, he declares that this
conversion should not begin till the birth of Christ:
" Therefore he will give them up," that is, God will give
the Gentiles up, — he will leave them to themselves, " un-
til the time when she which travaileth shall bring forth :
then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the
children of Israel." Here she which travaileth is the vir-
gin of whom Isaiah had already prophesied that she should
conceive and bring forth a son. This virgin, Micah, by
a bold and happy stroke of rhetoric, speaks of as already
pregnant ; and this brief and animated reference to Isaiah's
prediction might more effectually revive the remembrance
of it, and excite a renewed attention to it, than a more di-
rect and explicit repetition ; at the same time that it was
the most respectful manner of citing the original prophecy.

396

as that which needed not either comment or confirmation.
In like manner, Malachi in the text refers briefly but em-
phatically to the old prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel
concerning a new covenant to be established in the latter
days ; and, at the same time that he points but transiently
and in a single word at those particulars in which former
prophets had been explicit, the Holy Spirit directs him to
set forth in the clearest light an important circumstance,
concerning which they had been more reserved, — that the
Great Deliverer to come was himself to be the messenger of
this everlasting covenant. And this is the second charac-
ter by which the Messiah is described in the text, — that
of the messenger of that new covenant to which there is
frequent allusion in all the prophetical vvritings; and of
which Jeremiah and Ezekiel, in particular, have expressly
foretold the establishment, and clearly described the na-
ture, duration, and extent.

Let us now join this second character with the first,
that we may see what will result from the union of the
two. The first character of the person to come is the
Lord Jehovah; the second, the Messenger of the Co-
venant foretold by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. This is men-
tioned as a covenant to be established between Jehovah
and his people : it was doubtless to be proposed on the
part of God, — to be embraced by them. The Messenger
of the Covenant can be no other than the messenger sent
by Jehovah to make the proposal to his people. The
Messenger of the Covenant, therefore, is Jehovah's
messenger ; — if his messenger, his servant ; for a message
is a service : it implies a person sending and a person
sent: in the person who sendeth there must be authority
to send, — submission to that authority in the person sent.
The Messenger, therefore, of the Covenant, is the ser-
vant of the Lord Jehovah : but the same person who is
the Messenger is the Lord Jehovah himself; not the
same person with the sender, but hearing the same name,
because united in that mysterious nature and undivided

397

substiince which the name imports. The same person,
tlierefore, is servant and lord; and, by uniting these cha-
racters in the same person, what does the prophet but de-
scribe that great mystery of the gospel, the union of the
nature which governs and the nature which serves — the
union of the divine and human nature in the person of the
Christ? This doctrine, therefore, was no less than that of
the divinity of the Messiah ; a novelty, as we are told, in
the third or fourth century after the birth of Christ, — an
invention of the dark and superstitious ages ! The two,
indeed, must stand or fall together: we claim for both a
reverend antiquity : we appeal to the sacred archives of
the ancient Jewish church, where both are registered in
characters which do to this day, and we trust shall to the
last, defy the injuries of time.

To these two characters of the Messiah, of Jehovah and
Jehovah's Messenger, — or rather to that one mysterious
character which arises from the union of these two, — ano-
ther is to be added, contained in the assertion that he is
the Lord whom the persons seek to whom the prophecy is
addressed — the Jllessenger whom they delight in. I doubt
not but you prevent me in the interpretation of this cha-
racter : you imagine that the general expectation of the
Messiah is alluded to in these expressions ; and the de-
light and consolation which the devout part of the Jewish
nation derived from the hope and prospect of his coming.
And if the prophet's discourse were addressed to those
who trusted in God's promises, and waited in patient hope
of their accomplishment, this would indeed be the natural
interpretation of his words: but the fact is otherwise ; and
therefore this interpretation cannot stand. The text is the
continuation of a discourse begun in the last verse of the
preceding chapter, which should indeed have been made
the first verse of this. This discourse is addressed to
persons who did not seek the Lord — who could not delight
in the Messenger of his Covenant, — to the profane and
atheistical, who, neither listening to the promises nor re-

398

garding tlie tlireatenings of God, take occasion, from the
promiscuous distribution of the good and evil of the pre-
sent life, to form rash and impious conclusions against his
providence, to arraign his justice and wisdom, or to dis-
pute his existence. The expressions, therefore, of seek-
ing the Lord and delighting in his messenger are ironical,
expressing the very reverse of that which they seem to
affirm. You will observe, that there is more or less of
severity in this ironical language, by which it stands re-
markably distinguished from the levity of ridicule, and is
particularly adapted to the purposes of invective and re-
biike. It denotes conscious superiority, sometimes indig-
nation, in the person who employs it : it excites shame,
confusion, and remorse, in the person against whom it is
employed, — in a third person, contempt and abhorrence
of him who is the object of it. These being the affections
which it expresses and denotes, it can in no case have any
tendency to move laughter : he who uses it is always
serious himself; and makes his hearers serious, if he ap-
plies it with propriety and address. I have been thus par-
ticular in explaining the nature of irony, that it may not
be confounded with other figures of an inferior rhetoric,
which might less suit the dignity of the prophetical lan-
guage ; and that I may not seem to use a freedom with the
sacred text when I suppose that this figure may be allowed
to have a place in it. Irony is the keenest weapon of the
orator. The moralists, those luminaries of the Gentile
world, have made it the vehicle of their gravest lessons ;
and Christ, our great Teacher, upon just occasions was not
sparing in the use of it. A remarkable instance of it, but
of the mildest kind, occurs in his conversation with Nico-
demus, whom he had purposely perplexed with a doctrine
somewhat abstruse in itself, and delivered in a figurative
language ; and when the Pharisee could not dissemble the
slowness of his apprehension, Jesus seems to triumph over
his embarrassment, in that ironical question, " Art thou a
master in Israel, and knowest not these thinos ?" The

399

question, you see, seems to imply a respectable estimation
of the learning and abilities of those masters in Israel of
whom this nightly visitor was one, and to express much
surprise at the discovery of Nicodemus' ignorance ; whereas
the thing insinuated is the total hisufficiency of these self-
constituted teachers, who were ignorant of the first prin-
ciples of that knowledge which Jesus brought from heaven to
make men wise unto salvation, Nicodemus was a man of
a fair and honest mind ; but at this time probably not un-
tainted with the pride and prejudices of his sect, Jesus
intended to give him new light; but for this purpose he
judges it expedient first to make him feel his present igno-
rance ; which the triumph of this ironical question must
have set before him in a glaring light. In the propheti-
cal writings of the Old Testament, examples of a more
austere irony abound. But we shall no where find an in-
stance in which it is more forcibly applied than by Mala-
chi in the text. " Ye have wearied the Lord," says this
eloquent prophet to the infidels of his- times, "Ye have
wearied the Lord with your words." He makes them reply
— "Wherein have we w'earied him?" He answers —
"When ye say, Every one that doth evil is good in the
sight of the Lord ; or when ye say. Where is the God of
judgment ? — And are ye then in earnest in the sentiments
which you express? Is this your quarrel with Providence,
that the blessings of this life are promiscuously distributed ?
Is it really your desire that opulence and honour should
be the peculiar portion of the righteous — poverty and
shame the certain punishment of the wicked? Do you, of
all men, wish that health of body and tranquillity of mind
were the inseparable companions of temperance — disease
and despair the inevitable consequences of strong drink
and dalliance ? Do you wish to see a new economy take
place, in which it should be impossible for virtue to sufl^er
or for vice to prosper? — Sanctified blasphemers ! be con-
tent : your just remonstrances are heard ; you shall pre-
sently be friends vvith Providence: the God of judgment

400

comes; he it is at liand : he comes to establisli tlie ever-
lasting covenant of righteousness — to silence all com-
plaint— to vindicate his ways to man — to evince his justice
in your destruction — to inflict on you a death of which
the agonies shall never end." All this reproach and all
this threatening is conveyed with the greatest force, be-
cause with the greatest brevity, in those ironical expres-
sions of the prophet, "The Lord, whom?/e seek; the Mes-
senger of the Covenant, whom ijc delight in.'" But
although these expressions are ironical, they contain a
positive character of the person to come ; for the true sense
of irony is always rendered by the contrary of that which
it seems to affirm : the Lord and Messenger whom infidels
are ironically said to seek and to delight in, is the Lord
whom they do not seek, the Messenger in whom they can-
not take delight— the Lord who will visit those who seek
him not, the Messenger in whom they who have not sought
the Lord can take no delio-ht, because he is the messeno-er
of vengeance.

This, then, is another character of the person to come, — •
that he is to execute God's final vengeance on the wicked.
But as this may seem a character of the office rather than
of the person, it leads me to treat of what was the second
article in my original division of the subject, — the particu-
lars of the business upon which the person announced in
the text is said to come. There remains, besides, the ap-
plication of every article of this remarkable prophecy to
Jesus of Nazareth. These important disquisitions we
must still postpone ; that no injustice may be done to this
great argument, on your part or on mine, — on mine, by a
superficial and precipitate discussion of any branch of it;
on yours, by a languid and uninterested attention.

401

SERMON XXXII.

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even
the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Behold, he shall
come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may abide the day of his
coming ? and who shall stand when he appeareth ?" — Malachi iii.
I. 2. ^

We have already considered the several characters by
which the Messiah is described in this text of the prophet.
He is the Lord of the temple at Jerusalem : he is, besides,
the Messenger of that everlasting covenant of which the
establishment is so explicitly foretold by the prophets
Jeremiah and Ezekiel : he is also the Lord whom the
profane seek not — the Messenger in whom they delight
not: that is, he is the appointed judge of man, who will
execute God's final vengeance on the wicked. We are
now to consider the particulars of the business on which
the person bearing these characters is to come.

It may seem that the text leaves it pretty much undeter-
mined what the particular business is to be ; intimating
only in general terms that something very terrible will be
the consequence of the Messiah's arrival : " But who may
abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when
he appeareth V You will not wonder that the appearance
of that " Sun of Righteousness who hath arisen with heal-
ing on his wings " should here be spoken of in terms of
dread and apprehension, if you bear in remembrance what
I told you in my last Discourse, — that the prophet is speak-
ing to the profane and atheistical — to those who had no-
thing to hope from the mercy of God, and every thing to
fear from his justice. To these persons the year of the
redemption of Israel is to be the year of the vengeance of
our God. The punishment of these is not less a branch
of the Messiah's office than the deliverance of the penitent
and contrite sinner: they make a part of that power of
2 D

402

the serpent which the seed of the woman is to extinguish.
But the prophet opens the meaning of this threatening
question in the words that immediately follow it ; and
which, if you consult your Bibles, you will find to be
these : " For he is like a refiner's fire and a fuller's soap :
and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver : and he
shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may ofl:'er unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness. And I will come near
to you to judgment ; and will be a swift witness against
the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false
swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in
his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn
aside the stranger from his right, saith the Lord of Hosts.*'
Here you see the Messiah's business described in various
branches ; which are reducible, however, to these, — the
final judgment, when the wicked shall be destroyed ; a
previous trial or experiment of the diflferent tempers and
dispositions of men, in order to that judgment ; and some-
thing to be done for their amendment and improvement.
The trial is signified under the image of an assayist's sepa-
ration of the nobler metals from the dross with which they
are blended in the ore : the means used for the amend-
ment and improvement of mankind, by the Messiah's atone-
ment for our sins, by the preaching of the gospel, and by
the internal influences of the Holy Spirit,— all these means,
employed under the Messiah's covenant for the reformation
of men, are expressed under the image of a fuller's soap,
which restores a soiled garment to its original purity. One
particular efiect of this purification is to be, that the sons
of Levi will be purified. The worship ofGod shall be
purged of all hypocrisy and superstition, and reduced to a
few simple rites, the natural expressions of true devotion.
" And then shall this offering of Judah and Jerusalem,"
that is, of the true members of God's true church, " be
pleasant unto the Lord." These, then, are the particulars
of the business on which the Messiah, according to this
prophecy, was to come.

40;j

It yet remains to recollect the particulai's in which this
prophecy, as it respects both the person of the Messiah
and his business, hath been accomplished in Jesus of Naza-
reth. And, first, the prophet tells us that the Messiah is
the Lord, and should come to his temple. Agreeably to
this, the temple was the theatre of our Lord's public minis-
try at Jerusalem : there he daily taught the people ; there
he held frequent disputations with the unbelieving Scribes
and Pharisees : so that, to us who acknowledge Jesus for
the Lord, the prophetical character of coming to his temple
must seem to be in some measure answered in the general
habits of his holy life. It is remarkable that the temple
was the place of his very first public appearance ; and in
his coming upon that occasion there was an extraordinary
suddenness. It was indeed before the commencement of
his triennial ministry : he was but a child of twelve years
of age, entirely unknown, when he entered into disputation
in the temple with the priests and doctors of the law, and
astonished them with his accurate knowledge of the Scrip-
tures. And in this very year the sceptre of royal power
departed from Judah ; for it was in this year that Archelaus,
the son of Herod the Great, was deposed by the Roman
emperor, and banished to Lyons, and the Jews became
wholly subject to the dominion of the Romans. Thus the
prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled, by the coincidence of the
subversion of the independent government of the Jews with
the first advent or appearance of Shiloh in the temple.

But there are three particular passages of his life in
which this prophecy appears to have been more remark-
ably fulfilled, and the character of the Lord coming to his
temple more evidently displayed in him. The first was in
an early period of his ministry; when, going up to Jeru-
salem to celebrate the passover, he found in the temple a
market of live cattle, and bankers' shops, where strangers
who came at this season from distant countries to Jerusa-
lem were accommodated with cash for their bills of credit.
1^'ired with indignation at this daring profanation of his
•2 D 2

404

Father's house, he oversets the accountino--tables of the
bankers, and with a light whip made of rushes he drives
these irreligious traders from the sacred precincts. TItre
was a considerable exertion of authority. However, on
this occasion, he claimed not the temple expressly /or his
own; he called it his Father's house, and appeared to
act only as a son.

He came a second time as Lord to his temple, much
more remarkably, at the feast of tabernacles ; when, " in
the last day, that great day of the feast, he stood in th.e
temple, and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him come
unto ME and drink: he that believeth on me, out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water." That you may
enter into the full sense and spirit of this extraordinary
exclamation, it is necessary that you should know in what
the silly multitudes to whom it was addressed wei'e proba-
bly employed at the time when it was uttered : and for
this purpose, I must give you a brief and general account
of the ceremonies of that last day, the great day of the feast
of tabernacles ; the ceremonies, not the original ceremonies
appointed by Moses, but certain superstitious ceremonies
which had been added by the later Jews. The feast of
tabernacles continued eight days. At what precise time
I know not, but in some part of the interval between the
prophets and the birth of Christ, the priests had taken up
a practice of marching daily, during the feast, round the
altar of burnt-offerings, waving in their hands the branches
of the palm, and singing, as they went — " Save, we pray,
and prosper us !" This was done but once on the first
seven days ; but on the eighth and last it was repeated
seven times : and when this ceremony was finished, the
people, with extravagant demonstrations of joy and exulta-
tion, fetched buckets of water from the fountain of Siloam,
and presented them to the priests in the temple ; who
mixed the water with the wine of the sacrifices, and poured
it upon the altar, chanting all the while tliat text of Isaiah
• — " With joy shall ye draw water from the fountain of

405

sa

Ivation.'" The fountain of salvation, in the language of
a prophet, is the Messiah ; the water to be drawn from
that fountain is the water of his Spirit. Of this mystical
meaning- of the water, the inventors of these superstitious
rites, whoever they might be, seem to have had some ob-
scure discernment ; although they understood the fountain
literally of the fountain of Siloam ; for, to encourage the
people to the practice of this laborious superstition, they
had persuaded them that this rite was of singular efficacy
to draw down the prophetic spirit. The multitudes zea-
lously busied in this unmeaning ceremony were they to
whom Jesus addressed that emphatical exclamation — " If
any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." The
first words, " if any man thirst,'" are ironical. " Are ye
famished," says he, " with thirst, that ye fatigue yourselves
with fetching all this water up the hill ? O ! but ye thirst
for the pure waters of Siloam, the sacred brook that rises
in the mountain of God, and is devoted to the purification
of the temple ! Are ye indeed athirst for these ? Come,
then, unto me, and drink : I am the fountain of which that
which purifies the temple is the type : / am the fountain
of salvation of which your prophet spake : from me the
true believer shall receive the living water, — not in scanty
draughts fetched with toil from this penurious rill, but in a
well perpetually springing up within him." The words of
Isaiah which I have told you the priests were chanting,
and to which Jesus alludes, are part of a song of praise
and triumph which the faithful are supposed to use in that
prosperous state of the church, which, according to the
prophet, it shall finally attain under Jesse's Root. " In
that day shalt thou say. Behold, God is my salvation : I
will trust, and not be afraid ; for the Lord Jehovah is my
streno'th and sono-, he also is become mv salvation : there-
fore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salva-
tion." Consider these words as they lie in the context of
the prophet ; consider the occasion upon which Jesus,
standing in the temple, applies them to himself; consider

406

the sense in which he applies them ; and judge whether
this application was less than an open claim to be the Lord
Jehovah come unto his temple. It is remarkable, that it
had at the time an immediate and wonderful effect. " Many
of the people, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth
this is the prophet.'" The light of truth burst at once upon
their minds. Jesus no sooner made the application of this
abused prophecy to himself, than they perceived the just-
ness of it, and acknowledged in him the fountain of salva-
tion. What would these people have said had they had
our light, — had the whole volume of prophecy been laid
before them, with the history of Jesus to compare with it?
Would they not have proceeded in the prophet's triumphant
song : " Cry out and shout, O daughter of Zion ! Great is
the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee !" — This then
I take to be the second particular occasion in the life of
Jesus in which Malachi's prediction "that the Lord should
come to his temple" was fulfilled in him, — when Jesus, in
the last day of the feast of tabernacles, stood in the temple
and declared himself the person intended by Isaiah under
the image of the '"' fountaui of salvation :'' for by appro-
priating the character to himself, he must be understood
in effect to claim all those other characters which Isaiah
in the same prophecy ascribes to the same person ; which
are these : " God, the salvation of Israel ; the Lord Jehovah,
his strength and his song ; the Lord, that hath done excel-
lent things ; the Holy One of Israel."

A third time Jesus came still more remarkably as the
Lord to his temple, when he came up from Galilee to
celebrate the last passover, and made that public entry
at Jerusalem which is described by all the evangelists. It
will be necessary to enlarge upon the particulars of this
interesting story : for the right understanding of our
Saviour's conduct upon this occasion depends so much
upon seeing certain leading circumstances in a proper
light, — upon a recollection of ancient prophecies, and an
attention to the customs of the Jewish people, — that I am

407
apt to suspect tew iiow-a-days discern in this extraordinary
transaction what was clearly seen in it at the time by our
Lord's disciples, and in some measure understood by his
enemies. I sliall present you with an orderly detail of
the story, and comment upon the particulars as they arise :
and I doubt not but that, by God's assistance, I shall teach
you to perceive in this public entry of Jesus of Nazareth
(if you have not perceived it before) a conspicuous advent
of the Great Jehovah to his temple. — Jesus, on his last
journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, stops at the foot of
Mount Olivet, and sends two of his disciples to a neigh-
bouring village to provide an ass's colt to convey him from
that place to the city, distant not more than half a mile :
the colt is brought, and Jesus is seated upon it. This
first circumstance must be well considered ; it is the key to
the whole mystery of the story. What could be his
meaning in choosing this singular conveyance? It could
not be that the fatigue of the short journey which re-
mained was likely to be too much for him a- foot; and that
no better animal was to be procured. Nor was the ass
in these days (though it had been in earlier ages) an ani-
mal in high esteem in the East used for travelling, or for
state, by persons of the first condition, — that this convey-
ance should be chosen for the grandeur or propriety of
the appearance. Strange as it may seem, the coming to
Jerusalem upon an ass's colt was one of the prophetical
characters of the Messiah ; and the great singularity of
it had perhaps been the reason that this character had
been more generally attended to than any other ; so that
there was no Jew who was not apprized that the Messiah
was to come to the holy city in that manner. " Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Sion I Shout, O daughter of Jeru-
salem!" saith Zechariah: " Behold, thy Kingcometh unto
thee! He is just, and having salvation ; lowly, and riding
upon an ass, even a colt the foal of an ass ! " And this pro-
phecy the Jews never understood of any other person than
the Messiah. Jesus, therefoi-e, by seating himself upon

408

the asss colt in order to go to Jerusalem, without any
possible inducement either of grandeur or convenience,
openly declared himself to be that King who was to come,
and at whose coming in that manner Zion was to rejoice.
And so the disciples, if we may judge from what immedi-
ately followed, understood this proceeding ; for no sooner
did they see their Master seated on the colt, than they
broke out into transports of the highest joy, as if in this
great sight they had the full contentment of their utmost
wishes ; conceiving, as it should seem, the sanguine hope
that the kingdom was this instant to be restored to Israel.
They strewed the way which Jesus was to pass with the
green branches of the trees which grew beside it ; a mark
of honour in the East, never paid but to the greatest
emperors on occasions of the highest pomp : they pro-
claimed him the long-expected heir of David's throne, — •
the Blessed One coming in the name of the Lord ; that is,
in the language of Malachi, the Messenger of the Cove-
nant : and they rent the skies with the exulting acclama-
tion of " Hosanna in the highest !" On their way to Jeru-
salem, they are met by a great multitude from the city,
whom the tidings had no sooner reached than they ran out
in eager joy to join his triumph. When they reached
Jerusalem, the whole city, says the blessed evangelist, was
moved. Here recollect, that it was now the season of the
passover. The passover was the highest festival of the
Jewish nation, the anniversary of that memorable night
when Jehovah led his armies out of Egypt with a high
hand and an extended arm, — " a night much to be remem-
bered to the Lord of the children of Israel in their genera-
tions f and much indeed it was remembered. The devout
Jews flocked at this season to Jerusalem, not only from
every corner of Judea, but from the remotest countries
whither God had scattered them ; and the numbers of the
strangers that were annually collected in Jerusalem, dur-
ing this festival, are beyond imagination. These strangers,
who living at a distance, knew little of what had been

409

passing in Judea since their last visit, were they who
were moved (as well they might be) with wonder and
astonishment, when Jesus, so humble in his equipage, so
honoured in his numerous attendants, appeared within the
city-gates; and every one asks his neighbour, " Who is ,
this ?" It was replied by some of the natives of Judea, —
but, as I conceive, by none of the disciples ; for any of
them at this time would have given another answer,— it
was replied, "This is the Nazarene, the great prophet
from Galilee," Through the throng of these astonished
spectators the procession passed by the public streets of
Jerusalem to the temple, where immediately the sacred
porticos resound with the continued hosannas of the
multitudes. The chief priests and scribes are astonished
and alarmed : they request Jesus himself to silence his
followers. Jesus, in the early part of his ministry, had
always been cautious of any public display of personal
consequence ; lest the malice of his enemies should be too
soon provoked, or the unadvised zeal of his friends should
raise civil commotions : but now that his work on earth
was finished in all but the last painful part of it, — now
that he had firmly laid the foundations of God's kingdom
in the hearts of his disciples, — now that the apostles were
prepared and instructed for their office, — now that the
days of vengeance on the Jewish nation were at hand, and
it mattered not how soon they should incur the displeasure
of the Romans their masters, — Jesus lays aside a reserve
which could be no longer useful ; and instead of checking
the zeal of his followers, he gives a new alarm to the
chief priests and scribes, by a direct and firm assertion of
his right to the honours that were so largely shown to
him. " If these," says he, " were silent, the stones of this
building would be endued with a voice to proclaim my
titles:" and then, as on a former occasion, he drove out
the traders; but with a higher tone of authority, calling it
his own house, and saying, " My house is the house of
prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." — You have

410

now the story in all its circumstances, faithfully collected
from the four evangelists; nothing exaggerated, but set
in order, and somewhat perhaps illustrated by an applica-
tion of old prophecies and a recollection of Jewish cus-
toms. Judge for yourselves whether this was not an ad-
vent of the Lord Jehovah taking personal possession of
his temple.

Thus, in one or in all, but chiefly in the last of these
three remarkable passages of his life, did Jesus of Naza-
reth display in his own person, and in his conduct claim,
the first and greatest character of the Messiah foretold
and described by all the preceding Jewish prophets, as
well as by Malachi in the text, — " the Lord coming to Jiis
templet The other characters, when we resume the
subject, will with no less evidence appear in him.

SERMON XXXIII.

And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even
the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : Behold, he
shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may abide the day of
his coming ? and who shall stand when he appeareth ?" — Malachi
iii. 1, 2.

This text of Malachi has turned out a fruitful subject ;
more so, perhaps, than the first general view of it might
seem to promise. We have already drawn from this text
ample confirmation of some of the chief articles of our
most holy faith : we have seen their great antiquity: we
have found that they affirm nothing of our Lord but what
the Jews were taught to look for in the person w^hom we
believe our Lord to be, the Messiah : we have had occa-
sion to expound some important texts — to open many pas-
sages of prophecy — to consider some remarkable passages
in the life of Jesus — to make some general observations
on the style of the sacred writers — to recall the remem-

411

biaiice of some customs of the ancient Jews ; by all which,
we trust that we have thrown some light upon interesting
texts of Scripture, and have furnished the attentive hearer
with hints which he who shall bear them in remembrance
may apply to make light in many other places for himself.
This harvest of edification which hath been already col-
lected, encourages me to proceed in the remainder of my
subject, with the same diligence and exactness which I
have used in the former part of it; and I trust that it will
engage you to give me still your serious attention.

We have already found in Jesus of Nazareth that great
character of the Messiah, "the Lord of the Jewish tem-
ple." Such Jesus was; and such, by three remarkable
actions in three different periods of his ministry, he had
claimed to be. Let us now look narrowly for the second
character, — that of the jMesscnger of the Covenant; of
that covenant of which the establishment was so explicitly
foretold by the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

In general, that Jesus was the proposer of a covenant
between God and man, is much too evident to need any
laboured proof. Did he not announce blessings on the
part of God ? Did he not require duties in return from
men? Now, an offer of blessings from God, with a de-
mand of duties in return from men, is, in the Scripture
language, a covenant between God and man. It was thus
that the promises to Abraham were a covenant: it was
promised to Abraham, that his posterity should become a
numerous nation, prosperous in itself, and a means of
blessing to all the families of the earth: it was required,
in return, of Abraham and his posterity, to keep them-
selves pure from the general corruption of idolatry, and
to adhere to the true worship of the true God. Thus,
also, the Mosaic institution was a covenant : the land of
Canaan was ofiven to the Jews : a strict observance is re-
quired of the rituals of the Mosaic law, and obedience to
the prophets who should succeed Moses. And thus the
Christian institution is a covenant: the sins of men are

412

forgiven, through the sacrifice of Christ ; eternal happi-
ness is offered to them in the world to come : Christians
are required, in return, to fear, love, and honour God —
to make open profession of the faith in Christ — to love
one another — to do good to all men — to forgive their ene-
mies— to control their passions, and to deny all sinful ap-
petites. Jesus, therefore, it is evident, propounded the
terms of a covenant: and he made the proposal on the
part of God ; for he declared that he came from God ;
and the works which he did by the finger of God bore
ample testimony to him. But this is not sufficient: it
must be examined whether the covenant which Jesus pro-
pounded bears the character of that which is described in
the writings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel ; for that being the
covenant intended by Malachi in the text, if the covenant
propounded by Jesus were any other, although he would
still be the messenger of a covenant, he would not be that
messenger whom Malachi predicts — that messenger which
the Messiah was to be; and, by consequence, he would
not be the Messiah. Now, the first remarkable character
which we find in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, of the covenant
which they describe, is, that it should be new, or different
from the Mosaic institution. And this same character we
can be at no loss to find in the covenant propounded by
Jesus. The Mosaic institution required duties of a cere-
monial service : Jesus requires the natural devotion of the
heart, the reasonable sacrifice of an innocent and holy life.
And the social duty, under the law and under the gospel,
is in its first general principles the same : yet Jesus, in
his sermon on the Mount, points out imperfections in cer-
tain particulars of the Mosaic law, in some of its political
institutions ; arising from that necessary accommodation
to inveterate prejudices and general corruptions with
which every rational scheme of reformation must begin ;
and the Mosaic institution is to be considered as the be-
ginning of a plan of Providence for the gradual amend-
ment of mankind, which Christianity was to finish and

413

complete. He tells the multitudes, that it would not be
sufficient that they should abstain from such criminal ac-
tions as were prohibited by the letter of the Decalogue, —
that they must master the passions which might incline
them to such actions. He taught that the law was ful-
filled in the true and undissembling love of God and man;
and althouo-h he did not, durino- his own life on earth,
release men from the observance of the Mosaic rites, he
seized all occasions of explaining to them the higher works
of intrinsic goodness. Nor does his covenant differ less
from the Mosaic in the blessings it offers than in the du-
ties it prescribes. The promises of the Mosaic covenant
were of temporal blessings : the disciples of Christ are
taught to look for nothing in this world but persecution
and affliction, with the grace of God to support them
under it ; but they are to receive hereafter an inheritance
that fadeth not away. Thus new, thus different from the
Mosaic, is the covenant of Jesus ; agreeing well in this
particular with that which is described by Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. Another circumstance of the covenant foretold
by these prophets was, that it should be universal, com-
prehending all the nations of the earth. And such was
the covenant of Jesus: he commanded the apostles to go
into all nations, and to preach the gospel to every crea-
ture; with a promise of salvation to every one that should
believe; and he scrupled not to tell the unbelieving Jews,
" that many should come from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south, and sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God."
A third character attributed by Jeremiah and Ezekiel to
the covenant wdiich they foretold was, that it should be
everlasting. And such the covenant of Jesus in the very
nature of the thing appears to be : it has no respect what-
ever, either in its requisitions or in its promises, to any
peculiarities of place or time. In the Mosaic institution,
we find much attention to the particular tempers and
manners of the Jewish people— to the notions they had

414

imbibed in Egypt- — to the circumstances in vvhicli the}'
were afterward to be placed — to the situation of the land
of promise with respect to other nations — to the customs
and dispositions of their neighbours. They were com-
manded to offer in sacrifice the animals which they had
seen the Egyptians worship ; that they might not adopt
the same superstitious veneration for them. They were
forbidden to use a particular tonsure of the hair ; because
a neighbouring nation used it in honour of a dead prince
whom they worshipped. They were forbidden certain
rites of mourning in use among the bordering people,
who deified their dead. None of these local and tempo-
rary intendments are to be found in the covenant of
Jesus, — no accommodations to the manners of any parti-
cular nation, ^ — no caution against the corruptions of this
particular age or place : the whole is planned upon a
comprehensive view of human nature in general, of the
original and immutable relation of things, and of the per-
fections of the unchangeable God. The things com-
manded are such as ever were and ever will be good ;
the things forbidden, such as ever were and ever will be
evil ; — ever good and ever evil, not from their adjuncts,
their accidents, or their circumstances, which may admit
of change ; but intrinsically, in their own form.al natures,
which are permanent and invariable as the ideas of the
Divine Mind, in which the forms of things originate.
Thus the religious fear and iove of God are every vvhere
and always good, because his power and goodness are every
where active; and power in act is by its formal nature,
not by accident, the object of fear ; and goodness in act
the object of love. For the same reason, the neglect and
disregard of God are always evil. Again, the love of man
IS always good ; because man always bears in the natural
endowments of his mind somewhat of that glorious image
in which he was created : and because by this resem-
blance man partakes of the Divine nature, to be enslaved
by the appetites which are common to him with the

415

brutes, is always evil. And since the whole of the Chris-
tian duty is reducible to these three heads, — the love of
God, the love of man, and the government of self, — it is
evident that in this part of it the Christian covenant is in
its very nature calculated to be everlasting. Nor do the
promises of this covenant less than its requisitions demon-
strate its everlasting nature. Its promises are such as
cannot be improved ; for what can God promise more
than everlasting life ? What better reward can Omnipo-
tence bestow than the participation of the pleasures which
are at his own right-hand ? Evidently, therefore, in the
duties it enjoins, and in the promises it holds out, the co-
venant of Jesus appears in its nature to be everlasting.
Another character of the covenant foretold by Jeremiah
and Ezekiel is, that it should be a law written in the
hearts of God's people. And such is the gospel ; if we
consider either the motives by which it operates — those of
hope and love, rather than of fear and awe, — or the graci-
ous influences of the Spirit on the heart of every true
believer.

Let us now briefly collect the sum of this investiga-
tion. The covenant foretold by Jeremiah and Ezekiel was
to be different from the Mosaic,- — general, for all nations;
everlasting, for all ages ; a law written in the hearts of the
faithful. The covenant which Jesus as God's Messenger
propounded is altogether different from the Mosaic : it is
propounded generally, to all nations ; and in the terms of
it, is fitted to be everlastino-, for all ao^es ; it is a law writ-
ten in the heart. Assuredly, then, Jesus of Nazareth was
the Messenger of the Covenant foretold by the prophets
Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But it is to be observed, that
during his life on earth he was only the Messenger of
this Covenant: it was propounded, but not established by
liim, during his own residence among the sons of men.
The hand-WTiting of ordinances remained in force till it
was nailed with Jesus to his cross : then the ritual law
lost its meaning and obligation ; but still the new co-

416

venant was not established, till it was sealed by tlieeflu-
sion of the Holy Spirit after Christ's ascension, and the
Mosaic law was formally abrogated by the solemn sen-
tence of the apostles in the comicil of Jerusalem : this
was the authoritative revocation of the old and the esta-
blishment of the new covenant. You see, therefore, with
what accuracy of expression the Messiah is called by the
prophet the iMessengtr of the Covenant ; and how ex-
actly this second characteristic was verified in Jesus of
Nazareth.

Having now traced in Jesus these two characters, of
the Lord, and the Lord's Messenger, it is not likely that
any other will be wanting: for since we are assured by
the prophets that these two characters should meet in the
Messiah, — since we have no reason to believe that they
ever shall meet in any other person, — and since we have
seen that they have met in the person of Jesus, — it follows
undeniably, from the union of these two characters in
his person, that Jesus was the Messiah; and of conse-
quence, that all the other characteristics of that extraordi-
nary personage will be found in him. The third is that
of the Judge, who shall execute God's final vengeance on
the wicked. This, it must be confessed, is a character
which Jesus of Nazareth hath not yet assumed, otherwise
than by declaring that hereafter he will assume it. His
first coming was not to judge the world, but that the
world through him might be saved. " Nevertheless, the
Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, who
shall come again at the last day in glory, to judge both the
quick and dead." It must be confessed, that the prophets
have so connected the judgment to be executed by the
Messiah with his first appearance, that any one not
acquainted with the general cast and genius of the pro-
phetic language might not easily suspect that they speak
of two advents of this great personage, separated from
each other by a long interval of time. But if you have
observed that this is the constant style of prophecy, — that

417

when a long train of distant events are predicted, risino-
naturally in succession one out of another, and all tending
to one great end, the whole time of these events is never
set out in parcels, by assigning the distinct epoch of
each : but the whole is usually described as an instant — as
what it is in the sight of God ; and the whole train of
events is exhibited in one scene, without any marks of suc-
cession ; — if you consider that prophecy, were it more re-
gularly arranged, and digested in chronological order,
would be an anticipated history of the world, which
would in great measure defeat the very end of prophecy,
which is to demonstrate the weakness and ignorance of
man, as well as the sovereignty and universal rule of Pro-
vidence ; — if you take these things into consideration, you
will perhaps be inclined to think, that they may best
interpret the ancient prophecies concerning the Messiah
who refer to two different and distant times as two distinct
events, — his coming to make reconciliation for iniquity;
and his coming to cut off the incorrigibly wicked. Again,
if you consider the achievements which the prophets
ascribe to the Messiah, which are such as cannot be
accomplished but in the course of many ages; and that
the general judgment must in the reason of the thing be
the last of all ; — if you consider that the Messiah was to
come in humility before he should be revealed in glory,
you will be convinced that the prophets cannot be under-
stood of a single advent. If you recollect that the Mes-
siah was to be cut off before he should reign, you will
probably allow that the history of the New Testament
is the best exposition of the types and oracles of the Old:
— and in Jesus of Nazareth, who came in all humility, and
was cut off, but not for himself, you will acknowledge
Messiah the Prince; and you will look for him a second
time in glory.

Your faith will be much confirmed, if you recollect that
the particulars of the business upon which Messiah was
to come appear no less evidently in the performances of
•2 !•;

418

Jesus than the }Dersonal characters in his person. The
Messiah was to try the tempers and dispositions of man-
kind. This Jesus does, by the duties to which he calls
us, and the doctrine he has left with us ; — duties in which
faith alone can engage us to persist; a doctrine which
the pure in heart ever will revere, and the children of this
world ever will misinterpret and despise. " Thus many
shall be purified, and made white, and tried ; but the
wicked shall do wickedly." Messiah was to purify the
sons of Levi. The doctrine of Jesus has in many nations
reformed the public worship of God ; and we trust that
the reformation will gradually become general. Us of
the Gentiles he has reclaimed from the abominations of
idolatry; and hath taught us to loathe and execrate the
rites whereby our forefathers sought the favour of their
devils (for they were not gods), — the impure rites of hu-
man sacrifice and public prostitution; things which it
were unfit to mention or remember, but that we may the
better understand from what a depth of corruption the
mercy of God hath raised us. Blindness, it must be con-
fessed, is at present upon Israel; but the time shall come
when they shall turn to the Lord, and when we shall unite
with them in the pure worship of God, and in the just
praises of the Lamb. " Then shall the offering of Judah
and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord:" then shall the
Lord Jesus come again, to execute what remains of the
Messiah's office, — to absolve and to condemn. God grant
that every one here may be enabled "to abide the day of
his coming, and to stand when he appeareth."

419

SERMON XXXIV.

Hail, thou tliat art highly favoured : The Lord is with thee : Blessed
art thou among women. — Luke i. 28.*

That she who in these terms was sakited by an angel
should in after ages become an object of superstitious
adoration, is a thing far less to be wondered, than that
men professing to build their whole hopes of immortality
on the promises delivered in the sacred books, and closely
interwoven with the history of our Saviour's life, should
question the truth of the message which the angel brought.
Some nine years since, the Christian church was no less
astonished than oftended, by an extravagant attempt to
heighten, as it was pretended, the importance of the Chris-
tian revelation, by overturning one of those first princi-
ples of natural religion which had for ages been consi-
dered as the basis upon which the whole superstructure
of revelation stands. The notion of an immaterial prin-
ciple in man, which, without an immediate exertion of the
Divine power to the express purpose of its destruction,
must necessarily survive the dissolution of the body — the
notion of an immortal soul — was condemned and exploded
as an invention of heathen philosophy : Death was repre-
sented as an utter extinction of the whole man ; and the
evangelical doctrine of a resurrection of the body in an
improved state, to receive again its immortal inhabi-
tant, was heightened into the mystery of a reproduction
of the annihilated person. How a person once annihi-
lated could be reproduced, so as to be the same person
which had formerly existed, when no principle of sameness,
nothing necessarily permanent, was supposed to enter the
original composition, — how the present person could be

* Preached on Christmas-day.
2 E 2

420

interested in the future person's fortunes, — why / should
be at all concerned for the happiness or misery of the man
who some ages hence shall be raised from my ashes,
when the future man could be no otherwise the same with
me than as he was arbitrarily to be called the same, be-
cause his body was to be composed of the same matter
which now composes mine, — these difficulties were but
ill explained. It was thought a sufficient recommendation
of the system, with all its difficulties, that the promise of
a resurrection of the body seemed to acquire a new im-
portance from it (but the truth is, that it would lose its
whole importance if this system could be established;
since it would become a mere prediction concerning a
future race of men, and would be no promise to any men
now existing) ; and the notion of the souVs natural immor-
tality was deemed an unseemly appendage of a Chris-
tian's belief, — for this singular reason, that it had been
entertained by wise and virtuous heathens, who had
received no light from the Christian, nor, as it was sup-
posed, from any earlier revelation.

It might have been expected, that this anxiety to extin-
guish every ray of hope which beams not from the glorious
promises of the gospel, would have been accompanied with
the most entire submission of the understanding to the
letter of the written word — the most anxious solicitude for
the credit of the sacred writers — the warmest zeal to main-
tain every circumstance in the history of our Saviour's life
which might add authority to his precepts and weight to
his promises, by heightening the dignity of his person :
but so inconsistent with itself is human folly, that they
who at one time seemed to think it a preliminary to be re-
quired of every one who would come to a right belief of
the gospel, that he should unlearn and unbelieve what
philosophy had been thought to have in common with the
gospel (as if reason and revelation could in nothing agree),
upon other occasions discover an aversion to the belief of
any thing which at all puts our reason to a stand : and

421

in order to wage war with mystery with the more advan-
tage, they scruple not to deny that that Spirit which en-
lightened the first preachers in the delivery of their oral
instruction, and rendered them infallible teachers of the
age in which they lived, directed them in the composition
of those writings which they left for the edification of suc-
ceeding ages. They pretend to have made discoveries of
inconclusive reasoning in the epistles — of doubtful facts
in the gospels ; and appealing from the testimony of the
apostles to their own judgments, they have not scrupled
to declare their opinion, that the miraculous conception of
our Lord is a subject " with respect to which any person
is at full liberty to think as the evidence shall appear to
him, without any impeachment of his faith or character as
a Christian :" and lest a simple avowal of this extraor-
dinary opinion should not be suflSciently offensive, it is
accompanied with certain obscure insinuations, the re-
served meaning of which we are little anxious to divine,
which seem intended to prepare the world not to be sur-
prised if something still more extravagant (if more extra-
vagant may be) should in a little time be declared.

We are assembled this day to commemorate our Lord's
nativity. It is not as the birth-day of a prophet that this
day is sanctified ; but as the anniversary of that great
event which had been announced by the whole succession
of prophets from the beginning of the world, and in which
the predictions concerning the manner of the Messiah's
advent received their complete and literal accomplish-
ment. In the predictions, as well as in the correspond-
ing event, the circumstance of the miraculous conception
makes so principal a part, that we shall not easily find,
subjects of meditation more suited either to the season or
to the times than these two points, — the importance of
this doctrine as an article of the Christian faith ; and the
sufficiency of the evidence by which the fact is supported.

First, for the importance of the doctrine as an article
of the faith. It is evidently the foundation of the whole

422

distinction between the character of Christ in the condi-
tion of a man and that of any other prophet. Had the
conception of Jesus been in the natural way — had he been
the fruit of Mary's marriage with her husband — his inter-
course with the Deity could have been of no other kind
than the nature of any other man might have equally ad-
mitted,— an intercourse of no higher kind than the prophets
enjoyed, when their minds were enlightened by the extra-
ordinary influence of the Holy Spirit. The information
conveyed to Jesus might have been clearer and more ex-
tensive than any imparted to any former prophet ; but the
manner and the means of communication must have been
the same. The holy Scriptures speak a very different
language: they tell us, that "the same God who spake in
times past to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these
latter days spoken unto us by his Son ;" evidently esta-
blishing a distinction of Christianity from preceding reve-
lations, upon a distinction between the two characters of
a prophet of God, and of God's Son. Moses, the great
lawgiver of the Jews, is described in the book of Deu-
teronomy as superior to all succeeding prophets, for the
intimacy of his intercourse with God, for the variety of
his miracles, and for the authority with which he was
invested. " There arose not a prophet in Israel like unto
Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, — in all the signs
and wonders which Jehovah sent him to do in the land
of Egypt, to Pharoah, and all his servants, and to all his
land, — and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great
terror, which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel."
Yet this great prophet, raised up to be the leader and the
legislator of God's people — this greatest of the prophets,
with whom Jehovah conversed face to face, as a man
talketh with his friend — bore to Jesus, as we are told, the
humble relation of a servant to a son. And lest the supe-
riority on the side of the Son should be deemed a mere
superiority of the office to which he was appointed, we
are told that the Son is " higher than the angels ; being

423

the eft'ulgeiice of God's glory, the express image of his
person ;" the God " wliose throne is for ever and ever,
the sceptre of whose kingdom is a sceptre of righteous-
ness.'" And this high dignity of the Son is alleged as a
motive for religious obedience to his commands, and for
reliance on his promises. It is this, indeed, which gives
such authority to his precepts, and such certainty to his
whole doctrine, as render faith in him the first duty of re-
ligion. Had Christ been a mere prophet, to believe in
Christ had been the same thing as to believe in John the
Baptist. The messages, indeed, announced on the part
of God by Christ and by John the Baptist might have
been different, and the importance of the different messages
unequal; but the principle of belief in either must have
been the same.

Hence, it appears, that the intercourse which Christ as
a man held with God was different in kind from that
which the greatest of the prophets ever had enjoyed.
And yet how it should differ, otherwise than in the degree
of frequency and intimacy, it Avill not be very easy to ex-
plain, unless we adhere to the faith transmitted to us from
the primitive ages, and believe that the Eternal Word, who
was in the beginning with God, and was God, so joined
to himself the holy thing which was formed in Mary's
womb, that the two natures, from the commencement of
the virgin's conception, made one person. Between God
and any living being, having a distinct personality of his
own separate from the Godhead, no other communion
could obtain than what should consist in the action of the
Divine Spirit upon the faculties of the separate person.
This communion with God the prophets enjoyed. But
Jesus, according to the primitive doctrine, was so united
to the Ever-living Word, that the very existence of the
man consisted in this union.* We shall not indeed find

* So Theodoret, in the fourth of his Seven Dialogues about the Tri-
nity, published under the name of Athanasius. The persons in this
Dialogue are an orthodox believer and an Apoliinariau. The Apolli-
narian asks, Ova eo-tiv ouv Iria-ovi; avQfU7vo<; ; The believer replies, A.nv lov

424

this proposition, that the existence of Mary's Son con-
sisted from the first, and ever shall consist, in his union
with the Word, — we shall not find this proposition, in
these terms, in Scripture. Would to God the necessity
never had arisen of stating the discoveries of revelation
in metaphysical propositions ! The inspired writers de-
livered their sublimest doctrines in popular language, and
abstained as much as it was possible to abstain from a
philosophical phraseology. By the perpetual cavils of
gainsayers, and the difiiculties which they have raised,
later teachers, in the assertion of the same doctrines, have
been reduced to the unpleasing necessity of availing them-
selves of the greater precision of a less familiar language.
But if we find not the same proposition in the same
words in Scripture, we find in Scripture what amounts to
a clear proof of the proposition : we find the charac-
teristic properties of both natures, the human and the di-
vine, ascribed to the same person. We read of Jesus,
that he suffered from hunger and from fatigue; that he
wept for grief, and was distressed with fear ; that he was
obnoxious to all the evils of humility, except the propen-
sity to sin. We read of the same Jesus, that he had
" glory with the Father before the world began ;" that
"all things were created by him, both in heaven and in
earth, visible and invisible, — whether they be thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were
created by him, and for him ;" and " he upholdeth all

AoyOU OVTi a.WpWTVOV aUTOV OlOCt, UTtOCTTCiVTOC^ TflV yOCB VTiCy^aqtV CCVTOV IV TYI ivuau Toy

Koyov yvwpj^w. To the Same purpose .Toainies Damascenus : ov yap

'Ttfoviroa-Tot.G-^ >ta6' loivrnv crcifKt rJvwStj o ©sto? Aoyo?, aAA' evomna-cct; rii ycccnft TVi
ayio,/; TrapGfvou a.nrifiyfo.'itTuii;, ev t»i \a.vrou \iiro(7ra,(7u fx ruv ocyiuv rrit; a-UTrupOevov
aj/xocTwv, croc.fx.ci e-\-v^ufjiSVYiv 4-i'p^»i XoyiKri ts xa,t vospa i'aca'Tna-ccro, (/.Trap^riv irpoir-
XaCojiAEvo? Tov o.vQpui'TrHov ipvpoc^jiccroi;, AYTOS 'O AOFOE TENOMENOS TH
SAPKI "rnOSTASIS.— De Fide Orthodoxa, lib. 3. cap. ii. And again,

cap. VU. Ecrapjii'Tat Totvvv ujctts avTYiv ^pYtfM0CTK7ai rn crapxt VTrocrroccriv r, rov

©sou Aoyov v'TToa-Tc/.a-n;. So also Gregory Nazianzen : Et rn; ^io.'jrs'^Xoicr^ai

rov avopoiTTov, siS' ii'jrooEdvx.iva.t T^syot ^tov, x-ccTccKpiToi;. EtTK w? fv 7rpo<PnrYi Xeyoi

xara J^aptv syvpynx-svon, oJKKot, fx'/i kcx.t ovo-khv a-vvntp^cA te koh o-yvccTTTEO-Oat, fm-
y(.ivo(; TU? xpsiTTovo? mpyuui;, {jlkWov h ."TrXvpriq rn<; evxvna.i;, — Epist. ad Gle-
don. I.

425

things by the word of his power:" and that we may in
some sort understand how infirmity and perfection should
thus meet in the same person, we are told by St. John,
that the "Word was made flesh."

It was clearly, therefore, the doctrine of holy writ, and
nothing else, which the fathers asserted in terms borrowed
from the schools of philosophy, when they affirmed that
the very principle of personality and individual existence
in Mary's Son was union with the uncreated Word ;* a
doctrine in which a miraculous conception would have
been implied, had the thing not been recorded, — since a
man conceived in the ordinary way would have derived
the principles of his existence from the mere physical
powers of generation : union with the divine nature could
not have been the principle of an existence physically de-
rived from Adam ; and that intimate union of God and
man in the Redeemer's person which the Scriptures so
clearly assert had been a physical impossibility.

But we need not o-o so hioh as to the divine nature of
our Lord to evince the necessity of his miraculous concep-
tion. It was necessary to the scheme of redemption, by
the Redeemer's offering of himself as an expiatory sacri-
fice, that the manner of his conception should be such
that he should in no degree partake of the natural pollu-
tion of the fallen race whose guilt he came to atone, nor
be included in the general condemnation of Adam's pro-
geny. In what the stain of original sin may consist, and
in what manner it may be propagated, it is not to my pre-
sent purpose to inquire: it is sufficient that Adam's crime,
by the appointment of Providence, involved his whole pos-

* 'O ovv ©£0? Aoyot; (7a.fX.u9in;, ovte rnv v/ t*) \)^^^rJ Sswp»« }<.a.ra]/ovfMsvvv (pva-tv
anXocSiv {ov yap a-ccpmaa-K; rovro, ocK^ a-xocrr) kcx-i ■^vXcca-jji.x crapjtwcrEW?) aAX»
Tt)v £V ccrofjuii, Tm at/rnv ova-xv t») ev no sidsi (a7rap;:^»]v yocp avsXabf tou
rijxeTEfov ^vpacfxaroi;) ov kkS' Ixvttiv u7ro(7T«(rc»v xai cx,to[j.ov ;;^p*)jU.aTJcrac7«v TrpoTfpov,
K</A ovTuq vi: avTov Trfoa-T^ri^^Horoiv, aXX' £V rri avrov V'ttoo-tkcth ii'Tra.p^a.cra.v' auin
yccp ri V7roiTTa(7K tov @;ov Aoyov lyivsTo t*i <7X.(Kt viroarTO.m. — JoailU. DailUlS-

cen. De Fide Orthodoxa, lib. 3. cap. xi.

426

terity in punishment. " In Adam," says the apostle, " all
die." And for many lives thus forfeited, a single life, it-
self a forfeit, had been no ransom. Nor by the Divine
sentence only, inflicting death on the progeny for the of-
fence of the progenitor, but by the proper guilt of his own
sins, every one sprung by natural descent from the loins of
Adam is a debtor to Divine justice, and incapable of be-
coming a mediator for his brethren. " In many things,"
says St. James, " we offend all." " If we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves," saith St. John, " and the
truth is not in us. And if any man sin, we have an ad-
vocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous ; and
he is the propitiation for our sins." Even we Christians
all offend, without exception even of the first and best
Christians, the apostles. But St. John clearly separates
the Righteous Advocate from the mass of those offenders.
That any Christian is enabled, by the assistance of God's
Spirit, to attain to that degree of purity which may entitle
him to the future benefits of the redemption, is itself a
present benefit of the propitiation which hath been made
for us : and he who under the assault of every tempta-
tion maintained that unsullied innocence which gives me-
rit and efficacy to his sacrifice and intercession, could not
be of the number of those whose offences called for an
expiation, and whose frailties needed a divine assistance
to raise them effectually from dead works to serve the liv-
ing God. In brief, the condemnation and the iniquity of
Adam's progeny were universal : to reverse the universal
sentence, and to purge the universal corruption, a Re-
deemer was to be found pure of every stain of inbred and
contracted guilt ; and since every person produced in the
natural way could not but be of the contaminated race,
the purity requisite to the efficacy of the Redeemer's atone-
ment made it necessary that the manner of his conception
should be supernatural.

Thus you see the necessary connexion of the miracu-
lous conception with the other articles of the Christian

427

faith. The incarnation of the Divine Word, so roundly
asserted by St. John, and so clearly implied in innu-
merable passages of holy writ, in any other way had
been impossible, and the Redeemer's atonement inadequate
and ineffectual ; insomuch, that had the extraordinary
manner of our Lord's generation made no part of the evan-
gelical narrative, the opinion might have been defended
as a thing clearly implied in the evangelical doctrine.

On the other hand, it were not difficult to show that
the miraculous conception, once admitted, naturally brings
up after it the great doctrines of the atonement and the
incarnation. The miraculous conception of our Lord evi-
dently implies some higher purpose of his coming than the
mere business of a teacher. The business of a teacher
might have been performed by a mere man enlightened
by the prophetic spirit ; for whatever instruction men
have the capacity to receive, a man might have been made
the instrument to convey. Had teaching, therefore, been
the sole purpose of our Saviour's coming, a mere man
might have done the whole business ; and the superna-
tural conception had been an unnecessary miracle. He,
therefore, who came in this miraculous way came upon
some higher business, to which a mere man was unequal:
he came to be made a sin-offering for us, "that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him."

So close, therefore, is the comiexion of this extraor-
dinary fact with the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, that
it may be justly deemed a necessary branch of the scheme
of redemption. And in no other light was it considered
by St. Paul; who mentions it among the characteristics
of the Redeemer, that he should be " made of a woman."
In this short sentence, St. Paul bears a remarkable testi-
mony to the truth of the evangelical history, in this cir-
cumstance. And you, my brethren, have not so learnt
Christ, but that you will prefer the testimony of St. Paul
to the rash judgment of those who have dared to tax this
"chosen vessel" of the Lord with error and inaccuracy.

428

The opinion of these men is indeed the less to be re-
garded, for the want of insight which they discover into
the real interests and proper connexions of their own sys-
tem. It is by no means sufficient for their purpose that
they insist not on the belief of the miraculous conception:
they must insist upon the disbelief of it, if they expect to
make discerning men proselytes to their Socinian doctrine :
they must disprove it, before they can reduce the gospel
to what their scheme of interpretation makes it — a mere
religion of nature — & system of the best practical Deism,
enforced by the sanction of high rewards and formidable
punishments in a future life ; which are yet no rewards
and no punishments, but simply the enjoyments and the
sufferings of a new race of men to be made out of old
materials ; and therefore constitute no sanction, when the
principles of the Materialist are incorporated with those
of the Socinian in the finished creed of the modern Uni-
tarian.

Having seen the importance of the doctrine of the mira-
culous conception as an article of our faith, let us, in the
next place, consider the sufficiency of the evidence by
which the fact is supported.

We have for it the express testimony of two out of the
four evangelists, — of St. Matthew, whose gospel was pub-
lished in Judea within a few years after our Lord's ascen-
sion ; and of St. Luke, whose narrative was composed (as
may be collected from the author's short preface) to pre-
vent the mischief that was to be apprehended from some
pretended histories of our Saviour's life, in which the truth
was probably blended with many legendary tales. It is
very remarkable, that the fact of the miraculous conception
should be found in the first of the four gospels, — written at
a time when many of the near relations of the holy family
must have been living, by whom the story, had it been
false, had been easily confuted ; that it should be found
again in St. Luke's Gospel, written for the peculiar use of
the converted Gentiles, and for the express purpose of fur-

429

nishing a summary of aiitlientic tacts, and of suppressing
spurious narrations. Was it not ordered by some peculiar
providence of God, that the two great branches of the pri-
mitive church, the Hebrew congregations for which St.
Matthew wrote, and the Greek congregations for which
St. Luke wrote, should find an express record of the mira-
culous conception each in its proper gospel ? Or if we con-
sider the testimony of the writers simply as historians of
the times in which they lived, without regard to their in-
spiration, which is not admitted by the adversary, — were
not Matthew and Luke — Matthew, one of the twelve apos-
tles of our Lord, and Luke, the companion of St. Paul —
competent to examine the evidence of the facts which they
have recorded ? Is it likely that they have recorded facts
upon the credit of a vague report, without examination ?
And was it reserved for the Unitarians of the eighteenth
century to detect their errors ? St. Luke thought himself
particularly well c^ualitied for the work in which he en-
gaged, by his exact knowledge of the story which he under-
took to write, in all its circumstances, from the very begin-
ning. It is said, indeed, by a writer of the very first anti-
quity, and high in credit, that his gospel was composed
from St. Paul's sermons. " Luke, the attendant of St.
Paul," says Irenseus, " put into his book the gospel preached
by that apostle."^ This being premised, attend, I beseech
you, to the account which St. Luke gives of his own under-
taking. " It seemed good to me also, having had perfect
understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto
thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou might-
est know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast
been instructed."' The last verse might be more literally
rendered — " That thou mightest know the exact truth of
those doctrines wherein thou hast been catechised."
St. Luke's Gospel, therefore, if the writer's own word may
be taken about his own work, is an historical exposition of
the catechism which Theophilus had learnt when he was
first made a Christian. The two first articles in this histo-

430

rical exposition are — the history ot the Baptist's birtli,
and that of Mary's miraculous impregnation. We have
much more, therefore, than the testimony of St. Luke, in
addition to that of St. Matthew, to the truth of the fact of
the miraculous conception : we have the testimony of St.
Luke that this fact was a part of the earliest catechetical
instruction, — a part of the catechism, no doubt, which St.
Paul's converts learnt of the apostle. Let this then be your
answer, if any man shall ask you a reason of this part of
your faith, — tell him that you have been learning St. Paul's
catechism.

From what hath been said, you will easily perceive that
the evidence of the fact of our Lord's miraculous conception
is answerable to the great importance of the doctrine ; and
you v/ill esteem it an objection of little weight, that the
modern advocates of the Unitarian tenets cannot otherwise
give a colour to their wretched cause than by denying the
inspiration of the sacred historians, that they may seem to
themselves at liberty to reject their testimony. You will
remember, that the doctrines of the Christian revelation
were not originally delivered in a system, but interwoven
in the history of our Saviour's life. To say, therefore, that
the first preachers were not inspired in the composition of
the narratives in which their doctrine is conveyed, is nearly
the same thing as to deny their inspiration in general.
You will perhaps think it incredible, that they who were
assisted by the Divine Spirit when they preached shoidd
be deserted by that Spirit when they committed what they
had preached to writing. You will think it improbably
that they who were endowed with the gift of discerning
spirits should be endowed with no gift of discerning the
truth of facts. You will recollect one instance upon record,
in which St. Peter detected a falsehood by the light of
inspiration ; and you will perhaps be inclined to think,
that it could be of no less importance to the church that
the apostles and evangelists should be enabled to detect
falsehoods in the Instorv of our Saviour's life than that St.

431

Peter should be enabled to detect Ananias's lie about the
sale of his estate. You will think it unlikely, that they
who were led by the Spirit into all truth should be permitted
to lead the whole church for many ages into error, — that
they should be permitted to leave behind them, as authen-
tic memoirs of their Master's life, narratives compiled with
little judgment or selection, from the stories of the day,
from facts and fictions in promiscuous circulation. The
credulity which swallows these contradictions, while it
strains at mysteries, is not tlie faith which will remove
mountains. The Ebionites of antiquity, little as they were
famed for penetration and discernment, managed, however,
the affairs of the sect with more discretion than our modern
Unitarians. They questioned not the inspiration of the
books which they received ; but they received only one
book — a spurious copy of St. Matthew's Gospel, curtailed
of the two first chapters. You will think it no inconsi-
derable confirmation of the doctrine in question, that the
sect which first denied it, to palliate their infidelity, found
it necessary to reject three of the gospels, and to mutilate
the fourth.

Not in words therefore and in form, but with hearts full
of faith and gratitude, you will join in the solemn service
of the day, and return thanks to God, " who gave his only-
begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and, as at this
time, to be born of a pure virgin." You will always re-
member, that it is the great use of a sound faith, that it
furnishes the most effectual motives to a good life. You
will therefore not rest in the merit of a speculative faith ;
you will make it your constant endeavour that your lives
may adorn your profession, — that "your light may so shine
before men, that they, seeing your good works, may glo-
rify your Father which is in heaven."

432

SERMON XXXV.

For the poor sliall never cease out of the land : therefore I command
thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to
thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land. — Deut. xv. U.*

Since civilized society is unquestionably the life which
Providence designs for man, formed, as he evidently is,
with powers to derive his proper happiness from what he
may contribute to the public good, nor less formed to be
miserable in solitude, by want of employment for the facul-
ties which something of a natural instinct prompts him to
exert, — since what are commonly called the artificial dis-
tinctions of society, the inequalities of rank, wealth, and
power, must in truth be a part of God's design, when he
designs man to a life in which the variety of occupations
and pursuits, arising from those discriminations of condi-
tion, is no less essential to the public weal, than the diver-
sity of members in the natural body, and the different
functions of its various parts, are essential to the health
and vigour of the individual, — since, in harmony with this
design of driving man by his powers and capacities, no
less than by his wants and infirmities, to seek his happi-
ness in civil life, it is ordained that every rank furnish the
individual with the means, not only of subsistence, but of
comfort and enjoyment (for although the pleasures of the
different degrees of men are drawn from different sources,
and differ greatly in the elegance and lustre of their exterior
form and show, yet the quantity of real happiness within
the reach of the individual will be found, upon a fair and
just comparison, in all the ranks of life the same), — upon
this view of the divine original of civil society, with the
inequalities of condition which obtain in it, and the pro-

* Preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Sons of the Clergy,
May 18, 178G.

433

vision which is equally made in all conditions for the hap-
piness of the individual, — ^it may seem perhaps unreason-
able— it ma}^ seem a presumptuous deviation from the
Creator's plan, that any should become suitors to the public
charity for a better subsistence than their own labour might
procure. Poverty, it may seem, can be nothing more than
an imaginary evil ; of which the modest never will com-
plain, which the intelligent never will commiserate, and
the politic never will relieve. And the complaint, it may
seem, can never be more indecent, or less worthy of re-
gard, than when it is used by those who profess to be
strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, and to have a balm
for all the evils of the present world in the certainty of their
prospects in a better country.

Shocking as 1 trust these conclusions must be to the
feelings of a Christian assembly, it may nevertheless be
useful to demonstrate, that they have no real connexion
with the principles from which they seem to be drawn, —
that they are not less contrary to reason and to sound
policy than to the feelings of philanthropy and the pre-
cepts of the gospel. For although I shall not readily
admit that the proof of moral obligation cannot in any
instance be complete unless the connexion be made out
between the action which the heart naturally approves
and that which a right understanding of the interests of
mankind would recommend (on the contrary, to judge
practically of right and wrong, we should feel rather than
philosophize ; and we should act from sentiment rather
than from policy), — yet we surely acquiesce with the most
cheerfulness in our duty when we perceive how the useful
and the fair are united in the same action.

I therefore undertake to prove these two things : —

First, That poverty is a real evil ; which, without any
impeachment of the goodness or wisdom of Providence,
the constitution of the world actually admits.

Secondly, That the providential appointment of this evil,
in subservience to the general good, brings a particular
2 F

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obligation upon men in civilized society to concur for the
immediate extinction of the evil, wherever it appears.
" The poor shall never cease out of the land." And for
this especial reason, because the poor shall never cease,
therefore it is commanded, " that thou open thine hand
w^ide unto thy brother ; that thou surely lend him sufficient
for his need, in that which he wanteth."

The distribution of mankind into various orders is not
more essential to the being of society than it is conducive
to the public good that the fortunes of every individual in
every rank should be in a considerable degree uncertain :
for were things so ordered that every man's fortune should
be invariably determined by the rank in which he should
be born, or by the employment to which he should be
bred, an Epicurean indolence, the great bane of public
prosperity, would inevitably take place among all ranks
of men ; when industry, of all qualities of the individual
the most beneficial to the community, would lose the in-
citement of its golden dreams; and sloth, of all the vices
of the individual the most pernicious to the community,
would be released from its worst apprehensions. But to
be uncertain in the degree which the public weal demands,
the fortunes of the individual must be governed, as we see
they are, by an intricate combination of causes, of which
no sagacity of human forecast may predict or avert the
event. The consequence must be, that the individual's
means of subsistence will not always correspond with
other circumstances, — that they will sometimes fall greatly
short of what belongs to the particular sphere which upon
the whole he is best qualified to fill with advantage to the
community of which he is a member. This is the evil to
which the name of poverti/ properly belongs. The man
who hath food to eat and raiment to put on is not poor be-
cause his diet is plain and his apparel homely ; but he is
truly poor whose means of subsistence are insufficient for
his proper place in society, as determined by the general
complication of his circumstances^ — by his birth, his edu-

435

cation, his bodily strength, and his mental endowments.
By the means of subsistence, I understand not the means
of superfluous gratiiications ; but that present competency
which every individual must possess in order to be in a
capacity to derive a support from his industry in the pro-
per business of his calling. In every condition of life,
something more is wanting to a man's support, than that
he should earn by his industry, from day to day, the price
of lodging, food, and raiment, for himself and for his family.
The common labourer must be furnished with his mattock
and his spade ; the tradesman must have wherewithal to
purchase the commodities from the sale of which he is to
derive his livelihood ; in commerce, a large capital must
often be expended upon the expectation of a slow and dis-
tant return of profit; those who are destined to the liberal
professions are to be qualified for the part which they are
to sustain in life, by a long and expensive course of educa-
tion ; and they who are born to hereditary honours, if they
succeed, as too often is the case, to estates encumbered by
the misfortunes or misconduct of their ancestors, are re-
strained, by the decorums of their rank, from seeking a
reparation of their fortunes in any mercenary occupation.
Without something therefore of a previous competency,
it is evident, that in every rank of life the individual's in-
dustry will be insufficient to his support. The want of
this previous competency is poverty ; which, with respect
to the whole, is indeed, in a certain sense, no evil : it is
the necessary result of that instability of the individual's
prosperity which is so far from an evil that it is essential
to the general good. Yet the difficulty is a calamity to
those on whom it lights, — a calamity against v;hich no
elevation of rank secures.

Nor is it any indication of inconsistency and contra-
diction in the management of the world, however it may
seem to superficial inquirers, that the distinctions of rank,
which the purposes of civil life demand, should be occa-
sionally, as it may seem, confounded, and the different
2 F 2

436

orders mixed and levelled, by a calamity like this, univer-
sally incidental. It is indeed by this expedient that the
merciful providence of God guards civil life against the
ruin which would otherwise result from the unlimited pro-
gress of its own refinements. The accumulation of power
in the higher ranks, were they secure against the chances
of life and the shocks of fortune, — that is, in other words,
were the constitution of the world such, that wealth should
always correspond with other advantages in some invari-
able p-oportion,- — -would so separate the interests of the
different orders, that every state would split into so many
distinct communities as it should contain degrees : these
again would subdivide, according to the inequalities of
fortune and other advantages which should obtain in each ;
till, in the progress of the evil, civil society would be dis-
sipated and shivered into its minutest parts, by the uncon-
trolled operation of the very principles to which it owes
its existence.

Thus it appears that poverty is indeed a real evil in the
life of the individual ; which nevertheless the common good
demands, and the constitution of the world accordingly
admits.

But so wonderfully hath Providence interwoven the
public and the private good, that, while the commonweal
requires that the life of the individual should be obnoxious
to this contingency, the public is nevertheless interested in
the relief of real poverty, wherever the calamity alights ;
for Providence hath so ordained, that so long as the indi-
vidual languishes in poverty the public must want the ser-
vices of a useful member. This indeed would not be the
case, nor would the calamity to the individual be what it
generally is, were the transition easy in civil society from
one rank to another. But the truth is, that as our abilities
for any particular employment are generally the result of
habits to which we have been formed in an early part of
life, combined perhaps vrith what is more unconquerable
than habit— the natural bent of genius, — a man who is the

437
best qualified to be serviceable to the community and to
himself in any one situation of life, is by that, very ability
the most disqualified for the business of any other.

This is readily understood, if the supposition be made
of a sudden transition from the lower stations to the
higher. It is easily perceived, that the qualifications of
a mechanic or a tradesman would be of no advantage in
the pulpit, at the bar, or in the senate, — that the clumsy
hand of the common labourer would be ill employed in
finishing the delicate parts of any nice machine. But
though it may be less obvious, it is not less true, that the
difficulty would be just the same in descending from the
higher to the lower stations; as there is still the same
contrariety of habit to create it. At the tradesman's
counter or the attorney's desk, the accomplishments of the
statesman or the scholar would be rather of disservice;
the mechanic's delicacy of hand would but unfit him for
the labours of the anvil; and he who has once shone in the
gay circles of a court, should he attempt in the hour of
distress to put his hand to the plough, would be unable
to earn any better wages than the ridicule of every peasant
in the village.

Thus, every man's ability of finding a subsistence for
himself, and of being serviceable to the public, is limited
by his habits and his genius to a certain sphere; which
may not improperly be called the sphere of his political
uctivitif. Poverty, obstructing political activity in its
proper sphere, arrests and mortifies the powers of the ci-
tizen, rendering him not more miserable in himself than
useless to the community; which, for its own sake, must
free the captive from the chain which binds him, in order
to regain his services. So that, in truth, when it is said,
as it is most truly said, that the evil of poverty is a public
good, the proposition is to be admitted under a particular
interpretation; the danger of poverty threatening the
individual is the good ; poverty in act (if I may borrow an
expression from the schools) is to the community as well

438

as to the sufferer an evil : and since, in the formal nature
of the thine:, it is an evil from which the individual cannot
be extricated by any efforts of his own, policy, no less
than humanity, enjoins that the community relieve him.

Nor will the argument from political expedience fail, if
in some instances of poverty the evil to the public must
remain when the individual is relieved. This is indeed
the case when the calamity arises from causes which go
beyond the obstruction of the political activity of the
citizen, to the extinction of the natural powers of the ani-
mal ; as when the limbs are lost or rendered useless by
disease, or when the bodily strength or the mental faculties
are exhausted by old age. To deny relief in such in-
stances, upon a pretence that the political reason for it
vanishes, because the public can receive no immediate
benefit from the alleviation of the evil, vvould be to act in
contradiction to the very first principles, or rather to the first
idea, of all civil association ; which is that of a union of
the powers of the many to supply the wants and help the
infirmities of the solitary animal.

Thus it appears, that the providential appointment of
poverty as a means of public good, brings an obligation
upon men in civil society to exert themselves for the effec-
tual relief of those on whom the mischief falls.

I would now observe, that sacred as this obligation
is, it is rather a duty which all individuals owe to the
public than what the public owes to its members. I
mean to say, that the most natural and the best me-
thod of relief is by voluntary contribution. It may be
proper that the law should do something for the pro-
tection of the necessitous. The law should be careful
not to do too much : its provisions should be such as may
save poverty from neglect, and yet leave the danger of
poverty indiscriminately impendent over every individual
in every station; that the comnumity may receive the full
benefit of the universal dread of that contingency. Whe-
ther this joint end, of removing the evil of actual poverty

439

from private life without losing the public advantage of
the danger, may be attained by any laws which give the
poor a claim to a maintenance to be levied upon certain
districts in propoition to the wants of the poor which
each shall at any time contain, — when the effect of all
such laws must be to change the dread of want in the
lowest orders of the people into an expectation of a com-
petency, or of something which idleness will prefer to a
competency, — is a question which it is not my province
to discuss. The fact I may take leave to mention, — that
the burden of the imposition in this country is grown, as
all know, to an enormous size: the benefit to the indus-
trious poor, I fear, is less than the vast sum annually
levied on the nation ought to procure for them; and the
pernicious effect on the manners of the lowest rank of
people is notorious. In another place the question might
deserve a serious investigation, how far the manner of
our legal provision for the poor may or may not operate to
increase the frequency of criminal executions.

Meanwhile, it is my duty to inculcate, that neither the
heavy burden nor any ill effects of the legal provision for
the poor, may release the citizen from the duty of volun-
tary benefaction; except indeed so far as what the law
takes from him diminishes his means of spontaneous
liberality. What the laws claim from him for public pur-
poses he is indeed not to consider as his own; what
remains after the public claims are satisfied is his pro-
perty; out of which he is no less obliged to contribute
what he can to the relief of poverty, than if no part of
what is taken out of his nominal property by the law
were applied to charitable purposes. For the fact is, that
after the law hath done its utmost, that most interestino-
species of distress which should be the especial object of
discretionary bounty goes unrelieved. The utmost that
the law can do is confined to the poverty of the lowest
rank of the people: their old age or their debility it may
furnish with the shelter of a homely lodging, with the
warmth of coarse but clean apparel, and with the nourish-

440

ment of wholesome food : their orphans it should cherish,
till they grow up to a sufficiency of strength for the
business of husbandry, or of the lowest and most labo-
rious trades. But to the poverty of the middle and
superior orders, the bounty of the law, after its utmost
exactions, can administer no adequate relief.

Thanks be to God, that heavy as our public burdens
are, of which the legal provision for the poor is among
the greatest, they seem to be no check upon the cha-
ritable spirit of this country ; in which free bounty is still
dispensed with a wide and open hand. Witness the many
large and noble edifices, the pride and ornament of this
metropolis, many raised, all enriched, by voluntary con-
tribution and private legacy, for the supply of every want,
the mitigation of every disaster, with which frail mortality
is visited, in every stage and state of life, from helpless
infancy to withered age: witness the numerous charitable
associations in all parts of the country, among all descrip-
tions of the people: witness the frequent and ample con-
tributions to every instance of private distress, once pub-
licly made known : witness the pious associations for the
support of distant missions, and the promotion of Chris-
tian knowledge: witness this annual celebrity, the pros-
perity of this charitable institution, and the numbers novv
assembled here. For I trust it is less the purpose of our
present meeting to feast the ravished ear with the en-
chanting sounds of holy harmony (which afford indeed
the purest of the pleasures of the senses), than to taste
those nobler ecstacies of energizing love of which flesh
and blood, the animal part of us, can no more partake
than it can inherit heaven. They are proper to the intel-
lect of man, as an image of the Deity ; they are the certain
symptoms of the Christian's communion with his God,
and an earnest of his future transformation into the perfect
likeness of his Lord.

Although every species of distress, not excepting that
which may have taken rise in the follies and the vices of
the sufferer, is an object of the Christian's pity (for the

441

love of Christ, who died for his enemies, is our example;
and tlie beneficence of our heavenly Fatlier, who is kind
to the evil and the unthankful, is the model of our cha-
rity); yet our joy in doing good must then be the most
complete, when innocence is united with distress in the
objects of our bounty, when the distress is out of the reach
of any other help, and when in the exercise of the general
duty we fulfil the special injunctions of our Lord. In the
distress which our present charity immediately regards
we find these circumstances united. The widow and the
orphan are our objects: their claim to misery is in the
common right of human nature; it stands not on the
ground of guilt and ill desert: and for those widows and
those orphans, in particular, whose cause we plead, should
we be questioned by what means their condition hath
been brought thus low, we will confidently answer, by
no sins of their husbands or their parents more than of
their own. It is peculiar to the situation of a clergyman,
that while he is ranked (as the interests of religion require
that he should be ranked) with the higher orders of the
people, and is forbidden by the ecclesiastical law, under
the severest penalties, to engage in any mercenary busi-
ness, which might interfere with the duties of his sacred
calling, and derogate in the eyes of the multitude from
the dignity of his character,— his profession, in whatever
rank he may be placed in it, the least of any of the liberal
professions furnishes the means of making a provision
for a family. It may be added with great truth, that what
means the profession furnishes, the cleric who is the most
intent upon its proper duties, the most addicted to a life
of study and devotion, is the least qualified to improve.
Hence it will oftener happen to the families of clergymen
than of any other set of men, and it will happen perhaps
oftenest to the families of the worthiest, to be left in that
state which, by the principles established in the former
part of this Discourse, is poverty in the truest import of the
word, — to be left destitute of the means of earnini!: a live-

442

liliood ill employments for whicli they are not disqutililied
by the laudable habits of their previous lives.

This evil in the domestic life of the minister of the
gospel, I will venture to predict, no schemes of human
policy ever will remove. Grand in the conception, noble
in the motives which suggested it, promising perhaps in
its first aspect, but fraught with ruin in its certain conse-
quences had it been adopted, was the plan of abolishing
the subordinate dignities of the hierarchy, in order to
apply their revenues to the better maintenance of the
parochial clergy. The parts of civil societies, as of all
things in this nether world, are severally wholes, similar to
the compounds. Every order of men in the great society
of a nation is but a smaller society within itself. The
same principles which render a variety of ranks essential
in the composition of a state, require inequalities of wealth
and authority among the individuals of which each rank
is composed. These inequalities, to form a harmonized,
consistent whole, require a regular gradation between the
opposite extremes; which cannot be taken away, but the
extinction must ensue of the whole description of men in
which the chain is broken.

Nor less fatal to our order would be any change in the
tenure of ecclesiastical property; especially the favourite
project of an exchange of tithes for an equivalent in land.
Many of us here have felt, in some part of our lives, the
inconvenience of succeeding to dilapidated houses, with
small resources in our private fortunes, and restrained by
the circumstances of a predecessor's family from the
attempt to enforce our legal claims. But what would be
the situation of a clergyman who in coming to a living
should succeed to nothing better than a huge, dilapidated
farm? — which would too soon become the real state of
every living in the kingdom in which the tithes should
have been converted into glebe; not to mention the ex-
tinction of our spiritual character, and the obvious incon-
veniences to the yeomanry of the kingdom, which would

443

be likely to take place, should this new manner oC our
maintenance send forth the spirit of fanning among the
rural clergy.

The truth is, that the hardships of our order arise from
causes which defy the relief of human laws and mock the
politician's skill. They arise, in part from the nature of
our calling; in part from the corrupt manners of a world
at enmity with God ; but primarily, from the mysterious
counsels of Providence, which, till the whole world shall
be reduced to the obedience of the gospel, admit not that
the ministry should be a situation of ease and enjoyment.
The Christian minister, in the present state of Christianity,
hath indeed an indisputable right to a maintenance, from the
work of the ministry, for himself and for his family ; as he
had indeed from the very earliest ages; "For the labourer
is worthy of his hire." In a Christian government, he
justly may expect to be put, so far as the secular powers
can effect it, into the same situation of credit and respect
which might belong to a diligent exertion of equal talents
in any other of the liberal professions. Such provision
for the maintenance and for a proper influence of the
clergy is at least expedient, if not necessary for the sup-
port of Christianity, now that its miraculous support is
withdrawn, and the countenance of the magistrate is among
the means which God employs for the maintenance of the
truth. Yet after all that can be done by the friendship of
of the civil powers, since our Lord's kingdom is not of the
present world, it would indeed be strange, if his service,
in the ordinary course of things, were the means of amass-
ing a fortune for posterity, more than of rising to here-
ditary honours. Our great Master, when he calls us to the
ministry, holds out no such expectation. He commands us
to wean our affections from this transitory world, and to
set our hearts upon a heavenly treasure, — to be more
anxious for the success of our labours upon the hearts and
lives of men than for the prosperity of our own families.
He warns us, by his inspired apostle, that all v/ho will live

444

godly in Christ Jesus will more or less sustain a damage
by it in their temporal interests. Yet he promises, that
" if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous-
ness, all those things" that are necessary for our support
and consolation in our pilgrimage shall be added to our
lot, by him who feeds the fowls of the air with grain
which they neither sow nor reap, and arrays the lilies of
the field in a more elegant apparel than the East manu-
factures for her kings. On this promise it is fitting we
rely; and in the eflfect of this charity, and of similar in-
stitutions in different parts of the kingdom, the clergy of
the Church of England see its daily verification.

As the Providence of God for the most part effects its
purposes by secondary causes, the charity of the church
is the means which it hath appointed for the relief of her
suffering ministers. The same authority which commands
us to be ready to forego the enjoyments of the world, hath
commanded that the faithful bear one another's burdens.
The same authority which promises the faithful minister
support in this world and enjoyment in the next, promises
an equal weight of glory to him who shall administer
relief. Relying on these promises, secure of our un-
wearied attention to the commands of our invisible but
not absent Lord, our departed brethren (not insensible in
death to that concern for their surviving families which
they knew to be sanctified by Christ's own example, when
in his agonies he consigned his mother to his favourite
disciple's care) submitted with composure and compla-
cency to the stroke which severed them from all which in
this world they held dear; trusting to us, as to God's
instruments, for the support of their unprovided families,
destitute of other aid. Thus we vi^ho remain are the guar-
dians of the widows and the orphans ; appointed to that
sacred office by no violable testaments of mortal men, but
by the inviolable will of the Ever-living God. Let us see
that we be faithful, as the dec^sed were in their day, to a
trust which we may not decline; looking forward to the

445

joys of that great day when tears sliall be Aviped from
every eye, and " he that hath received a prophet in the
name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward," —
when his recompense in nowise shall be lost "who shall
have given but a cup of cold water only to one of these
little ones in the name of a disciple." In that day shall
these sons and daughters of the prophets be gathered round
the Son of man, seated on his throne of glory; and, in the
presence of the angelic host, bear their testimony to this
day's work of love. What then shall be the joy of those
to whom the King shall say — " I was an hungered, and
ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ;
naked, and j/e clothed me; sick, and ye nursed me. Ve-
rily, I say unto you, as much as ye have done it to the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre-
pared for you from the beginning of the world !" O rich
requital of an easy service! — love the duty; heaven the
reward ! Who will not strive to be the foremost to mi-
nister to the necessities of the saints; secure of being
doubly repaid, — here, in the delight of doing good ; here-
after, in a share of this o-lorious benediction!

SERMON XXXVI.

I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in nie^ though he
were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in
me, shall never die. Believest thou this? — Johx xi. 25, 2G.

Except the cure of the two blind men at Jericho, some
cures in the temple in the Passion-week, the malediction of
the fig-tree, and certain manifestations of our Lord's
power upon the seizure of his person in the garden of
Gethsemane, — except these, the raising of Lazarus from
the dead was, I think, the last public miracle performed

44G

by Clirist during' liis abode in tlie flesh. It was un-
doubtedly among' the most considerable which we read of
in the whole course of our Lord's ministry; and was an apt
prelude to that greatest miracle of all, the seal of his
mission and of our hope, his own resurrection from the
dead. Accordingly, we find him preparing- himself for
this exhibition of his power on the person of his deceased
friend with particular care and solemnity. He was at a
distance from Bethany, the place of Lazarus's residence,
when Lazarus first fell sick; the alarm of the Jewish rulers,
excited by his cure of the man born blind, and by his
open claim to be the Son of God and One with the
Father, having obliged him to retire to Bethabara. When
lie received the news of his friend's illness, notwithstand-
ing his affection for Lazarus and his sisters, he continued
two days in the place where the message found him ; that
the catastrophe might take place before his miraculous
power should be interposed. He had indeed already re-
stored life in tw'o instances : the daughter of Jairus was
one; and the widow's son of Nain was the other. But in
])oth these instances, the evidence of the previous fact,
that death had really taken place, was not so complete
and positive as our Lord intended it should be, and as it
really was, in the case of Lazarus. Accordingly, it is re-
markable, that our Lord's apostles, although they had been
witnesses to these miraculous recoveries of Jairus's daugh-
ter and the widow's son of Nain, entertained not at the
time of Lazarus's death the most distant apprehension that
their Master's power went to the recovery of life once trul}^
and totally extinguished. This appears from the alarm
and the despair indeed which they expressed, when he
informed them that Lazarus was dead, and declared his
intention of visiting the afflicted family. They had so
little expectation that the revival of Lazarus could be the
effect, or that it was indeed the purpose of his journey,
that they would have dissuaded him from leaving the
place of his retirement ; conceiving, as it should seem,

447

tliat tlie only end of his proposed visit to Bethany wonUl
be to gratify the feelings of a useless sympathy at the
hazard of his own safety. " Master," they say unto him,
" the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou
thither again?" And when they found him determined to
go, " Let us also go," said St. Thomas, " that we may die
with him." They rather expected to be themselves stoned
by the Jews, together with their Master, and to be one and
all as dead as Lazarus in a few days, than to see the life
of Lazarus restored.

I must observe, by the way, that these sentiments, ex-
pressed by the apostles upon this and similar occasions,
aftbrd a clear proof that the disciples were not persons of
an over easy credulity, who may with any colour of pro-
bability be supposed to have been themselves deceived in
the wonders which they reported of our Lord. They
seem rather to have deserved the reproach which our Lord
after his resurrection cast upon them, — " Fools, and slow
of heart to believe !" They seem to have believed nothing
till the testimony of their ow^n senses extorted the belief.
They reasoned not from what they had once seen done
to what more might be: they built no probabilities of the
future upon the past : they formed no general belief con-
cerning the extent of our Lord's power from the effects of
it which they had already seen. After the miraculous
meal of the five thousand upon five loaves and two fishes,
we find them filled with wonder and amazement that he
should be able to walk upon a troubled sea and to assuage
the storm. And in the present instance, their faith in
what was past carried them not forward to the obvious
conclusion, that he who snatched the daughter of Jairus
from the jaws of death, and raised a 3'oung man from his
coffin, would be able to bring back Lazarus from the
grave. And this indeed was what was to be expected
from persons like them, of low occupations and mean at-
tainments, whose minds were unimproved by education
and experience: for however certain modern pretenders

448

to superior wisdom may affect to speak contemptuously of
the credulity of the vulgar, and think that they display
their own refinement and penetration by a resistance of
the evidence which satisfies the generality of men, the
truth is, that nothing is so much a genuine mark of barba-
rism as an obstinate incredulity. The evil-minded and
the illiterate, from very different causes, agree however in
this, that they are always the last to believe upon any evi-
dence less than the testimony of their own senses. In-
genuous minds are unwilling to suspect those frauds in
other men to which they feel an aversion themselves :
they always therefore give testimony its fair weight. The
larger a man's opportunities have been of becoming ac-
quainted with the occurrences of his own and former ages,
the more he knows of effects daily arising from causes
which never were expected to produce them, — of effects
in the natural world of v^diich he cannot trace the cause ;
and of facts in the history of mankind which can be re-
ferred to no principle in human nature — to nothing within
the art and contrivance of man. Hence the man of science
and speculation, as his knowledge enlarges, loses his at-
tachment to a principle to which the barbarian steadily
adheres — that of measuring the probability of strange facts
by his own experience. He will be at least as slow to
reject as to receive testimony ; and lie will avoid that ob-
stinacy of unbelief which is satisfied with nothing but
ocular demonstration, as of all erroneous principles the
most dangerous, and the greatest obstacle to the mind s
improvement. The illiterate man, miimproved b}^ study
and by conversation, thinks that nothing can be of which
he hath not seen the like : from a diffidence perhaps of
his own ability to examine evidence, he is always jealous
that you have an intention to impose upon him, and mean
to sport with his credulity : hence his own senses are the
only witnesses to which he will give credit. I am per-
suaded that nothing hath so much contributed to spread
infidelity among the lower- ranks of people, as the fear of

449
discovering their weakness by being over credulous, and
the use which artful men have made of that infirmity.

But to return from this digression to my subject. It was
our Lord's intention, that the miracle of Lazarus's resur-
rection should be complete and unexceptionable in all its
circumstances : he continued, therefore, at Bethabara till
the man was dead ; and he seems to have made delays
upon the road, to give time for the report of his arrival to
be spread, that a multitude might be assembled to be ob-
servers and witnesses of his intended miracle. Lazarus
had been dead four days when our Lord arrived ; a space
of time in which, in the warm climate of Judea, a general
putrefaction was sure to take place, and render the signs
of death unequivocal. Martha, one of the surviving sis-
ters, met our Lord upon the road, at some little distance
from the town : she accosted him in terms which rather
indicated some distant doubtful hope of what his com-
passion and his affection for the family might incline him
to do, than any expectation that her wishes would be rea-
lized. "Lord," said she, "hadst thou been here, my bro-
ther had not died : but I know, that even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." She pre-
sumes not to ask him to raise her brother ; — it was a thing
too great to be abruptly asked : she indirectly and modestly
suggests, that were Christ to make it his request to God
that Lazarus might revive, Christ's request would be
granted. It was our Lord's practice, — of which I purpose
not at present to inquire the reason (it is a subject by it-
self which would require a close investigation), — but it
was his constant practice, to exact of those who solicited
his miraculous assistance, a previous belief that the power
by which he acted was divine, and that it extended to the
performance of what might be necessary to their belief.
To Martha's suggestion that God would grant the resur-
rection of Lazarus to Christ's prayer, our Lord was pleased
to reply with that reserve and ambiguity which he some-
times used, in order to throw the minds of his disciples
2 G

450

into that state of suspense and doubt which disposed them
to receive his mercy with the more gratitude, and his in-
struction with the more reverence and attention : " Thy
brother," said he, " shall rise again ;" not declaring at what
time his resurrection should take place. Martha, not sa-
tisfied with this indefinite promise, nor certain of its mean-
ing, and yet not daring to urge her request, and afraid to
confess her doubts, replied — " I know that he shall rise
again, in the resurrection of the last day." A resurrec-
tion at the last day was at that time the general expecta-
tion of the Jewish people. Martha's profession, there-
fore, of an expectation of her brother's resurrection at the
last day, was no particular confession of her faith in Christ.
Our Lord, therefore, requires of her a more distinct con-
fession, before he gave her any hope that his power would
be exerted for the restoration of her brother's life. " I,"
said Jesus, " am the resurrection and the life : he that be-
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. Be-
lievest thou this ?" Martha's answer was little less remark-
able than the question : " She sa'th unto him. Yea, Lord ;
I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which
should come into the world :" as if she had said — " Yea,
Lord, I believe whatever thou requirest of me. Although
the sense of thy words is wrapt in mystery which I cannot
penetrate, — although I have no distinct understanding of
the particulars which you propose to my belief, nor appre-
hend how it is that the dead die not, — yet I believe that you
are the Messiah promised to our fathers — the Emmanuel
foretold by our prophets ; and I believe you are possessed
of whatever povi^er you may claim." But let us return to the
particulars of our Lord's requisition. Martha had already
declared her belief that God would grant whatever Christ
would ask, although his request should go to so extraor-
dinary a thing as a dead man's recovery. Jesus tells her
that he requires a belief of much more than this : he re-
quires her to believe that he had the principles of life

451

witliin himself, and at liis own command ; and that even
that general resurrection of the dead in which she expected
that her brother would have a share was a thing depend-
ing- entirely upon him, and to be effected by his will and
power. " I," said he, " am the resurrection and the life."
Since he had the whole disposal of the business, it fol-
lowed that he had the appointment of the time in which
each individual should rise; and nothing hindered but
that Lazarus might immediately revive, if he gave the or-
der. But this is not all: he requires that she should be-
lieve, not only that it depended upon him to restore life
to whom and when it pleased him, but that death is an
evil which he hath the power to avert, and ever does avert,
from his true disciples. " He that believeth in me, though
he die, yet shall he live ; and whosoever livetli and be-
lieveth in me, shall never die."

It is of great importance to inquire in what sense it is
promised to true believers (for in some sense the promise
is certainly made to them) that they shall never die. For
the resolution of this important question, I would observe,
that our Lord's words certainly contain an assertion of
much more than was implied in Martha's previous decla-
ration of her belief in the doctrine of a future resurrection.
This is clearly implied in our Lord's emphatic question,
which follows his assertion of his own power and promise
to the faithful,^ — " Believest thou this ?" If every Chris-
tian, when he reads or hears this promise of our Lord,
" He that believeth in me shall never die," would put this
same question to his own conscience, and pursue the me-
ditations which the question so put to himself would sug-
gest, we should soon be delivered from many perplexing
doubts and fears, for which a firm reliance on our Master's
gracious promise is indeed the only cure. " Thou be-
lievest," said our Lord to Martha, " that thy brother shall
rise in the resurrection at the last day : thou doest well
to believe. But believest thou this which I now tell thee,
— believest thou that the resurrection on v/hich thy hopes
2 G 2

452

are built will itself be the effect of my power? And be-
lievest thou yet again that the effect of my power goes to
much more than the future resurrection of the bodies of
the dead, — that it goes to an exemption of them that be-
lieve in me from death the general calamity? Believest
thou that the faithful live when they seem to be dead ;
and that they never die? If with these notions of my
power over life and death, and with these just views of the
privileges of my servants, thou comest to me to restore
thy brother to a life which may be passed in thy society,
the immediate act of my power may justify thy faith.
But any other belief of my power — any other apprehen-
sion of thy brother's present state, which may prompt thee
to solicit so singular a favour — are erroneous ; and I work
no miracle to confirm thee in an error." All this is cer-
tainly implied in our Lord's declaration, and the question
with which it was accompanied. It is evident, therefore,
that under the notion of not dying, he describes some great
privilege, which believers, and believers only, really enjoy.
But farther, the privilege here promised to the faithful
must be something quite distinct from any thing that may
be the consequence of the general resurrection at the last
day. It has been imagined, that the death from which
the faithful are exempted by virtue of this promise, is
vi^hat is called in some parts of Scripture the second
death, which the w^icked shall die after the general resur-
rection,— that is to say, the condemnation of the wicked
to eternal punishment. But such cannot be its meaning;
for the exemption of the faithful from the second death is
a thing evidently included in Martha's declaration of her
faith in the general resurrection. What may be the state
of the departed saints in the interval between their death
and the final judgment, is a question upon which all are
curious, because all are interested in it. It is strange that
among Christians it should have been so variously decided
by various sects, when an attention to our Lord's promises
must have led all to one conclusion. Those who imagine

453

that the intellectual faculties of man result from the orga-
nization of the brain and the nervous system, maintain
that natural death is an utter extinction of the man's whole
being, which somehow or other he is to reassume at the
last day. It is surely a sufficient confutation of this
strange opinion, — if that may deserve the name of an
opinion which hath less coherence than the drunkard's
dream, — but it is a sufficient confutation of this strange
opinion, that if this be really the case, our Lord's solemn
promise hath no meaning : for how is it that a man shall
never die who is really to be annihilated and dead in every
part of him for many ages? Or what privilege in death
can be appointed for the faithful — what difference between
the believer and the atheist, if the death of either is an
absolute extinction of his whole existence ? Of those who
acknowledge the immateriality and immortality of the
rational principle, some have been apprehensive that the
condition of the unembodied soul, with whatever percep-
tion may be ascribed to it of its own existence, must in-
deed be a melancholy state of dreary solitude. Hence
that unintelligible and dismal doctrine of a sleep of the soul
in the interval between death and judgment ; which in-
deed is nothing more than a soft expression for what the
Materialists call by, its true name — annihilation. Thanks
be to God ! our Lord's explicit promise holds out better
prospects to the Christian's hope. Though the happiness
of the righteous will not be complete nor their doom
publicly declared till the reunion of soul and body at the
last day, yet we have our Lord's assurance that the disem-
bodied soul of the believer truly lives, — that it exists in
a conscious state, and enjoys the perception at least of its
own existence. *" This is the plain import of our Lord's
declaration to Martha, that whosoever liveth and believeth
in him shall never die. The same doctrine is implied in
many other passages of holy writ, — in our Lord's promise

* For a fuller illustration of this doctrine, see Sermon XX.

454

to the thief upon the cross, to be with him in paradise on
the very day of his crucifixion; in his commendation of
his own spirit, in his last agonies, to the Father; in St.
Paul's desire to be absent from the body, that he might
be present with his Lord ; but, most of all, we may allege
the sequel of this same story. The manner in v/liich the
miracle was performed made it a solemn appeal to Hea-
ven for the truth of this particular doctrine. Many inci-
dents are recorded which evince the notoriety of the-death ;
physical causes could have no share in the recovery ; for
the offensive corpse w^as not to be approached, and no
means were used upon it : our Lord, standing at the mouth
of the cave, called to the dead man, as to one to whom
his voice was still audible: his voice was heard, and the
call obeyed ; — the deceased, in the attire of a corpse,
walked out of the sepulchre, in the presence of his rela-
tions, who had seen him expire, — in the presence of a
concourse of his townsmen, who had been witnesses, some
to the interment of the body, some to the grief of the sur-
viving friends. Is it to be supposed that he who is truth
itself would by such a miracle become a party in the
scheme of imposture, or set his seal to the dreams of en-
thusiasm ? God forbid that any here should harbour such
a suspicion ! But let us remember, that the soul's fruition
of its separate life is described as a privilege of true be-
lievers, of which there is no ground to hope that an un-
believer will partake; for to them only who believe in
Jesus, is it promised that "they shall live though they be
dead," and that "they shall never die."

Now, to him that hath called us to this blessed hope of
uninterrupted life, terminating in a glorious immortality,
■ — to him with whom the souls of the faithful, after they
are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and
felicity, — to him who shall change our vile body, that it
may be made like to his glorious body, — to the only-be-
gotten Son, with the Father, and Holy Ghost. Three
Persons but One God, be ascribed, &c.

455

SERMON XXXVII.

The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation. — Mark vii. 26.

The maxim of our great moral poet, that the prepon-
derance of some leading passion in the original constitu-
tion of every man's mind is that which gives the character
of every individual its peculiar cast and fashion, influencing
him in the choice of his profession, in the formation of his
affinities and friendships, colouring both his virtues and his
vices, and discovering its constant energy in the least as
well as the more important actions of his life, — that the
variety of this predominant principle in various men is the
source of that infinite diversity in the inclinations and pur-
suits of men which so admirably corresponds with the
variety of conditions and employments in social life, and
is the means which the wise Author of our nature hath
contrived to connect the enjoyment of the individual with
the general good, to lessen the evils which would arise to
the public from the vices of the individual, and enhance
the benefits accruing from his virtues, — the truth of this
principle is confirmed, I believe, to every man who ever
thinks upon the subject, by his own experience of what
passes within himself, and by his observation of what is
passing in the world around him. As our blessed Lord
was in all things made like unto his brethren, it will be no
violation of the respect which is due to the dignity of his
person, if, in order to form the better judgment of the
transcendent worth and excellence of his character in the
condition of a man, we apply the same principles in the
study of his singular life which we should employ to ana-
lyze the conduct of a mere mortal. And if we take this
method, and endeavour to refer the particulars of his con-
duct, in the various situations in which we find him repre-
sented by the historians of his life, to some one principle,

456

we cannot but perceive, that tlie desire of accomplishing
the great purpose for which he came into the world was in
him what the ruling passion is in other men.

Two things were to be done for the deliverance of fallen
man from the consequences of his guilt : the punishment of
sin was to be bought off by the Redeemer's sufferings, —
who is therefore said to have bought us with a price ; and
the manners of men were to be reformed by suitable in-
struction. From the first commencement of our Lord's
public ministry, — perhaps from a much earlier period, —
the business on which he came had so entirely taken pos-
session of his mind, that he seems in no situation to have
lost sight of it for a moment. On the contrary, it was the
end to which every action of his life was, not so much by
study as by the spontaneous habit of his mind, adjusted.
In the greater actions of his life, we find him always pur-
suing the conduct which might be the most likely to bring
on that tragical catastrophe which the scheme of atonement
demanded, and studious to prevent every obstacle that might
be thrown in the way of the event, either by the zeal of his
friends or the malice of his enemies. He works a miracle,
at one time, to avoid being made a king, — at another, to
secure himself from the fury of a rabble. The acceptance
of an earthly kingdom had been inconsistent with the esta-
blishment of his everlasting monarchy ; and he declined
the danger of popular tumult and private assassination,
that he might die in the character of a criminal by a judi-
ciary process and a public execution. When by this ma-
nagement things were brought to the intended crisis, and
his imagination shrunk from the near prospect of ignominy
and pain, the wish that he might be saved from the approach-
ing hour was overpowered by the reflection that " for this
hour he came into the world." Before the Jewish Sanhe-
drim and the Roman governor he maintained a conduct
which seemed to invite his doom : before the Sanhedrim,
he employed a language by which he knew he should incur
the charge of blasphemy ; and at Pilate's tribunal he re-

457

fused to plead " not guilty" to the false accusation of
treason.

As the more deliberate actions of our Saviour's life were
thus uniformly directed to the accomplishment of man's re-
demption, at the time and in the manner which the prophets
had foretold, — so, in what may be called the ordinary oc-
currences of life, we find his whole conduct shaped and de-
termined by a constant attention to the second branch of
the great business upon which he came, the reformation of
mankind. In every incidental situation, something pecu-
liarly characteristic is discernible in his actions, by which
they were marked as it were for his own, and distinguished
from the actions of ordinary men in similar circumstances ;
and all these characteristic peculiarities of his conduct will
be found, if I mistake not, when narrowly examined, to
convey some important lesson in morals or religion, first to
his immediate followers, and ultimately to all mankind.
Hence it is, that his actions, upon every occasion, as they
are recorded by his evangelists, are no less instructive than
his solemn discourses. I speak not now of the instruction
conveyed by the general good example of his holy life, or
in particular actions done upon certain occasions for the
express purpose of enforcing particular precepts by the
authority of his example ; but of particular lessons to be
drawn from the peculiar manner of his conduct, upon those
common occasions of action which occur in every man's
daily life, when the manner of the thing done or spoken
seems less to proceed from a deliberate purpose of the will
than from the habitual predominance of the ruling prin-
ciple. It is true, in our Saviour's life nothing was com-
mon ; his actions, at least, were in some measure always
extraordinary : but yet his extraordinary life was so far
analogous to the common life of men, that he had frequent
occasions of action arising from the incidents of life and
from external circumstances. The study of his conduct
upon these occasions is the most useful speculation, for
practical improvement, in which a Christian can engage.

458

The words of my text stand in the beginning of the nar-
rative of a very extraordinary transaction ; which, for the
useful lessons it contains, is related in detail by two of the
evangelists. It is my intention to review the particulars
of the story ; and point out to you, as I proceed, the in-
struction which the mention of each circumstance seems
intended to convey.

It was in the commencement, as I think, of the last year
of liis ministry, that our Lord, either for security from the
malice of his enemies the Pharisees (whose resentment he
had excited by a recent provocation — a discovery to the
people of the disguised avarice of the sect, and a public
assertion of the insignificance of their religious forms), or
perhaps that he found his popularity in Galilee rising to a
height inconsistent with his own views and with the public
tranquillity, — thought proper to retire for a season to a
country where his person was little known, although his
fame, as appears by the event, had reached it — the border
of the Sidonian territory. The inhabitants of this region
were a mixed people, partly Jews, partly the progeny of
those Canaanites who were suffered to remain in these ex-
treme parts when the children of Israel took possession of
the promised land. On his journey to the destined place
of his retirement, he was met by a woman, who with loud
cries and earnest entreaties implored his aid in behalf of
her young daughter, possessed by an evil spirit.

The first circumstance in this story which engages our
attention, is the description of the woman which is given
in my text. This requires a particular explication, because
it is the key to much of the mystery of our Lord's conduct
upon the occasion. " The woman was a Greek, a Syro-
plicenician by nation :" she was by nation therefore not a
Jewess ; she was not of the family of the Israelites, and had
no claim to the privileges of the chosen people. But that
is not all ; she was by nation " a Syrophcenician." The
Phoenicians were a race scattered over the whole Vv^orld in
numerous colonies. The different settlements were dis-

459

tinguished by names taken iVom tlie countries upon which
they bordered. The Canaanites were one of these Phoeni-
cian colonies ; and because they bordered upon Syria, they
were called by the Greeks and Romans Syro-Phcenicians.
A Syrophcenician therefore is a Canaanite under another
name : the woman therefore who came out to meet our
Lord was not only an alien from the stock of Israel, — she
v/^.s a daughter of the accursed Canaan ; she came of that
impure and impious stock, which the Israelites, when they
settled in Palestine, were commissioned and commanded
to exterminate. Particular persons, it is true, at that time
found means to obtain an exemption of themselves and their
families from the general sentence,— as Rahab the hostess,
by her kind entertainment of the Jewish spies ; and the
whole city of the Gibeonites, by a surrender of themselves
and their posterity for ever to a personal servitude. But
such families, if they embraced not the Jewish religion in
all its forms, at least renounced idolatry ; for the Israelites
were not at liberty to spare their lives, and to suffer them
to remain v/ithin the limits of the Holy Land, upon any
other terms. Our Lord's suppliant was not of any of these
reformed families ; for she was not only " a Syrophcenician
by nation," — she was besides " a Greek." She was a
" Greek." This word describes not her country, but her
religion : she was an idolatress, bred in the principles of
that gross idolatry which consisted in the worship of the
images of dead men. And because idolatry in this worst
form obtained more among the Greeks than the nations of
the East, such idolaters, of whatever country they might
be, were by the Jews of the apostolic age called Greeks ;
just as, among us, any one who lives in the communion of
the Roman church, though he be a Frenchman or a Spa-
niard, is called a Roman Catholic.

We now then understand what the woman was who
sought our Lord's assistance, — by birth a Canaanite, by
profession an idolatress. It appears by the sequel of the
story (for to understand the parts, we must keep the whole

460

in view ; and we must anticipate the end, to make tlic true
use of the beginning), — it appears, I say, from the sequel
of the story, that whatever the errors of her former life had
been, when she came to implore our Lord's compassion she
had overcome the prejudices of her education, and had
acquired notions of the true God and his perfections
which might have done honour to a Jew by profession,
a native Israelite. To this happy change the calamity
with which she was visited in the person of her child had
no doubt conduced : and to this end it was perhaps more
conducive than any thing she could have suffered in her
own person ; because her distress for her child was purely
mental, and mental distress is a better corrective of the
mind than bodily disease or infirmity, — because, equally
repressive of the levity of the mind and the wanderings of
the imagination to pleasurable objects, it is not attended
with that disturbance and distraction of the thoughts which
are apt to be produced by the pain and debility of sickness.
Thus we see how God remembers mercy even in his judg-
ments ; administering afflictions in the way in which they
most conduce to the sufferer's benefit. Nor can it be
deemed an injury to the child that it was subjected to suf-
ferings for another's guilt ; since the innocence of its own
future life might be best secured by the mother's refor-
mation.

Conscious of the change that was already wrought in
her sentiments and principles, and resolved no doubt upon
a suitable reformation of her conduct, the converted idola-
tress of the Syrophcenician race would not be discouraged,
either by the curse entailed upon her family, or by the re-
membrance of the guilt and error of her past life, from try-
ing the success of a personal application to our Lord. She
well understood, that no individual, of any nation or family,
could without personal guilt be excluded from God's love
and mercy, by virtue of any curse entailed upon the race
in its political or collective capacity. Reasons of govern-
ment in God'^ moral kingdom may make it ^pedient and

461

even necessary, that the progeny of any eminent delinquent
should for many generations, perhaps for the whole period
of their existence upon earth as a distinct family, be the
worse for the crimes of their progenitor. God therefore
may, and he certainly does visit the sins of the fathers
upon the children collectively for many generations ; as at
this day he visits on the Jews collectively the infidelity of
their forefathers in the age of our Lord and his apostles.
But these visitations are in truth acts of mercy ; and, rightly
understood, they are signs of favour to the persons visited.
They are intended not only for the general admonition of
mankind, but for the particular benefit of those on whom
the evil is inflicted ; who are taught by it to abhor and
dread the crime which hath been the source of their cala-
mity. These curses therefore on a family hinder not but
that every individual of the race holds the same place in
God's favour or displeasure as had been due to his good
or ill deservings had the public malediction never been in-
curred. It is true, the innocence of an individual may not
procure him an exemption from his share of the public
evil ; but this is because it is for his advantage in the end
that he be not exempted. " If I am of the race of Canaan,"
said our Syrophoenician woman, " it is true I must take my
share of certain national disadvantages which God hath
been pleased to lay upon our race as lasting monuments
of his abhorrence of the crime of our ancestors : but this
is no reason that I trust not to his mercy for deliverance
from my own particular aflflictions. Nor will I be deterred
by the crimes and follies of my past life. My Maker knows
that the understanding which he gave me is liable to error,
— that he hath formed me with passions apt to be se-
duced : he hath administered a correction, by which I am
brought to a sense of my error ; and I am, I trust, in some
deo-ree recovered from seduction : I am no lonofer therefore
the object of his displeasure, but of his mercy ; of which
my providential recovery from sin and ignorance, though
eflected by a bitter discipline, is itself a proof. He hath

462

already shown me his mercy in the very affliction wliich
hath wrought my reformation. I should fail therefore in
gratitude to my benefactor were I to indulge a timidity of
imploring his assistance."

Such were the sentiments of the reformed idolatress,
when she had the courage to become a suppliant to our
Lord in her own person ; and such should be the senti-
ments of every sinner, in his first efforts to turn from the
power of darkness to serve the living God. He should
harbour no apprehension that his past sins will exclude
him from the Divine mercy, if he can but persevere in his
resolution of amendment. Nor is the perseverance doubt-
ful, if tlie resolution be sincere : from the moment that the
understanding is awakened to a sense of the danger and of
the loathsomeness of sin — to a reverent sense of God's per-
fections— to a fear of his anger, as the greatest evil — to a
desire of his favour, as the highest good, — from the mo-
ment that this change takes place in the, sinner's heart and
understanding, whatever may have been the malignity, the
number, and the frequency of his past crimes, such is the
efhcacy of the great sacrifice, he is reconciled to God, —
he obtains not only forgiveness, but assistance ; and the
measure of the assistance, I will be bold to say, is always
in proportion to the strength of evil habit which the peni-
tent hath to overcome. He is not therefore to be discou-
raged from addressing himself to God in prayer, by a sense
of unworthiness arising from his past sins. Upon the
ground of merit, no man is worthy to claim an audience of
his Maker; but to a privilege to which innocence might
scarce aspire, by the mercy of the gospel covenant, repent-
ance is admitted. Reformation indeed is innocence in the
merciful construction of the Christian dispensation : the
Redeemer stands at God's right hand, pleading in the be-
half of the penitent the merit of his own humiliation ; and
the eiTect is, that no remembrance is had in heaven of for-
saken sin. The courage of our converted idolatress is an
edifying example to all repenting sinners ; and the bless-

4G3

ing with which it was in the end rewarded justified the
principles upon which she acted.

Before we proceed to the more interesting- subject of
meditation — our Saviour's conduct upon this occasion, we
must consider another circumstance on the woman's part
— the manner in which her supplication was addressed.
She came from her home to meet him on the road ; and
she cried out — " Have mercy upon me, O Lord, thou Son
of David !" Jesus, retiring from the malice of his enemies
or the imprudence of his friends to the Sidonian territory,
is saluted by an idolatress of the Canaanites by his proper
titles, — " the Lord," " the Son of David." It is indeed
little to be wondered, that idolaters living- on the confines
of the Jewish territory, and conversing much with the
Israelites, should be well acquainted with the hope which
they entertained of a national deliverer to arise in David's
family, at a time when the expectation of his advent was
raised to the height, by the evident completion of the pro-
phecies which marked the time of his appearance ; and
when the numberless miracles wrought by our Lord, in
the course of three successive summers, in every part of
Galilee, had made both the expectation of the Messiah
and the claim of Jesus to be the person the talk of the
whole country to a considerable distance. It is the less to
be wondered, because we find something of an expectation
of the Messiah of the Jews in all parts of the world at that
season. But the remarkable circumstance is this, — that
this Syrophcenician idolatress must have looked for no par-
tial deliverer of the Jewish nation, but for a general bene-
factor of all mankind, in the person of the Jewish Messiah ;
for had he been to come for the particular benefit of the
Jews only, this daughter of Canaan could have had no
part or interest in the Son of David.

Having examined into the character of our Lord's sup-
pliant, and remarked the terms in wdiich she addressed him,
we will in another Discourse consider the remarkable man-
ner in which on our Lord's part her petition was received.

464

SERMON XXXVIII.

The woman was a Greek, a Syroplioenician by nation. — Mark vii. 16.

These words describe what was most remarkable in
the character of a woman, a Canaanite by birth, an idola-
tress by education, who implored our Lord's miraculous
assistance in behalf of her young daughter tormented with
an evil spirit. In my last Discourse, the lessons to be
drawn from this character of the woman, and from the
manner in which her petition was preferred, were distinctly
pointed out. I come now to consider, still with a view
to practical inferences, the manner in which on our Lord's
part the petition was received.

In the lovely character of the blessed Jesus, there was
not a more striking feature than a certain sentimental
tenderness, which disposed him to take a part in every
one's affliction to which he chanced to be a witness, and
to be ready to afford it a miraculous relief. He was apt
to be particularly touched by instances of domestic dis-
tress; in which the suffering arises from those feelings of
friendship, growing out of natural affection and habitual
endearment, which constitute the perfection of man as a
social creature, and distinguish the society of the human
kind from the instinctive herdings of the lower animals.
When at the gate of Nain he met the sad procession of a
young man's funeral, — a poor widow, accompanied by
her sympathizing neighbours, conveying to the grave the
remains of an only son, suddenly snatched from her by
disease in the flower of his age, — the tenderness of his
temper appeared, not only in what he did, but in the kind
and ready manner of his doing it. He scrupled not to
avow how much he was affected by the dismal scene: he
addressed words of comfort to the weeping mother;
unasked, upon the pure motion of his own compassion.

465

lie went up and touched the bier; — he connnanded the
spirit to return to its deserted mansion, and restored to the
widow the support and comfort of her age.

The object now before him might have moved a heart
less sensible than his. A miserable mother, in the
highest agony of grief, — perhaps a widow, for no husband
appeared to take a part in the business, — implores his
compassion for her daughter, visited with the most dread-
ful malady to which the frail frame of sinful man was
ever liable — possession. In this reasoning age we are
little agreed about the cause of the disorder to which
this name belongs. If we may be guided by the letter of
holy writ, it was a tyranny of hellish fiends over the
imagination and the sensory of the patient. For my own
part, I find no great difiiculty of believing that this was
really the case. I hold those philosophizing believers
but weak in faith, and not strong in reason, who measure
the probabilities of past events by the experience of the
present age, in opposition to the evidence of the historians
of the times. I am inclined to think that the power of the
infernal spirits over the bodies as well as the minds of men
suffered a capital abridgment, an earnest of the final putting
down of Satan to be trampled under foot of men, when
the Son of God had achieved his great undertaking: that
before that event, men were subject to a sensible tyranny
of the hellish crew, from which they have been ever since
emancipated. As much as this seems to be implied in
that remarkable saying of our Lord, when the seventy
returned to him expressing their joy that they had found
the devils subject to themselves through his name. He
said unto them — " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from
heaven " Our Lord saw him fail from the heaven of his
power: what wonder then that the effects should no
longer be perceived of a power which he hath lost? Upon
these general principles, without any particular inquiry
into the subject, I am contented to rest, and exhort you
all to rest, in the belief which in the primitive church was
2 H

4(]6

luiiversal, that possession really was what the name im-
ports. Be that as it may, whatever the disorder was, its
effects are undisputed, — a complication of epilepsy and
madness, sometimes accompanied with a paralytic affec-
tion of one or more of the organs of the senses ; the mad-
ness, in the worst cases, of the frantic and mischievous
kind.

Such was the malady in which our Lord's assistance
was implored. The compassion of the case was heigh-
tened by the tender age of the miserable patient. St,
Mark calls her the "young daughter" of the unhappy
suppliant; an expression which indicates that she had just
attained that engaging season when a winning sprightli-
ness takes place of the insipid state of puling infancy, and
the innocence of childhood is not yet corrupted by the ill
example, nor its good humour ruflied by the ill usage, of
the world. It might have been expected, that the slightest
representation of this dismal case would have worked
upon the feelings of our compassionate Lord, and that the
merciful sentence would immediately have issued from
his lips which should have compelled the trembling fiend
to release his captive : but, strange to tell ! he made as if
he were unmoved by the dismal story ; and, regardless of
the wretched mother's cries, " he answered her not a
word. "

[t is certain that the most benevolent of men are not
equally inclined at all seasons to give attention to a
stranger's concerns, or to be touched with the recital of a
stranger's distress, A suppliant to our charity, whose
case deserves attention, sometimes meets with a cool or
with a rough reception, because he applies in an unlucky
moment. Since our Lord was made like unto his brethren,
may something analogous to this fretfulness, which more
or less is incident to the very best of men, be supposed in
him, to account for the singularity of his conduct in this
instance? Were his spirits exhausted by the fatigue of a
long journey made afoot? ^ynshis mind ruffled by his late

467

contentions witli the captious Pharisees? Was he wearied
out by the frequency of petitions for his miraculous assist-
ance? Was he disgusted with the degeneracy of mankind
in general, and with the hardened incredulity of his own
nation? Was his benevolence, in short, for the moment laid
asleep, by a fit of temporary peevishness? — God forbid
that any here should harbour the injurious, the impious
suspicion; a suspicion which even the Socinians (not to
charge them wrongfully) have not yet avowed, however
easily it might be reconciled with their opinions. The
Redeemer, though in all things like unto his brethren,
was without sin: the fretfulness which is apt to be excited
by external circumstances, whatever excuses particular
occasions may afford, is always in some degree sinful
Benignity was the fixed and inbred habit of his holy
mind; a principle not to be overcome in him, as in the
most perfect of the sons of Adam, by the cross incidents
of life. We must seek the motives of his present conduct
in some other source — not in any accidental sourness of
the moment.

This was the first instance in which his aid had been
invoked by a person neither by birth an Israelite nor by
profession a worshipper of the God of Israel. The miracle
which he was presently to work for the relief and at the
request of this heathen suppliant was to be an action of no
small importance. It was nothing less than a prelude
to the disclosure of the great mystery which had been
hidden for ages, and was not openly to be revealed before
Christ's ascension, — that through him the gate of mercy
was opened to the Gentiles. When an action was about
to be done significant of so momentous a truth, it was
expedient that the attention of all who stood by should be
drawn to the thing by something singular and striking in
the manner of the doing of it. It was expedient that the
manner of the doing of it should be such as might save
the honour of the Jewish dispensation, — that it should
mark the consistencv of the old dispensation with the
2 H 2

468

new, by circumstances which should imply, that the prin-
ciple upon which mankind in general were at last received
to mercy was the very same upon which the single family
of the Israelites had been originally taken into favour, —
namely, that mankind in general, by the light of the
gospel revelation, were at last brought to a capacity
at least of that righteousness of faith which was the
thing so valued in Abraham that it rendered him the
friend of God, and procured hin the visible and lasting
reward of special blessings on his posterity. It was fit
that she who was chosen to be the first example of
mercy extended to a heathen should be put to some pre-
vious trial; that she might give proof of that heroic faith
which acts with an increased vigour under the pressure of
discouragement, and show herself in some sort worthy of
so high a preference. The coldness therefore with which
her petition was at first received was analogous to the
afflictions and disappointments with which the best ser-
vants of God are often exercised ; which are intended to
call forth their virtue here and heighten their reward
hereafter. It is one of the many instances preserved in
holy writ, which teach the useful lesson of entire resigna-
tion to the will of God under protracted affliction and
accumulated disappointments, — upon this principle, that
good men are never more in the favour and immediate
care of God, than when, in the judgment of the giddy
world, they seem the most forgotten and forsaken by
him.

Our Lord's attendants, touched with the distress of the
case — penetrated by the woman's cries — perhaps ashamed
that such an object should be openly treated with neglect,
for what had hitherto passed was upon the public road —
and little entering into the motives of our Lord's conduct,
took upon them to be her advocates. "They besought
him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us."
Setid her away, — that is, grant her petition, and give her
her dismissal. That must have been their meaning: for

I

469

in 110 instance had they seen the prayer of misery re-
jected; nor would they have asked their Master to send
her away without relief. If our Lord had his chosen at-
tendants— if among those attendants he had his favourites,
yet in the present case the interest of a favourite could
not be allowed to have any weight. He had indeed
belied his own feelings had he seemed to listen more to
the importunities of his friends than to the cries of distress
and the pleadings of his own compassion. The interfe-
rence of the disciples only served him with an occasion to
prosecute his experiment of his suppliant's faith. He
framed his reply to them in terms which might seem to
amount to a refusal of the petition which before he had
only seemed not to regard : he said, " I am not sent but
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Oh miserable
woman! offspring of an accursed race! cease thy una-
vailing prayers ; — he hath pronounced thy sentence ! Be-
take thee to thy home, sad outcast from thy Maker's love 1
Impatience of thy absence but aggravates thy child's
distraction: nor long shall her debilitated frame support
the tormentor's cruelty : give her while she lives the conso-
lation of a parent's tenderness; — it shall somewhat cheer
the melancholy of the intervals of her phrensy ; — it is the
only service thou canst render her. For thyself, alas ! no
consolation remains but in the indulgence of despair : the
Redeemer is not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel; and to that house, ill-fated Canaanite, thou wast
born and thou hast lived a stranger !

The faith of the Syrophcenician idolatress gave way to
no such suggestions of despair. It required indeed the
sagacity of a lively faith to discern that an absolute refu-
sal of her prayer was not contained in our Lord's discou-
raging declaration. In that godly sagacity she was not
deficient. " He is not sent !" Is he then a servant sent
upon an errand, with precise instructions for the execu-
tion of his business, which he is not at liberty to exceed ?
— No : he comes with the full powers of a son. Wise, no

470

doubt, and just is the decree that salvation shall be of the
Jews — that the general blessing shall take its beginning
in the family of Abraham, — that the law shall g'o forth of
Zion, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem : be it,
that by disclosing the great scheme of mercy to the chosen
people, he fulfils the whole of his engagement ; yet though
he is sent to none but to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel, no restriction is laid upon him not to receive his
sheep of any other fold, if any such resort to him. What
though it be my misfortune to have been born an alien
from the chosen stock ? What though I have no claim
under any covenant or any promise? — I will hope against
hope ; I will cast me on his free, uncovenanted mercy ; 1
will trust to the fervour of my own prayers to obtain what
seems to be denied to the intercession of his followers.

Supported by this confidence, she followed our Lord
into the house where he. took up his abode : there she fell
prostrate at his feet, crying — " Lord, help me !" — 0 faithful
daughter of an unbelieving race ! great is the example
which the afflicted have in thee, of an unshaken confi-
dence in that mercy which ordereth all things for the good
of them that fear God ! Thy prayer is heard ; help shall
be given thee ; but thy faith must yet endure a farther
trial. By his answer to the disciples, our Lord seemed
studious only to disown any obligation that the nature of
his undertaking might be supposed to lay upon him to
attend to any but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Stifling the emotions of his pity, and dissembling his mer-
ciful intentions, he answers the wretched suppliant at his
feet as if he were upon principle disinclined to grant her
request, — lest a miracle wrought in her favour should be
inconsistent with the distinction due to the chosen family.
" It is not meet," he said, " to take the children's bread
and cast it to dogs." Children'' s bread ; and cast to dogs!
Terrible distinction! — the Israelites children, the Gentiles
dogs! The words perhaps, in the sense which they bore
in the mind of the speaker, were rather descriptive of the

47J

differeiil situation of the Jews and the Gentiles at that
time, vvith respect to the degree of religious knowledge
they had for many ages severally enjoyed, than of the dif-
ferent rank they held in God's favour. It is certain that
God hath made of one blood all nations of men ; and his
tender n^iercy is over all his works. The benefit of the
whole world was ultimately intended in the selection of
the Jewish people. At the time of the call of Abraham,
the degeneracy of mankind was come to that degree that
the true religion could nowhere be preserved othervv^ise
than by miracle. Miracle (perpetual miracle) was not the
proper expedient for its general preservation ; because it
must strike the human mind with too much force to be
consistent with the freedom of a moral agent. A single
family therefore was selected, in which the truth might
be preserved in a way that generally was ineligible. By
this contrivance, an ineligible way was taken of doing a
necessary thing (a thing necessary in the schemes of
mercy) ; but it was used, as wisdom required it should be
used, in the least possible extent. The family which for
the general good was chosen to be the immediate object
of this miraculous discipline enjoyed no small privilege :
they enjoyed the advantages of the light of revelation ;
while among the Gentiles, the light of nature itself, in
what regards morals and religion, bright as it may shine
in the writings of their philosophers, was to the general
mass of mankind almost extinguished. It was for this
advantage which the one enjoyed, and the others were
allowed to want, that they might feel at length the dismal
consequences of their defection from the worship of their
Maker, that they are called collectively — the Jews " chil-
dren," and the Gentiles " dogs." The Jew, indeed, who
duly improved under the light which he enjoyed, and (not
relying on his descent from Abraham, or on the merit of
his ritual service) was conscientiously attentive to the
weightier matters of the law, became in another sense the
child of God, as personally the object of his favour; and

472

the Gentile who, shutting his eyes against the light of na-
ture, gave himself up to work iniquity with greediness,
became in another sense a dog, as personally the object of
God"s aversion ; and it is ever to be remembered, that in
this worst sense the greater part of the Gentile world were
dogs, and lived in enmity with God : but still no Jew was
individually a child, nor any Gentile individually a dog,
as a Jew or a Gentile, but as a good or a bad man, or as
certain qualities morally good or evil were included in
the notion of a Jew or a Gentile.

But how great was that faith, which, when the great
mystery was not yet disclosed — when God's secret pur-
pose of a general redemption had not yet been opened,
was not startled at the sound of this dreadful distinction,
— the Israelites, children ; the Gentiles, dogs ! How great
was the faith which was displayed in the humility and in
the firmness of the woman's reply ! She said — " Truth,
Lord ; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their
master's table."

First, observe her humility — her submission to the ar-
rangements of unerring wisdom and justice. She admits
the distinction, so unfavourable as it might seem to her
own expectations, so mortifying as it unquestionably was
to her pride: she says — "Truth, Lord: I must confess
the reality of the distinction which thou allegest: thy
nation are the children ; we are dogs!" She admits not
only the reality but the propriety of the distinction ; she
presumes not to question the equity and justice of it ;
she says not — ■" Since God hath made of one blood all
nations of men, why should a single family be his favour-
ites, and the whole world beside outcasts ?"' She reposes
in a general persuasion of God's wisdom and goodness ;
she takes it for granted that a distinction Vv^hich proceeded
from him must be founded in wisdom, justice, and bene-
volence,— that however concealed the end of it might be,
it must be in some way conducive to the universal good,
— that it ought therefore to be submitted to with cheer-

473

fulness, even by those on whose side the disadvantage for
the present lay. Would God, that men would imitate
the humility of this pious Canaanite, — that they would
consider the scanty measure of the human intellect — rest
satisfied in the general belief of the Divine goodness and
wisdom, and wait for the event of things, to clear up the
things " hard to be understood" in the present constitution
of the moral world as well as in the Bible !

We have seen the humility of the Syrophcenician sup-
pliant; let us next consider her firmness. Hitherto she
had prayed; — her prayers meet with no encouragement:
she ventures now to argue. The principles and frame of
her argument are very extraordinary ; she argues from
God's o^eneral care of the world, aoainst the inference of
neglect in particular instances ; — such was the confidence
of her faith in God's goodness, that she argues from that
general principle of her belief against the show of seve-
rity in her own case : she seems to say — " Though thou
slay me, yet will I trust in thee ; I will rely on thy gene-
ral attribute of mercy, against what, to one less per-
suaded of thy goodness, might seem the tenor of thine
own words and the sense of thy present conduct." Nor
were the grounds of her argument less extraordinary than
the drift of it: she avails herself of the distinction which
our Lord had himself alleged, as it should seem, in bar of
her petition, to establish a claim upon his mercy. This
expostulation of the Syrophcenician woman with our Lord
hath no parallel in the whole compass of the sacred his-
tory, except it be in Abraham's pleadings with the Al-
mighty upon the case of righteous men involved in na-
tional calamities. " It is true," she said, " O Lord ! I am
net thy child, — I am a dog; but that's the worst of my
condition, — I still am thine, — I am appointed to a certain
use, — I bear a certain relation, though no high one, in
the family of the universal Lord. The dogs, though not
children, have however their proper share in the care and
kindness of the good man of the house: they are not

474

regaled with the lirst a)id choicest of the food provided
for the children's nourishment; but they are never sutfered
to be famished with hunger, — they are often fed by the
master's hand with the fragments off his own table. Am
1 a dog? — It is well : I murmur not at the preference justly
shown to the dearer and the worthier children: give me
but my portion of the scraps and offal."

O rare example, in a heathen, of resignation to the will
of God — of complacency and satisfaction in the general
arrangements of his providence, which he is the best
Christian who best imitates ! The faithful Canaanite thank-
fully accepts what God is pleased to give, because he
gives it : she is contented to fill the place wdiich he assigns
to her, because he assigns it ; and repines not that another
fills a higher station: she is contented to be what God
ordains — to receive what he bestows, in the pious per-
suasion that every one is " fed with the food that is con-
venient for him,'' — that every being endued with sense
and reason is placed in the condition suited to his natural
endowments, and furnished with means of happiness fitly
proportioned to his capacities of enjoyment.

We have yet another circumstance to remark in our
Syrophoenician's faith ; which is less indeed a part of its
merit than of the blessing which attended it; but it is
extraordinary, and deserves notice. I speak of the quick
discernment and penetration which she discovers in reli-
gious subjects, and that too upon certain points upon
which, even now, in the full sunshine of the gospel, it is
easy for the unwary to go wrong, and at that time it was
hardly to be expected that the wisest should form a right
judgment. Surely with truth the prophet said, "The
secret of the Lord is among them that fear him." Whence,
but from that secret illumination which is the blessing of
the pure in heart in every clime and every age, could this
daughter of the Canaanites have drawn her information,
that among the various benefits which the Redeemer came
to bestow upon the children of God's love, the mercy

475

which she solicited was but of a secontlaiy value? She
ventures to ask for it as no part of the children's food,
but a portion only of the crumbs which fell from their
richly-furnished table. We are apt to imagine that the
Christians of the first age, among whom our Lord and
the apostles lived and worked their miracles, were objects
of a partial favour not equally extended to believers in
these later ages: and it must be confessed their privilege
was great, to receive counsel and instruction from the
First Source of life and knowledge, and from the lips of
his inspired messengers ; but it was a privilege, in the na-
tu?'e of the thing, confined to a certain time, and, like
all temporary privileges, conferred on a few for the gene-
ral good. The clear knowledge of our duty — the promise
of immortal life to the obedient — the expiation of our sins
by a sufficient meritorious sacrifice — the pardon secured
to the penitent by that atonement — the assistance pro-
mised to the well disposed — in a word, the full remission
of our sins, and the other benefits of our Saviour's life and
death, of his doctrine and example, — these things are the
bread which Christ brought down from heaven for the
nourishment of the faithful; — in these benefits believers
in all ages are equal sharers with the first converts, our
Lord's own contemporaries, provided they be equally
good Christians. The particular benefits which the first
Christians received from the miraculous powers, in the
cure of their diseases and the occasional relief of their
worldly afflictions, and even in the power of performing
those cures and of Q:iving: that relief, — these thinos in
themselves, without respect to their use in promoting the
salvation of men by the propagation of the gospel, were,
as we are taught by our Syrophosnician sister, but the
fragments and the refuse of the bridegroom's supper.

We have now traced the motives of our Lord's unusual
but merciful austerity in the first reception of his sup-
pliant. What wonder, that so bright an example of an
active faith was put to a trial which might render it con-

476

spicuous? It bad been injustice to the merit of the cha-
racter to suffer it to lie concealed. What wonder, when
this faith was tried to the uttermost, that our merciful
Lord should condescend to pronounce its encomium, and
crown it with a peculiar blessing? — " O woman! great is'
thy faith ! Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And when
she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out,
and her daughter laid upon the bed." The mercy shown
to this deserving woman, by the edification which is con-
veyed in the manner in which the favour was conferred,
was rendered a blessing to the whole church ; inasmuch
as it was the seal of the merit of the righteousness of
faith, — not of "faith separable from good works," con-
sisting in a mere assent to facts ; but of that faith which is
the root of every good work — of that faith which consists
in a trust in God and reliance on his mercy, founded on a
just sense of his perfections. It was a seal of the accept-
ance of the penitent, and of the efficacy of their prayers;
and a seal of this important truth, that the afflictions of
the righteous are certain signs of God's favour, — the more
certain in proportion as they are more severe. Whenever,
therefore, the memory of this fact occurs, let every heart
and every tongue join in praise and thanksgiving to the
merciful Lord, for the cure of the young demoniac on the
Tyrian border; and never be the circumstance forgotten,
which gives life and spirit to the great moral of the story,
— that the mother, whose prayers and faith obtained the
blessing, " was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation."

477

SERMON XXXIX.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it. — Ecclesiastes xii. 7*

Nothing hath been more detrimental to the dearest
interests of man — to his present and his future interests, —
to his present interests, by obstructing- the progress of
scientific discovery, and retarding that gradual improve-
ment of his present condition which Providence hath left
it to his own industry to make ; to his future interests, by
lessening the credit of revelation in the esteem of those
who will ever lead the opinions of mankind, — nothing-
hath been more contrary to man's interests both in this
world and in the next, than what hath too often hap-
pened, that a spirit of piety and devotion, more animated
with zeal than enlightened by knowledge in subjects of
physical inquiry, hath blindly taken the side of popular
error and vulgar prejudice : the consequence of which
must ever be an unnatural war between Faith and Reason,
■ — between human science and divine. Religion and Phi-
losophy, through the indiscretion of their votaries, in ap-
pearance set at variance, form as it were their opposite
parties : persons of a religious cast are themselves deterred,
and would dissuade others, from what they weakly deem
an impious wisdom ; while those who are smitten with the
study of nature revile and ridicule a revelation which, as
it is in some parts interpreted by its weak professors, would
oblige them to renounce their reason and their senses, in
those very subjects in which reason is the competent judge,
and sense the proper organ of investigation.

It is most certain, that a Divine revelation, if any be
extant in the world — a Divine revelation, which is, in
other words, a discovery of some part of God's own know-

* Preached for the Humane Society, March 22, 17S9.

478

ledge made hy God himself, notwithstanding that t'allibltr
men have been made the instruments of the communication
— must be perfectly free from all mixture of human igno-
rance and error, in the particular subject in which the dis-
covery is made. The discovery may, and unless the powers
of the human mind were infinite it cannot but be limited
and partial ; but as far as it extends, it must be accurate ;
for a false proposition, or a mistake, is certainly the very
reverse of a discovery. In whatever relates therefore to
religion, either in theory or practice, the knowledge of the
sacred writers was infallible, as far as it extended ; or their
inspiration had been a mere pretence: and in the whole
extent of that subject, faith must be renounced, or reason
must submit implicitly to their oracular decisions. But
in other subjects, not immediately connected with theology
or morals, it is by no means certain that their mmds were
equally enlightened, or that they were even preserved
from gross errors : it is certain, on the contrary, that the
prophets and apostles might be sufficiently qualified for
the task assigned them, to be teachers of that wisdom
which " raaketh wise unto salvation," although in the
structure and mechanism of the material world they were
less informed than Copernicus or Newton, and were less
knowing than Harvey in the animal economy. Want of
information and error of opinion in the profane sciences,
may, for any thing that appears to the contrary, be per-
fectly consistent with the plenary inspiration of a religious
teacher ; since it is not all knowledge, but religious know-
ledge only, that such a teacher is sent to propagate and
improve. In subjects unconnected therefore with religion,
no implicit regard is due to the opinion which an inspired
writer may seem to have entertained, in preference to the
clear evidence of experiment and observation, or to the
necessary deduction of scientific reasoning from first prin-
ciples intuitively perceived : nor, on the other hand, is the
authority of the inspired teacher lessened, in his proper
province, by any symptoms that may appear in his writings

479

ot" error or imperfect information upon othei- subjects.
If it could be clearly proved (which, I take it, hath never
yet been done) against any one of the inspired writers,
that he entertained opinions in tAiy physical subject which
the accurate researches of later times have refuted, — that
the earth, for instance, is at rest in the centre of the plane-
tary system ; that fire is carried by a principle of positive
levity toward the outside of the universe, — or that he had
used expressions in which such notions were implied, —
I should think myself neither obliged, in deference to his-
acknowledged superiority in another subject, to embrace
his erroneous physics, nor at liberty, on account of his
want of information on these subjects, to reject or call in
question any part of his religious doctrine.

But though I admit the possibility of an inspired
teacher's error of opinion in subjects which he is not sent
to teach (because inspiration is not omniscience, and some
things there must be which it will leave untaught), —
though I stand in this point for my own and every man's
liberty ; and protest against any obligation on the believer's
conscience, to assent to a philosophical opinion inciden-
tally expressed by Moses, by David, or by St. Paul, upon
the authority of their infallibility in divine knowledge, —
though I think it highly for the honour and the interest of
religion that this liberty of philosophizing (except upon
religious subjects) should be openly asserted and most
pertinaciously maintained, — yet I confess it appears to me
no very probable supposition (and it is, as I conceive, a
mere supposition, not yet confirmed by any one clear in-
stance), that an inspired writer should be permitted in his
religious discourses to affirm a false proposition in any
subject, or in anij history to misrepresent a fact ; so that
I would not easily, nor indeed without the conviction of
the most cogent proof, embrace any notion in philosophy,
or attend to any historical relation, which should be evi-
dently and in itself repugnant to an explicit assertion of
any of the sacred writers. Their language too, uotvvith-

480

standing the accomiuodatiou of it that might be expected,
, for the sake of the vulgar, to the notions of the vulgar, in
points in which it is of little importance that their errone-
ous notions should be immediately corrected, is, I believe,
far more accurate — more philosophically accurate, in its
allusions, than is generally imagined. And this is a mat-
ter which, if sacred criticism comes to be more generally
cultivated, will, I doubt not, be better understood : mean-
while, any disagreement that hath been thought to subsist
between the physics or the records of the Holy Scriptures
and the late discoveries of experiment and observation, I
take in truth to be nothing more than a disagreement be-
tween false conclusions drawn on both sides from true
premises. It may have been the fault of divines to be too
hasty to draw conclusions of their own from the doctrines
of holy writ, which they presently confound with the di-
vine doctrine itself, as if they made a part of it ; and it
hath been the fault of natural philosophers to be no less
hasty to build conjectures upon facts discovered, which
they presently confound with the discoveries themselves, —
although they are not confirmed by any experiments yet
made, and are what a fuller interpretation of the pheno-
mena of nature may hereafter perhaps refute. Thus, while
genuine revelation and sound philosophy are in perfect
good agreement with each other, and with the actual con-
stitution of the universe, the errors of the religious on the
one side, and the learned on the other, run in contrary
directions ; and the discordance of these errors is mistaken
for a discord of the truths on which they are severally
grafted.

To avoid this evil, in every comparison of philosophy
with revelation, extreme caution should be used to separate
the explicit assertions of holy writ from all that men have
inferred beyond what is asserted, or beyond its immediate
and necessary consequences ; and an equal caution should
be used to separate the clear, naked deposition of experi-
ment from all conjectural deductions. With the use of

481

tliis precaution, revelation and science may receive mu-
tual illustration from a comparison with each other ; but
without it, while we think that we compare God's works
with God's word, it may chance that we compare nothing
better than different chimeras of the human imagina-
tion.

Of the light which philosophy and revelation maybe
brought to throw upon each other, and of the utility of the
circumspection which I recommend, we shall find an in-
structive example in a subject in which the world is in-
debted for much new information to the learned and
charitable founders of that Society of which I am this day
the willing advocate ; a Society which, incited by the
purest motives of philanthropy, in its endeavours to miti-
gate the disasters of our frail, precarious state, regardless
of the scoffs of vulgar ignorance, hath in effect been pro-
secuting for the last fourteen years, not without consi-
derable expense, a series of difficult and instructive ex-
periments, upon the very first question for curiosity and
importance in the whole compass of physical inquiry, —
Avhat is the true principle of vitality in the human species ;
and what certainty belongs to what have generally been
deemed the signs of death ?

The words which I have chosen for my text relate di-
rectly to this subject : they make the last part in a de-
scription of the progress of old age, from the commence-
ment of its infirmities to its termination in death, which
these words describe. The royal preacher evidently speaks
of man as composed of two parts, — a body, made origi-
nally of the dust of the earth, and capable of resolution
into the material of which it was at first formed ; and a
spirit, of a very different nature, the gift of God. The
royal preacher teaches us, what daily observation indeed
sufficiently confirms, that in death the body actually under-
goes a resolution into its elementary grains of earth ; but
he teaches us besides, what sense could never ascertain,
. 2 I

4^2

that the spirit, liable to no such dissolution, " returns to
God who gave it."

All this is perfectly consistent with the history of the
creation of the first man, delivered in the book of Genesis.
There we read, first, of a man created after God's own
image (which must be understood of the mind of man,
bearing the Divine image in its faculties and endowments ;
for of any impression of the Maker's image the kneaded
clay was surely insusceptible ) ; next, of a body, formed
out of the dust of the earth, and animated by the Creator
by the infusion of the immaterial principle. " The Lord
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life," or, as the words might
perhaps more properly be rendered, " the breath of im-
mortality :" the original words at least express life in its
highest force and vigour. That this "breath of life" is
the principle of intelligence, the immaterial soul, might
be made evident from a careful examination of the text
itself, as it stands connected with the general story of the
creation, of which it is a part ; but more readily perhaps,
to popular apprehension, by the comparison of this pas-
sage with other texts in holy writ ; particularly with that
passage in Job in which it is said that the breath of the
Almighty is that which " giveth man understanding," and
with the text of the royal preacher immediately before us :
for none who compares the two passages can doubt, that
the " breath of life" which " God breathes into the nostrils
of the man" in the book of Genesis is the very same thing
with the spirit " which God gave" in the book of Eccle-
siastes. And that this spirit is the immaterial, intelligent
principle is evident ; because it is mentioned as a distinct
thing from the body, not partaking of the body's fate, but
surviving the putrefaction of the body, and returning to
the giver of it.

But farther : the royal preacher in my text, assuming
that man is a compound of an organized body and an im-

483

material soul, places the t'ormality and essence of death in
the disunion and final separation of these two constituent
parts : death is, when " the dust returns to the earth as it
was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."

And this again is perfectly consistent with the account
of the creation of the first man in the book of Genesis ;
which makes the union of these two principles the imme-
diate cause of animation. " The Lord God formed man
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life ; and man (or, so man) became a living
person." God's inspiration of the breath of life, his infu-
sion of the immaterial principle, the union of the soul to
the body, was the means by w^hich man became a living-
person ; whence the conclusion is obvious and necessary,
that the dissolution of that union is the sole adequate cause
of the extinction of that life which the union produced.

It is the explicit assertion therefore both of Moses and
of Solomon, that man is a compound of body and soul ;
and that the union of the immaterial soul with the body
is the true principle of vitality in the human species. And
this account of man is solemnly delivered by them both, as
a branch of their religious doctrine. It demands therefore
the implicit assent of every true believer ; and no philoso-
phy is to be heard that would teach the contrary.

But now let the divine be careful what conclusion he
draw from this plain doctrine, and what notions he ingraft
upon it. Although we must believe, if we believe our
Bible, that the union of scul and body is the first principle
of animation in the human subject, it is by no means a ne-
cessary consequence that the life of man is in no degree
and in no part mechanical. Since man is declared to be
a compound, the natural presumption seems to be, that the
life of this compounded being is itself a compound. And
this experience and observation prove to be indeed the
case. Man's life is compounded of the life of the intellect
and the animal life. The life of the intellect is simply in-
telligence, or the energy of the intelligent principle. The
2 I 2

484

animal life is itself a rompound, consisting of the vegetable
life combined with the principle of perception. Human
life, therefore, is an aggregate of at least three ingredients,
— intelligence, perception, and vegetation. The lowest
and the last of these, the vegetable life, is wholly in the
body, and is mere mechanism, — not a mechanism which
any human ingenuity may imitate, or even to any good
degree explore ; but the exquisite mechanism of a Divine
artificer : still it is mechanism ; consisting in a symmetry
and sympathy of parts, and a correspondence of motions,
conducive, by mechanical laws established by the Creator's
wisdom, to the growth, nourishment, and conservation of
the whole. The wheels of this wonderful machine are set
a-going, as the Scriptures teach us, by the presence of the
immaterial soid ; which is therefore not only the seat of
intelligence, but the source and centre of the man's entire
animation. But it is in this circumstance only, namely,
that the immaterial mover is itself attached to the machine,
that the vegetable life of the body, considered as a distinct
thing, as in itself it is, from the two principles of intelli-
gence and perception, differs in kind (for in respect of ex-
cellence and nicety of v/orkmanship all comparison were
impious ; but in kind the vegetable life of the human body
differs in this circumstance only) from mere clockwork.

This mechanism of life, in that part which belongs to
the body, so evident to the anatomist and physician, and
so obvious indeed to common observation, is so little re-
pugnant to holy writ, that it is clearly implied in many
passages. It is implied in the expressions in which Moses
describes the animation of the first man ; which, though
it be referred to the union of soul and body as a principle,
is described however in'' expressions which allude to the
mechanical action of the air, entering at the nostrils, upon
the pulmonary coats. The mechanism of life is again
most remarkably implied in the verse which immediately
precedes my text ; in which the approaches of death are
described as the gradual rupture of the parts of a machine;

485

not without particular allusion to the true internal structure
of the human body, and the distinct offices of the principal
viscera in maintainino- the veoeiable life, — " the silver cord
loosed — the golden bowl broken — the pitcher broken at
the well — the wheel broken at the cistern.'' I dare not
in this assembly, in which I see myself surrounded by so
many of the masters of physiology, attempt a particular
exposition of the anatomical imagery of this extraordinary
text ; lest I should seem not to have taken warning by the
contempt which fell on that conceited Greek who had the
vanity to prelect upon the military art before the con-
querors of Asia. I shall only venture to offer one remark,
to confirm what I have said of the attention (not of implicit
assent, except in religious subjects, but of the attention)
which is due to what the inspired writers say upon any
subject ; which is this : The images of this text are not
easy to be explauied on any other supposition, than that
the writer, or the Spirit which guided the writer, meant to
allude to the circulation of the blood, and the structure of
the principal parts by which it is carried on. And upon
the supposition that such allusions were intended, no ob-
scurity, I believe, will remain for the anatomist in the
whole passage: at any rate, it is evident that the approaches
of death are described in it as a marring of the machine of
the body by the failure of its principal parts ; and this
amounts to an assumption of the mechanism of life, in
that part which belongs to the body.

Thus revelation and philosophy agree, that human life,
in the whole a compounded thing, in one of its constituent
parts is mere mechanism.

But let the philosopher in his turn be cautious what
conjectures he build upon this acknowledged truth. Since
human life is undeniably a compound of the three princi-
ples of intelligence, perception, and vegetation, — notwith-
standing that the vegetable life be in itself mechanical, it
will by no means be a necessary conclusion, that a man
must be truly and irrecoverably dead, so soon as the signs

486

of this vegetable life are no longer discernible in his body.
Here Solomon's opinion demands great attention : he makes
death consist in nothing less than the dissolution of that
union of soul and body which Moses makes the principle
of vitality ; and he speaks of this disunion as a thing sub-
sequent, in the natural and common course of things, to
the cessation of the mechanical life of the body. Some
space therefore may intervene, — what the utmost length
of the interval in any case may be, is not determined, —
but some space of time, it seems, may intervene between
the stopping of the clockwork of the body's life and the
finished death of the man by the departure of the immortal
spirit. Now, in all that interval since the union of the
spirit to the body first set the machine at work, if the stop
proceed only from some external force, some restraint
upon the motion of any principal part, without derange-
ment, damage, or decay of the organization itself, the pre-
sence of the soul in the body will be a sufficient cause to
restore the motion, if the impediment only can be removed.
Thus, by the united lights of revelation and philosophy,
connecting what is clear and indisputable in each, separated
from all conjecture and precarious inference, we have de-
duced a proof of those important truths to which the
founders of this Society have been indeed the first to turn
the attention of mankind, — namely, that the vital princi-
ple may remain in a man for some time after all signs of
the vegetable life disappear in his body ; that what have
hitherto passed, even among physicians, for certain signs
of a complete death — the rigi'd limb, the clay-cold skin,
the silent pulse, the breathless lip, the livid cheek, the
fallen jaw, the pinched nostril, the fixed, staring eye — are
uncertain and equivocal, insomuch that a human body,
under all these appearances of death, is in many instances
capable of resuscitation.

The truth of these principles, however contrary to re-
ceived opinions and current prejudices, is now abundantly
confirmed by the success with which PiX)vidence hath

487

blessed the attempts of this Society for the space of four-
teen years. It is universally confirmed by the equal suc-
cess vouchsafed to the attempts of similar societies, formed
after the example of this, in other parts of Great Britain,
and in foreign countries. The benevolence of the institu-
tion speaks for itself The founders of it are men whom it
were injurious to suspect of being actuated in its first for-
mation by the vain desire of attracting public notice by a
singular undertaking. The plan of the Society is so ad-
verse to any private interested views, that it acquits them
of all sordid motives ; for the medical practitioners accept
no pecuniary recompense for the time which they devote
to a diflicult and tedious process — for the anxiety they feel
while the event is doubtful — for the mortification which
they too often undergo when death, in spite of all their
efforts, at last carries off his prey — nor for the insults to
which they willingly expose themselves from vulgar incre-
dulity. Their sole reward is in the holy joy of doing good.
Of an institution thus free in its origin from the suspicion
of ambitious views, and in its plan renouncing self-interest
in every shape, philanthropy must be the only basis. The
good intention therefore of the Society is proved by its
constitution ; the wisdom and public utility of the under-
taking are proved by its success. The good intention,
the wisdom, and the public utility of the institution, give
it no small claim upon the public for a liberal support. I
must particularly mention, that the benefit of this Society
is by no means confined to the two cases of drowning and
suspension : its timely succours have roused the lethargy
of opium, taken in immoderate and repeated doses ; they
have rescued the wretched victims of intoxication — rekin-
dled the life extinguished by the sudden stroke of light-
ning— recovered the apoplectic — restored life to the infant
that had lost it in the birth — and they have proved eflica-
cious in cases of accidental smothering, and of suffocation
by noxious damps, in instances in which the tenderness of
the infant body, or the debility of old age, greatly lessened

488

the previous probability of success ; insomuch that no spe-
cies of death seems to be placed beyond the reach of this
Society's assistance, where the mischief hath gone no far-
ther than an obstruction of the movements of the animal
machine, without any damage of the organs themselves.
Whether an institution of which it is the direct object to
guard human life (as far as is permitted) against the many
casualties that threaten it — to undo the deadly work of
poisons — to lessen the depredations of natural disease, —
whether an institution so beneficial to individuals, so ser-
viceable to the public, by its success in preserving the
lives of citizens, deserve not a legal establishment and
patronage, to give it the means and the authority to prose-
cute its generous views with the more advantage — it is
for statesmen to consider, who know the public value of
the life of every citizen in a free state. It is for us, till
this public patronage be obtained, to supply the want of
it, what we can, by the utmost liberality of voluntary con-
tribution.

Nor let any be deterred from taking a part in the views
of this excellent institution, by a superstitious notion, that
the attempt to restore life is an impious invasion of His
province in whose hands are the issues of life and death.
The union of soul and body once dissolved, the power which
first effected can alone restore ; but clockwork accidentally
stopped may often be set a going again, without the hand
of the original artificer, even by a rude jog from the clumsy
fist of a clown, who may know next to nothing of the nicer
parts of the machine. If the union of soul and body re-
main, as we have seen reason to believe, for some time after
the vegetable life hath ceased, — whilst it remains, the man
whom we hastily pronounce dead is not indeed a dead man,
but a living man diseased : " he is not dead, but sleepeth ;"
and the attempt to awaken him from this morbid sleep is
nothing more criminal or offensive to God than it is cri-
minal or offensive to God to administer a medicine to a
man sick of any common distemper. The province of

489

God, who wills that at all times we rely upon his blessiug
as the first cause of deliverance in all distress, but forbids
not that we use the instruments which his mercy hath put
in our own hands, — his province is no more invaded in the
one case than in the other. On the contrary, it is not less
criminal, less uncharitable, less offensive to God, to neg-
lect the man under the recent symptoms of death, than to
neglect the sick man, in whom those symptoms have not
taken place ; since the true condition of both, for any
thing we can possibly know to the contrary, is only that
of sickness.

Nor let us be deterred from promoting the attempts to
reanimate, by another superstition,— that if we recover the
man apparently dead, we do him no good office ; we only
bring him back from the seats of rest and bliss to the regions
of misery. Elijah had no such apprehension, when he re-
vived the widow's son ; nor our Lord, when he reanimated
the daughter of Jairus, or the widow's son of Nain, — nor
even when he recalled the soul of Lazarus. He recalled
the soul of Lazarus ! The soul once gone no human effort
ever shall recall ; but if it were criminal to stay the soul,
not yet gone, but upon the point of her departure, the
cure of diseases and of wounds, and the whole art of medi-
cine and of surgery, by parity of reason would be criminal.
But in truth, whatever might be the case of St. Paul and
others of the first preachers and martyrs, who had no ex-
pectation in this world but misery, and were secure of their
crown of glory in the next, — to the generality of men, even
of Christians, continuance in the present life is highly de-
sirable ; and that without regard to secular interests and
enjoyments (which claim however a moderate subordinate
regard), but purely with a view to the better preparation
for the next. Upon this ground we pray against sudden
death ; and we may lawfully use other means besides our
prayers to rescue ourselves and our brethren from it. The
continuance of the present life gives the good leisure to
improve, and affords the sinner space for repentance. Nor

490

is it the least part of the praise of this Society, that the
restoration of the present life, effected by its means, hath
been to many, by the salutary instruction and admonition
which they have received from their deliverers, the occa-
sion that they have been begotten anew, by the word of
God and the aid of his Holy Spirit, to the hope of immor-
tality.

They stand here before you whose recovered and re-
formed lives are the proof of my assertions. Let them
plead, if my persuasion fail, let them plead the cause of
their benefactors. Stand forth, and tell, my brethren, to
whom you owe it under God that you stand here this day
alive ! Tell what in those dreadful moments were your
feelings, when on a sudden you found yourselves sur-
rounded with the snares of death, when the gates of de-
struction seemed opening to receive you, and the over-
flowings of your own ungodliness made you horribly afraid !
Tell what were your feelings, when the bright scene of life
opened afresh upon the wondering eye, and all you had
suffered and all you had feared seemed vanished like a
dream ! Tell what were the mutual feelings, when first
you revisited your families and friends ! — of the child re-
turning to the fond parent's care — of the father receiving
back from the grave the joy, the solace of his age — of the
husband restored to the wife of his bosom — of the wife,
not yet a widow, again embracing her yet living lord !
Tell what are now your happy feelings of inward peace
and satisfaction, sinners rescued from the power of dark-
ness, awakened to repentance, and reconciled to God !
Your interesting tale will touch each charitable heart, and
be the means of procuring deliverance for many from the
like dangers which threatened your bodies and your souls.
Let it be the business of your days, so unexpectedly length-
ened, first to pay to God the true thanksgiving of a holy
life ; next, to acknowledge, for the good of others, the in-
struments of his mercy. Say, " These are they who saved
our bodies from the power of the grave, and have restored

491

us to thy fold, O Shepherd and Bishop of our souls !
' What though the dead praise thee not, nor they that
go down to the regions of silence ? yet we will bless the
Lord from this time forth for evermore !'"

SERMON XL.

Because iuiquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.* —
Matthew xxiv. 12.

C0MP7VRING the actual manners of mankind with those
magnificent descriptions which occur in every page of pro-
phecy, of the prosperous state of religion, both speculative
and practical, under the Christian dispensation, — in those
happy times " when the mountain of the Lord's house
should be exalted above all hills, and all nations should
flow unto it" — " when the earth should be filled with the
knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" —
when this knowledge should not only be imparted to all
nations, but indiscriminately dispensed to all ranks and
conditions of men (for the promise was, that not only on
" the sons and daughters," but on " the servants also and
the handmaids" the spirit should be poured forth) — when
the fruit of this knowledge was to be, that " kings should
reign for righteousness, and for equity princes should bear
rule ;" that government shovild be administered, not for the
purposes of avarice and ambition, but for the advantage of
the subject, and the general happiness of mankind — " when
the vile person should no more be called liberal, nor the
churl said to be bountiful" — when the foolish preacher of
infidelity (a mean and sordid doctrine, which perplexes
the understanding and debases the sentiments of man)
should no longer have the praise of greatness of mind ;
nor the atheistic churl, who envies the believer his hope

* Preached for the Philanthropic Society, March 25, 1792.

492

full of immortality, be esteemed as a patriot generously
struggling for the freedom of mankind enthralled by super-
stitious fears — " when nothing to hurt or destroy should
be found in all the holy mountain" — when all pernicious
opinions should be banished from the schools of the learned,
and all evil passions weeded out of the hearts of men —
*' when the work of righteousness should be peace, and
the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for
ever," — comparing the actual manners of mankind, even
in those countries where the Christian religion is taught
and professed in its greatest purity, with these prophetic
descriptions of the state of religion under the gospel, we
may perhaps imagine that we see too much reason to
conclude, that the liberality of the promise is balked in
the poverty of the accomplishment — that the event of
things falsifies the prediction.

Survey the habitable globe, and tell me in what part of
Christendom the fruits of Christianity are visibly pro-
duced in the lives of the generality of its professors : in
what Christian country is charity the ruling principle
with every man in the common intercourse of civil life,
insomuch that the arts of circumvention and deceit are
never practised by the Christian against his brother, nor
the appetites of the individual suffered to break loose
against the public weal, or against his neighbour's peace?
Where is it that the more atrocious crimes of violence and
rapine are unknown? Where is it that religion completely
does the office of the law, and the general and habitual
dread of future wrath spoils the trade of the executioner ?
If that zeal for good works which ought to be universal
in Christendom is nowhere to be found in it, it may seem
that Christianity, considered as a scheme for the reforma-
tion of mankind, has proved abortive. In truth, since the
whole object of revelation is to recover mankind from the
habit and dominion of sin, in which the first transgression
had involved them, — since this was the common object of
the earliest as well as of the latest revelations, — since

498

the promulgation ot" tlie g'ospel is evidently, in the nature
of the tliing-j and by the express declarations of holy writ,
the last effort to be made for the attainment of that great
object, — if that last effort still proves unsuccessful, the
conclusion may seem inevitable, that in a contest for the
recovery of man from sin and perdition, continued for the
space of fidl seven thousand years, from the hour of the
fall to the present day, between the Creator of the world
and man's seducer, the advantage still remains (where
from the first indeed it hath ever been) on the side of the
apostate angel. A strange phenomenon it should seem, if
Infinite Goodness, Infinite Wisdom, and Omnipotence,
have really been engaged on the one side, and nothing
better than the weakness and malice of a creature on the
other !

But ere we acquiesce in these conclusions, or indulge in
the scepticism to which they lead, let us compare the
world as it now is, not with the perfection of the ultimate
effect of Christianity as described by the entranced pro-
phets contemplating the great schemes of Providence in
their glorious consummation; — but let us compare the
world as it now is with what it was before the appearance
of our Saviour. We shall find, if I mistake not, that the
effect of Christianity in improving the manners of man-
kind, though as yet far less than may be ultimately hoped,
is already, however, far from inconsiderable. Let us next
consider by what means God vouchsafes to carry on this
conflict of his mercy with the malice of the Devil. We
shall see, that the imperfection of what is yet done so little
justifies any sceptical misgivings, that in the very nature
of the business itself ages are necessary to the completion
of it ; and that the considerable effect already wrought is
an argument of the elhcaey of the scheme to the intended
purpose, and an earnest of the completion of the work in
God's good season. We shall also be enabled to discern
what we may ourselves contribute to the furtherance of a

494

work so important even to tlie present interests of the in-
dividual and of society.

Comparing- the world as it now is with what it was
before the promulgation of the gospel, we shall find the
manners of mankind in this respect at least improved, —
that they are softened. Our vices are of a more tame and
gentle kind than those of the ancient heathen world ; they
are disarmed of much of their malignity, by the general
influence of a spirit of philanthropy, which, if it be not
the same thing in principle with Christian charity (and it
may indeed be different), is certainly nearly allied to it,
and makes a considerable part of it in practice. The
effect of this philanthropic spirit is, that the vices which
are still generally harboured are sins of indulgence and
refinement rather than of cruelty and barbarism — crimes
of thoughtless gayety rather than of direct, premeditated
malice.

To instance in particulars. We are not destitute, as
the heathen were, of natural affection. No man in a
Christian country would avoid the burden of a family by
the exposure of his infant children: no man would think
of settling the point with his intended wife, before mar-
riage, according to the ancient practice, that the females
she might bear should be all exposed, and the boys only
reared, — however inadequate his fortune might be to the
allotment of large marriage portions to a numerous family
of daughters : nor would the unnatural monster (for so we
now should call him) who in a single instance should
attempt to revive the practice of this exploded system
of economy escape public infamy and the vengeance of
the laws.

The frequency of divorce was another striking symp-
tom, in the heathen world, of a want of natural affection,
which is not found in modern manners. The crime
indeed which justifies divorce is too frequent; but the hus-
band is not at liberty, as in ancient times, to repudiate the

495

wife ot" his youth for any lighter cause than an otience on
her part against the fundamental principle of the nuptial
contract. Upon this point the laws of all Christian coun-
tries are framed in strict conformity to the rules of the
gospel, and the spirit of the primeval institution.

We are not, as the apostle says the heathen were, " full
of murder." The robber, it is true, to facilitate the acqui-
sition of his booty, or to secure himself from immediate
apprehension and punishment, sometimes imbrues his
hand in blood ; but scenes of blood and murder make no
part, as of old, of the public diversions of the people.
Miserable slaves, upon occasions of general rejoicing and
festivity, are not exposed to the fury of wild beasts for a
show of amusement and recreation to the populace, nor
engaged in mortal combat with each other upon a public
stage. Such bloody sports, were they exhibited, would
not draw crowds of spectators to our theatres, of every
rank, and sex, and age. Our women of condition would
have no relish for the sight: they would not be able to
behold it with so much composure as to observe and ad-
mire the skill and agility of the champions, and interest
themselves in the issue of the combat: they would shriek
and faint; — they would not exclaim, like Roman ladies,
in a rapture of delight, when the favourite gladiator struck
his antagonist the fatal blow; nor with cool indiiierence
give him the signal to despatch the prostrate suppliant.*
Nor would the pit applaud and shout when the blood of
the dying man, gushing from the ghastly wound, flowed
upon the stage.

We are not, in the degree in which the heathen were,
" unmerciful.'* With an exception in a single instance,
we are milder in the use of power and authority of every

Cousurgit ad ictus,

Et quoties victor feiTum jugulo inserit, ilia
Delicias ait esse suas, pectusque jacentis
Virgo modesta jnbet, converso police, rumpi.'

Prinlenthis.

496

sort; and the abuse of authority is now restrained by law
in cases in which the laws of ancient times allowed it.
Capital punishment is not inflicted for slight offences ;
nor, in the most arbitrary Christian governments, is it
suddenly inflicted, upon the bare order of the sovereign,
without a formal accusation, trial, conviction, sentence,
and warrant of execution. The lives of children and ser-
vants are no longer at the disposal of the father of the
family ; nor his domestic authority maintained, as formerly,
by severities which the mild spirit of modern laws rarely
inflicts on the worst public malefactors. Even war has
lost much of its natural cruelty; and, compared with itself
in ancient times, wears a mild and gentle aspect. The
first symptom of the mitigation of its horrors appeared
early in the fifth century, when Rome was stormed and
plundered by the Goths under Alaric. Those bands of
barbarians, as they were called, were Christian; and their
conduct in the hour of conquest exhibited a new and won-
derful example of the power of Christianity over the fierce
passions of man. Alaric no sooner found himself master
of the town, than he gave out orders that all of the un-
armed inhabitants who had fled to the churches or the
sepulchres of the martyrs should be spared ; and with
such cheerfulness were the orders obeyed, that many who
w^ere found running about the streets in a phrensy of con-
sternation and despair, were conducted by the common
soldiers to the appointed places of retreat. Nor was a
single article touched of the rich furniture and costly
ornaments of the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul.
This, you will observe, was a thing very different from
the boasted examples of Pagan manners, the generosity of
Camillus and Scipios continence. In either of those
examples, we see nothing more than the extraordinary
virtue of the individual, because it was extraordinary,
equally reflecting disgrace on his times and credit on him-
self; this was an instance of mercy and moderation in a
whole army — in common soldiers, flushed with victory,

497

and smarting under the wounds tliey had received in ob-
taining it.

From that time forward the cruelty of war has gra-
dually declined, till, in the present age, not only captives
among Christians are treated with humanity, and con-
quered provinces governed with equity, but in the actual
prosecution of a war it is become a maxim to abstain from
all unnecessary violence. Wanton depredations are rarely
committed upon private property ; and the individual is
screened as much as possible from the evil of the public
quarrel. Ambition and avarice are not eradicated from
the heart of man; but they are controlled in the pursuit of
their objects by the general philanthropy. Wars of en-
terprise, for conquest and glory, begin to be reprobated in
the politics of the present day. Nor, in private life, have
later ages seen the faithless guardian mix the poisoned
cup for the unhappy orphan, whose large property has
been intrusted to his management.

In the virtues of temperance and chastity, the practice
of the present world is far below the standard of Christian
purity; but yet the worst excesses of modern voluptuaries
seem continence and sanctity, when they are set in com-
parison with those unnatural debaucheries of the heathen
world, which were so habitual in their manners, that they
stained the lives of their gravest philosophers, and made
a part even of the religious rites of the politest nations.

You will remember that it is not to extenuate the sins
of the present times that I am thus exact to enumerate the
particulars in which our heathen ancestors surpassed us in
iniquity: I mean not to justify the ways of man, but of
God. The symptoms of a gradual amendment in the
world, I trust, are numerous and striking. That they are
the effect of Christianity, is evident from this fact, — that
in all the instances which I have mentioned, the percep-
tible beginnings of amendment cannot be traced to an
earlier epoch than the establishment of the Christian reli-
gion in the Roman empire by Constantine; and imme-
2k-

498

d lately after that event they appeared. The work of God
therefore is begun, is going on, and will unquestionably
be carried to its perfection. But let none imagine that
his own or the general conduct of the world is such as
may endure the just judgment of God : sins yet remain
among us, which, without farther reformation and repent-
ance, must involve nations in judgment and individuals
in perdition.

In comparing the manners of the Christian and the
heathen world, impartiality hath compelled me to remark
that in one instance (and I trust in one only) an abuse of
authority, and I must add a cruelty of avarice, obtain
among us Christians in the present world, not to be ex-
ceeded by the worst examples that may be found in the
annals of heathen antiquity. I speak of that worse than
Tyrian merchandise "in the persons of men" which is
still carried on under the express sanction of the laws;
and the tyranny which, in despite of law, is exercised by
Christian masters on the miserable victims of that in-
famous traffic. In this instance, the sordid lust of gain
has hitherto been deaf to the voice of humanity and reli-
gion. And yet I trust, that the existence of this iniquitous
trade is less a symptom of depravity, than the loud and
general cry of the people of this country for its abolition
is an argument that the mild spirit of Christianity is
gaining more and more of an ascendancy; and that God's
good work is tending to its consummation, by that gra-
dual progress by which, from the very nature of the means
employed, the business must be expected to proceed.

The means which God vouchsafes to employ for the
perfect overthrow of the DeviFs kingdom, are not such as
he might be expected to put in use if his omnipotence
alone were regarded; but they are such as are consistent
with the free agency of man — such as are adapted to the
nature of man as a rational and moral agent, and adapted
to the justice and wisdom and mercy o£ God in his deal-
ings with such a creature.

499

God s power is unquestionably competent to the instan-
taneous abolition of all moral evil, by the annihilation at
a single stroke of the whole troop of rebellious angels and
the whole race of sinful man, and the production of new
creatures in their room. God's power is competent to
the speedy abolition of moral evil, by the sudden execution
of severe judgments on wicked nations or sinful indivi-
duals— by such examples of wrath immediately pursuing
guilt as might act with a compulsive force upon those
who saw them. But God " willeth not the death of the
sinner, but that the sinner turn from his way and live;"
and he seeks an obedience to his will founded less on fear
than love. He abstains therefore from these summary,
abrupt, coercive measures; and he employs no other
means than the preaching of the gospel, — that is, in effect,
no other means than those of persuasion and argument,
invitation and threatening. It is very obvious that ages
must elapse before these means can produce their full
effect, — that the progress of the work will not only be
gradual, but liable to temporary interruptions; insomuch,
that it may seem at times not only to stand still, but even
to go backwards, as often as particular circumstances in
the affairs of the world draw away the attention of men
from the doctrines of the gospel, or rouse an extraordinary
opposition of their passions to its precepts. Our Saviour
in the text apprises his apostles that this would be the
case in the season of the Jewish war; and St. Paul has
foretold an alarming increase of wickedness in the latter
days. The use of these prophetic warnings is to guard
the faithful against the scepticism which these unpro-
mising appearances might be apt to produce; that instead
of taking offence at the sin which remains as yet unex-
tirpated, or even at an occasional growth and prevalence
of iniquity, we may firmly rely on the promises of the
prophetic word, and set ourselves to consider what may
be done on our own part, and what God may expect that
2 K 2

500

we should do, for the furtherance of his work and tlie re-
moval of impediments.

This we are taught pretty clearly, though indirectly, in
the words of the text; which, though they were uttered
by our Saviour with particular reference to the Jewish
war, remind us of a general connexion between the " a-
bounding of iniquity " and the decay of that principle by
which alone the abounding of iniquity may be resisted :
" because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall
wax cold."

"The love of many" is understood by some expositors
(by St. Chrysostom among the ancients, and by Calvin
among the moderns) of the mutual love of Christians for
each other; — which indeed will be very apt to languish
and die away when iniquity abounds and choaks it: but
as this discourse of our Lord's is an express, formal pro-
phecy, and the style of prophecy prevails in every part of
it, I am persuaded that love is to be taken in the same
sense here which it manifestly bears in the Apocalyptic
prophecies; where it denotes not brotherly love, but a
much higher principle — the root of brotherly love, and of
all the Christian virtues — the love of God and of Christ,
or, which is much the same thing, a devout attachment of
affection to the religion of Christ, and a zeal for its in-
terests. This will naturally decay under the discourage-
ment of the abounding of iniquity ; because many will
grow indifferent about a religion which seems to have no
permanent good effect. Whatever opinion they may re-
tain in their own minds of its truth, they will think it of
no consequence to be active in the support and propaga-
tion of it: their love therefore will grow torpid and inac-
tive.

Such will be the conduct of many ; but since religion
(by which I mean the Christian religion ; for no other has
a title to the name) is the only sure remedy against the
growth of iniquity, the wise conduct would be the reverse

501

of this. The more iniquity abounds, the more diligent it
becomes the faithful to be in calling the attention of man-
kind to religious instruction ; for sin never could abound
if the attention of men were kept steadily fixed upon their
eternal interests. Eternal happiness and eternal misery,
the favour and the wrath of God, are things to which it is
not in the nature of man to be indifferent, when he seriously
thinks about them. The success, therefore, of instruction
is certain, if men can be made to listen to it. It is the
more certain, because we are assured that the Divine
mercy interests itself in the conversion of every individual
sinner, just as the owner of a large flock is solicitous for
the recovery of a single stray ; and because there is some-
thing in the doctrine of the gospel particularly adapted to
work upon the feelings of a sinner, — insomuch that publi-
cans and harlots were found to be readier to enter into
the kingdom of God than the Scribes and Pharisees.

But here lies the great difficulty, that in seasons of a
particular prevalence of iniquity, those who the most
need instruction, being the most touched with the general
infection, will be the last to seek it or to bear it. General
public instruction at such times will never prove an effec-
tual remedy for the evil : means must be found of carry-
ing reproof and admonition home to the refractory offen-
der, who purposely absents himself from the assemblies
where public instruction is provided for him, and refuses
the general invitation to the marriage-feast.

It is the singular praise of the charitable institution of
which I am this day the advocate, that the founders of it
have been the first in this country who have endeavoured
to meet this difficulty, and to supply the necessary defects
of general instruction, by an immediate special applica-
tion of the benefits of a sober, godly education to those
miserable outcasts of society, the children of convicted
criminals and of the profligate poor, accidentally picked
up in the public streets of this metropolis, or industriously
sought out in the lurking-holes of vagrant idleness and

502
beggary, and the nightly haunts of prostitutes and ruffians.
Such children had been too long indeed overlooked by
the virtuous ; but in no propriety of speech can it be said
they had been neglected. Under the tuition of miscreants
old and accomplished in the various arts of villany, they
had been in training, by a studied plan of education, well
contrived and vi^ell directed to its end, for the hopeful
trades of pilferers, thieves, highwaymen, housebreakers,
and prostitutes. From this discipline of iniquity they are
withdrawn by this Society, and placed under proper mas-
ters, to reclaim them from the principles instilled by their
first tutors, to infuse the contrary principles of religion,
and to instruct them in the mysteries of honest trades.
The utility of the undertaking is so evident, that its merit
would be injured by any attempt to set it forth in words :
it conduces to the security of the person and property of
the individual ; it conduces to the public prosperity, by
the diminution of vice and the increase of industry ; and
it is directed to the noblest purposes of humanity and re-
ligion.

Such are its ends : for the efficacy of its plan, the ap-
pearance here before you best may answer for it. These
are its first-fruits, — these are they whom its first efforts
have rescued from perdition. Wretched orphans! be-
reaved or deserted of your parents — disowned by society
— refused as servants in the poorest families, as appren-
tices in the meanest trades — excluded from the public
asylums of ignorance and poverty ! your infancy was
nourished to no better expectation than to be cut down in
the very morning of your days by the unrelenting stroke
of public justice ! By the mercy of God, working through
these his instruments, your benefactors, you are born again
to happier hopes — you are acknowledged by society — you
are become true denizens of your native land — you are
qualified to live in this world with comfort and credit to
yourselves and with advantage to your country — you are
brought back to the great Shepherd's fold — you are be-

503

come children of God und inheritors of the kingdom of
heaven !

Men and brethren ! countrymen and fellow-christians !
it is not for me, it is for your own feelings, to commend
to your support and protection the interests of this Society
— this work and labour of love. Christ our Lord came
into the world "to seek and to save that which was lost:"
this Society, we trust, are humble imitators of his example
— labourers under Christ, To the extent of their ability,
they seek what was lost, and bring it to Christ to be saved
by him. Public liberality must apply the means of car-
rying the godly work to perfection. Buildings must be
erected, where the children may be kept secure from any
accidental interviews with their old connexions. To this
purpose, so essential to the attainment of their object — an
object so important to the individual, the public, and to
the church of God, the present funds of the Society are
altogether unequal. But public liberality in this country
will not forsake them ; nor will the blessing of God for-
sake them, while they trust in him, and lose not sight of
the first end of their institution.

Those illustrious persons who with a zeal so laudable
condescend to direct the affairs of this charity, " will suffer
from their brother and fellow-servant in the Lord" the
word of exhortation. Remember, brethren, that piety is
the only sure basis even of a moral life, — that religious
principle is the only groundwork of a permanent reforma-
tion ; nor can any thing less powerful than the grace of
God infused into the soul eradicate evil principles in-
stilled in childhood, and evil habits contracted in that
early part of life. Your own experience hath shown you
with what success religious principle may be instilled
into the most depraved mind, and with what efficacy the
grace of God counteracts evil principles and evil habits ;
for you have found that " the situation of infant thieves is
peculiarly adapted to dispose their minds to the reception
of better habits." Remember, therefore, that if you would

504

be true to your own generous undertaking, religious in-
struction must be the first, not a secondary object of your
institution. Nor must the masters of the different trades
be suffered so severely to exact the children's labour as to
defraud them of the hours that should be daily allotted to
devotion, nor of some time in every week, which, besides
the leisure of the Sundays, should be set apart for religious
instruction. To educate the children to trades, is a wise,
beneficial, necessary part of your institution : but you
will remember, that the eternal interests of man far out-
weigh the secular ; and the work of religion, although the
learning of it require indeed a smaller portion of our time,
is of higher necessity than any trade. While your work
is directed to these good ends, and conducted upon these
godly principles, the blessing of God will assuredly crown
your labours with success ; nor shall we scruple to extend
to you the benediction in its first application peculiar to
the commissioned preachers of righteousness, " Blessed
are ye that sow beside all waters, and send forth the feet
of the ox and the ass."

SERMON XLI.

Thomas, because thou hast seen nie, thou hast believed : blessed are
they who have not seen and yet have believed. — John xx. 29.

These were the words of Christ's reply to his apostle
Thomas, when he, who had refused to credit the resur-
rection of Jesus upon the report of the other apostles, re-
ceived the conviction of his own senses in a personal inter-
view, and recognised our Saviour for Lord and God.

What is most remarkable in these words, on the first
general view of them, is the great coolness with which
our Lord accepts an act of homage and adoration offered
with much warmth and cordiality ; a circumstance which

505

plainly indicates some defect or blemish in the oft'ering,
by which its value was much diminished. And this could
be nothing but the lateness of it — the apostle's wonderful
reluctance to believe much less than what he at last pro-
fesses : but eight days since, he would not believe that
Jesus to be alive whom now he worships as the living
God.

But this is not all : the apostle is not only reproved for
his past incredulity ; he is told besides, at least it is indi-
rectly suggested to him, that the belief which he at last so
fervently professes hath little merit in it, — that it was not
of that sort of faith which might claim the promises of the
gospel ; being indeed no voluntary act of his own mind,
but the necessary result of irresistible evidence. This is
clearly implied in that blessing which our Lord so empha-
tically pronounces on those who, not having seen, should
yet believe. " Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou
hast believed :" you now indeed believe, when the testi-
mony of your own senses leaves it no longer in your power
to disbelieve. I promise no blessing to such reluctant
faith : " blessed are they who have not seen and yet have
believed."

Here arise two questions, which, either for the difficulty
which each carries in the first face of it, or for the in-
struction which the speculation may afford, may well de-
serve an accurate discussion. The first is, why Thomas
was reproved for not believing till he was convinced ?
The second, what should be the peculiar merit of that faith
which hath not the immediate evidence of sense for its
foundation or support, that our Saviour should on this
sort of faith exclusively pronounce a blessing? A readi-
ness to believe wonders upon slender evidence hath ever
been deemed a certain mark of a weak mind ; and it may
justly seem impossible that man should earn a blessing by
his foliy, or incur God's displeasupe by his discretion.

For the clearing up of these difficult questions, this
shall be my method, — First, to consider what ground there

50G

might be for St. Thomas to believe the fact of our Lord's
resurrection upon the report of the other ten apostles, be-
fore he had himself seen him ; and from what motives it
may be supposed that he withheld his assent. In the
course of this inquiry, it will appear that an evidence very
different from ocular demonstration may in many cases
command the assent of a reasonable man ; and that no
man can be justified in setting a resolution within himself,
as Thomas did, that he will not believe without this or
that particular kind of proof. Secondly, I shall show
that the belief of any thing upon such evidence as Thomas
at last had of Christ's resurrection is a natural act of the
human mind, to which nothing of moral or religious merit
can reasonably be ascribed. These preliminary disquisi-
tions will furnish the necessary principles for the resolu-
tion of that great and interesting question. What is the
merit, and at the same time what is the certainty, of that
faith which believes what it hath not seen ?

In the first place, I propose to consider what ground
there might be for Thomas to believe the fact of our Sa-
viour's resurrection, upon the testimony of the other apos-
tles, before he had himself seen him ; and what may be
supposed to have been the motives upon which he refused
his assent. And here the thing principally to be consi-
dered is, what degree of trust the apostle might reasonably
have placed in our Lord's promise of rising again after the
event of his crucifixion ; and what there might be on the
other hand to outweigh the expectation of the thing, and
the positive testimony of his fellow-disciples. Our Sa-
viour had on many occasions foretold his own death ; and
never without assurances that he would rise again on the
third day. This he generally declared enigmatically to
the Jews, but in the most explicit terms to the apostles
in private : and it is very remarkable, that though he had
spoken of nothing more plainly in private or more darkly
in public than of his resurrection, describing it under the
figure of rebuilding a demolished temple, and under allu-

507

sions to the prophet Jonah's miraculous deliverance, —
yet the Jews, whose understandings had been blind to the
meaning of the easiest parables, took the full meaning of
these figured predictions ; while the apostles either under-
stood them not, or retained not in their memory the plain,
unequivocal declarations which our Lord had made to
them ; so that while the rulers of the Jews were using all
precaution to prevent the success of a counterfeit resurrec-
tion, nothing could be more remote from the expectations
of the apostles than a real one. In this we see the hand
of Providence wonderfully directing all things for the
conviction of after ages. Had the caution of the Jews
been less or the faith of the apostles more awake, the evi-
dence of this glorious truth, that " Christ is risen, and be-
come the first-fruits of them that slept," might not have
been to us what now it is. Nevertheless, though none of
the apostles seem to have had positive expectations of our
Lord's resurrection before it happened, yet St. Thomas
seems to have been singular in treating the report of the
resurrection as a manifest fiction.

From the conversation of the two disciples on the way
to Emmaus, it may be gathered that the first report of
the holy women, though it had not yet obtained belief,
was by no means rejected with absolute contempt. On
the contrary, it seems to have awakened in all but Thomas
some recollection of our Lord's predictions, and some du-
bious solicitude what might be the events of the third day.
And yet it cannot be supposed that St. Thomas, at this
time, had no remembrance of our Lord's predictions of his
resurrection ; of which the other ten could not but remind
him : but the consideration, it seems, had no weight with
him. And yet the person who had given his followers
these assurances was no ordinary man : his miraculous
conception had been foretold by an angel ; his birth had
been announced to the peasants of Judea by a company
of the heavenly host — to the learned of a distant country
by a new wonder in the air; his high original had been

508

afterwards attested by voices from heaven ; he had dis-
played powers in himself which amounted to nothing less
than an uncontrolled and unlimited dominion over every
department of the universe, — over the first elements of
which natural substances are composed, in his first mira-
cle of changing water into wine, and in the later ones of
augmenting the mass of a few loaves and a few small
fishes to a quantity sufficient for the meal of hungry mul-
titudes— over the most turbulent of the natural elements,
composing the raging winds and troubled waves — over
the laws of nature, exempting the matter of his body on
a particular occasion from the general force of gravitation,
and the power of mechanical impulse, so as to tread se-
cure and firm upon the tossing surface of a stormy sea — ■
over the vegetable kingdom, blasting the fig-tree with his
word — over the animal body, removing its diseases, cor-
recting the original defects and disorders of its organs,
and restoring its mutilated parts — over the human mind,
penetrating the closest secrets of each man's heart — over
the revolted spirits, delivering miserable mortals from
their persecution, and compelling them to confess him for
their Lord and the destined avenger of their crimes ; and,
what might more than all add weight to the promise of
his resurrection, he had shown that life itself was in his
power, restoring it in various instances — in one when it
had been so long extinguished that the putrefaction of the
animal fluids must have taken place.

These wonders had been performed to confirm the purest
doctrine, and had been accompanied with the most un-
blemished life. This extraordinary personage had pre-
dicted his own death, the manner of it, and many of its
circumstances; all which the apostles had seen exactly
verified in the event. Even when he hung upon the cross
in agonies — agonies of body, and stronger agonies of mind,
which might more have shaken the faith of his disciples,
Nature bore witness to her Lord in awful signs of sym-
pathy ; the sun, without any natural cause, withdrew his

509

light ; and in the moment that he yielded up the ghost,
the earth shook and the rocks were rended.

From this series of wonders, to most of which he had
been an eye-witness, had not St. Thomas more reason to
expect the completion of Christ's prediction at the time
appointed, than to shut his ears against the report of the
other ten, of whose probity and veracity in the course of
their attendance on their common Lord he must have had
full experience ? Cases may possibly arise, in which the
intrinsic improbability of the thing averred may outweigh
the most positive and unexceptionable evidence ; and in
which a wise man may be allowed to say, not, with Thomas,
" I will not believe" (for a case can hardly be supposed in
which testimony is to be of no weight), but he might say,
" I will doubt:" but where ten men of fair character bear
witness, each upon his own knowledge, to a fact which is
in itself more probable than its opposite, I know not upon
what ground their testimony can be questioned.

Such was the case before us. Where then can we look
for the ground of the apostle's incredulity, but in the pre-
judices of his own mind ? Possibly he might stand upon
what he might term his right. Since each of the other
ten had received the satisfaction of ocular demonstration,
he might think he had a just pretence to expect and to in-
sist upon the same. He had been no less than they at-
tached, he might say, to his Master's person — no less an
admirer of his doctrine — no less observant of his precepts
— nor less a diligent though distant copier of his great
example ; not less than the rest he revered and loved his
memory ; he would not less rejoice to see him again alive;
nor would he with less firmness and constancy, provided
he might be indulged with the same evidence of the fact,
bear witness to his resurrection, nor less cheerfully seal the
glorious attestation with his blood : but for what reason
could it be expected of him to believe, upon the testimony
of the other ten, that for which each of them pretended to
have received the immediate evidence of his own senses?

510

He never would believe that his kind Master, who knew his
attachment — whose affection he had so often experienced,
if he were really alive, would deny the honour and satis-
faction of a personal interview to himself alone of all his
old adherents.

If these were the apostle's sentiments, he did not fairly
weigh the evidence that was before him of the fact in
question ; but made this the condition of his believing
it at all, — that it should be proved to him by evidence of
one particular kind. Did he ask himself upon what evi-
dence he and the Jews his cotemporaries believed in the
divine authority of the laws of Moses? — upon what evi-
dence they received as oracular the writings of the ancient
prophets ?

A general revelation could never be, if no proof might
be sufficient for a reasonable man but the immediate testi-
mony of his own senses. The benefit of every revelation
must in that case be confined to the few individuals to
whom it should be first conveyed. The Mosaic institution
could have been only for that perverse race which perished
in the Wilderness through unbelief; and the preaching of
the prophets, for those stubborn generations which refused
to hearken, and underwent the judgments of God in their
long captivity. These examples might have taught him
that the advantage of ocular proof is no mark of God's
partial favour for those to whom it may be granted. Were
it not unreasonable to suppose that Enoch, and Noah, and
Abraham, and Jacob, and Job, and Daniel, who saw the
promises of the Messiah only afar off, were less in the
favour of Heaven than they who lived in later times, when
the promises began to take effect ?

Religious truth itself, and the evidence of religious
truth, is imparted, like all other blessings, in various mea-
sures and deo-rees, to different ao-es and different countries
of the world, and to different individuals of the same country
and of the same age. And of this no account is to be given,
but that in which all good men will rest satisfied, — that

511

" known unto God are all his ways," and that " the Judge
of all the earth will do what is right," Every man there-
fore may be allowed to say that he will not believe without
sufficient evidence ; but none can, without great presump-
tion, pretend to stipulate for any particular kind of proof,
and refuse to attend to any other, if that which he may
think he should like best should not be set before him.
This is indeed the very spirit of infidelity ; and this was
the temper of those brethren of the rich man, in our Sa-
viour's parable, who hearkened not to Moses and the pro-
phets, and yet were expected to repent if one should arise
from the dead : this is the conduct of modern unbelievers,
who examine not the evidence of revelation as it actually
stands, but insist that that sort of proof should be gene-
rally exhibited which from the nature of the thing must
always be confined to very few. The apostle Thomas, in
the principles of his unbelief, too much resembled these
uncandid reasoners. Yet let them not think to be shel-
tered under his example, unless they will follow it in the
better part, by a recantation of their errors and a confes-
sion of the truth full and ingenuous as his, when once their
hearts and understandings are convinced.

From this summary view of the evidence that St. Tho-
mas might have found of our Lord's resurrection, before it
was confirmed to him by a personal interview,— and from
this state of the principles upon which alone his incredu-
lity could be founded, — it may sufficiently appear that the
reproof he received was not unmerited ; and we may see
reason to admire and adore the affectionate mildness with
which it was administered.

The same thing will still more appear, when it shall be
shown, that in the belief of any thing upon such evidence
as was at last exhibited to Thomas of our Lord's resurrec-
tion there can be no merit ; and for this plain reason, that
a belief resulting from such evidence is a necessary act of
the understanding, in which the heart is totally unin-
terested. An assent to full and present proof, from what-

512

ever that proof may arise — whetlier from the senses, from
historical evidence, or from the deductions of reason, — an
assent, I say, to proof that is in itself complete and full,
when the mind holds it in immediate contemplation and
comprehends and masters it, arises as necessarily from the
nature of the understanding as the perception of external
objects arises from the structure of the organs to which
they are adapted. To perceive truth by its proper evi-
dence, is of the formal nature of the rational mind ; as it
is of the physical nature of the eye to see an object by
the light that it reflects, or of the ear to hear the sounds
which the air conveys to it. To discern the connexion
between a fact and its evidence, a proposition and its
proof, is a faculty fixed in the nature of the mind by God;
which faculty the mind is pretty much at liberty to em-
ploy or not, and hath a strange power of employing it in
some instances perversely ; but when it is employed aright
— when proof is brought into the mind's view, either by
its own fair investigation or by the force of external ob-
jects striking the bodily organs, assent and conviction
must ensue. The eye may be shut; the ear may be
stopped; the luiderstanding may turn itself away from
unpleasing subjects : but the eye, when it is open, hath
no power not to see; the ear, when open, hath no power
not to hear; and the understanding hath no power not to
know truth when the attention is turned to it. It matters not
of what kind the proposition may be to which the under-
standing assents in consequence of full proof; — the com-
pleteness of the proof necessarily precludes the possibility
of merit in the act of assenting. Now this was the case
of Thomas, and indeed of all the apostles, — not with re-
spect to the whole of their faith, but with respect to the
particular fact of our Lord's resurrection; — the proof they
had of it was full and absolute: Jesus in his well known
person stands alive before them; and to believe, when
they saw him alive, that he who had been dead was then
living, could be nothing more meritorious than to believe

513

that he was dead when they saw the body laid in tlie
grave.

I desire not to be Uiisunderstood. There may be much
merit in the diligence, the candour, and sincerity with
which a man inquires and investigates; — there may be
merit in the conduct he pursues in consequence of par-
ticular convictions. In the conduct of the apostles,
there was much merit, under the conviction they at last
attained of our Lord's resurrection — in their zeal to diffuse
his doctrines — in their firmness in attesting his triumph
over the grave, in defiance of the utmost rigour of perse-
cution,— such merit as shall be rewarded with unfadino-
crowns of glory: but in the mere act of believing a fact
evidenced by the senses, or a proposition legitimately
proved, of whatever kind, there can be none.

But here arises that most interesting question, Since
there is confessedly no merit in that act of belief which
is the result of ocular conviction, what is the merit of that
faith which hath no such foundation — which " believes
that which it hath not seen," that our Saviour should so
emphatically pronounce it blessed?

I trust that I shall evince, by God's assistance, that this
blessintr to the faithful standeth sure. But this o-reat
subject may well demand a separate Discourse.

SERMON XLII.

Thomas, because tliou hast seen me, thou hast believed : blessed are
they M'ho have not seen and yet have believed. — John xx. 29.

The propriety of the reproof addressed in these words

to the apostle hath been already shown. It was not his

fault that he did not believe before he was convinced ;

but that he had hastily set a resolution of unbelief, with-

2 L

514

out attending to a proof which, however inferior to the
evidence of sense, might have given him conviction.

It hath been shown besides, that a faith which is the
result of the immediate testimony of the senses must be
altogether destitute, as our Saviour intimates, of moral
merit. Hence arises this interesting question, the last in
my original division of the subject, which I now purpose
to discuss, — Since there is no merit in believing upon
ocular conviction, what is the merit of that faith which
hath not that foundation? Is it that it is taken up upon
slighter grounds? Is this possible in the nature of things,
that the imperfection of the proof should enhance the
merit of belief? Will it not follow, if this principle be
once admitted, that where there is the least of proof there
will be the most of this merit; and tliat the faith which is
the most valuable in the sight of God is that which hath
the least support and countenance from the understand-
ing?— a proposition which the adversaries of our holy re-
ligion would much rejoice that its professors should affirm.
To clear these difficulties, I know no readier way, than
to inquire on what grounds their faith for the most part is
likely to be built, who believe, as all Christians do who
at this day believe the gospel, without the evidence of
their senses. From this inquiry, I hope to make appear
both the certainty and the merit of our faith, — its cer-
tainty, as resting on a foundation no less firm, though far
less compulsive, than the evidence of sense itself; its
merit, as a mixed act of the understanding and of the will
— of the understanding, deducing its conclusions from the
surest premises — of the will, submitting itself to the best
of motives. Our faith, therefore, will appear to be an act
in which the moral qualities of the mind are no less active
than its reasoning faculties; and upon this account, it may
claim a moral merit of which the involuntary assent of
understanding present to sense or to necessary proof, must
ever be divested.

What, then, is the ground upon which the faith of the

515

generality of Christians in the present ages is built, who
all believe what they have not seen ? — I say, of the gene-
rality of Christians; for whatever it may be which gives
faith its merit in the sight of God, it is surely to be looked
for not in any thing peculiar to the faith of the learned,
but in the common faith of the plain, illiterate believer.
What then is the ground of his conviction? Is it the his-
torical evidence of the facts recorded in the gospels? Per-
haps no facts of an equal antiquity may boast a historical
evidence equally complete: and without some degree of
this evidence there could be no faith: yet it is but a
branch of the proof, and, if I mistake not, far from the
most considerable part; for the whole of this evidence lies
open but to a small proportion of the Christian world; it
is such as many true believers, many whose names are
written in the book of life, have neither the leisure nor the
light to scrutinize so as to receive from this alone a suf-
ficient conviction: in the degree in which it may be sup-
posed to strike the generality of believers, it seems to be
that which may rather finish a proof begun in other prin-
ciples, than make by itself an entire demonstration.

What then is that which, in connexion with that por-
tion of the historical evidence which common men may be
supposed to perceive, affords to them a rational ground of
conviction ? Is it the completion of prophecy ? This it-
self must have its proof from history. To those who live
when the things predicted come to pass, the original deli-
very of the prophecy is a matter to be proved by historical
evidence : to those who live after the things predicted are
come to pass, both the delivery of the prophecy and the
events in which it is supposed to be verified are points of
history ; and moreover, by the figured language of pro-
phecy, the evidence which it affords is of all the most re-
moved from popular apprehension. What then is the
great foundation of proof to those who are little read in
history, and are ill qualified to decipher prophecy, and
compare it wath the records of mankind? Plainly this,
2 L 2

516

vvbicli the learned and the ignorant may equally compre-
hend,— the intrinsic excellence of the doctrine, and the
purity of the precept ; — a doctrine which conveys to the
rudest understanding just and exalted notions of the Di-
vine perfections ; exacts a worship purged of all hypocrisy
and superstition — the most adapted to the nature of him
who offers — the most worthy, if aught may be worthy, of
the Being that accepts it; prescribes the most rational
duties — things intrinsically the best, and the most con-
ducive to private and to public good ; proposes rewards
adequate to the vast desires and capacities of the rational
soul ; promises mercy to infirmity, without indulgence to
vice ; holds out pardon to the penitent offender, in that
particular way which secures to a frail, imperfect race the
blessings of a mild government, and secures to the majesty
of the Universal Governor all the useful ends of punish-
ment ; and builds this scheme of redemption on a history
of man and Providence — of mans original corruption,
and the various interpositions of Providence for his gra-
dual recovery,- — which clears up many perplexing ques-
tions concerning the origin of evil, the unequal distribu-
tion of present happiness and misery, and the disadvan-
tages on the side of virtue in this constitution of things,
which seem inexplicable upon any other principles.

This excellence of the Christian doctrine considered in
itself, as without it no external evidence of revelation
could be sufficient, so it gives to those who are qualified
to perceive it that internal probability to the whole scheme,
that the external evidence, in that proportion of it in which
it may be supposed to be understood by common men,
may be well allowed to complete the proof. This, I am
persuaded, is the consideration that chiefly weighs with
those who are quite unable to collect and unite for them-
selves the scattered parts of that multifarious proof which
history and prophecy afl[brd.

I would not be understood to disparage the proof of
revelation from historical evidence or from prophecy :

517

when I speak of tluit part of it which lies within the reach
of unlettered men as small, I speak of it with reference to
its whole. I am satisfied, that whoever is qualified to take
a view of but one half, or a much less proportion of the
proof of that kind which is now extant in the world, will
be overpowered with the force of it. Some there will al-
ways be who will profit by this proof, and will be curious
to seek after it ; and mankind in general will be advan-
taged by their lights. But of those in any one age of the
world who may be capable of receiving the full benefit of
this proof, I question whether the number be greater than
of those in the apostolic age who were in a situation to
receive the benefit of ocular demonstration. And I would
endeavour to ascertain what common ground of conviction
there may be for all men, of which the ignorant and the
learned may equally take advantage ; and I took this in-
quiry, in order to discover wdierein that merit of faith con-
sists wdiich may entitle to the blessing pronounced in the
text and in various other parts of Scripture ; for whatever
that may be from which true faith derives the merit, we
are undoubtedly to look for it, not in any thing peculiar to
the faith of the learned, but in the common faith of the
plain, illiterate believer. Now, the ground of his convic-
tion, that which gives force and vigour to whatever else of
the evidence may come within his view, is evidently his
sense and consciousness of the excellence of the gospel
doctrine. This is an evidence which is felt, no doubt, in
its full force by many a man who can hold no argument
about the nature of its certainty — with him who holds the
plough or tends the loom, who hath never been sufficiently
at leisure from the laborious occupations of necessitous
life to speculate upon moral truth and beauty in the ab-
stract ; for a quick discernment and a truth of taste in
religious subjects proceed not from that subtilty or refine-
ment of the understanding by which men are qualified to
figure in the arts of rhetoric and disputation, but from the
moral qualities of the heart. A devout and honest mind

51-8

refers the doctrines and precepts of religion to that ex-
emplar of the good and the fair which it carries about
within itself in its own feelings ; by their agreement with
this, it understands their excellence : understanding their
excellence, it is disposed to embrace them and to obey
them ; and in this disposition listens with candour to the
external evidence. It may seem, that by reducing faith
to these feelings as its first principles, we resolve the
grounds of our conviction into a previous disposition of
the mind to believe the thing propounded, — that is, it may
be said, into a prejudice. But this is a mistake : I sup-
pose no favour of the mind for the doctrine propounded
but what is founded on a sense and perception of its pu-
rity and excellence, — none but what is the consequence
of that perception, and in no degree the cause of it. We
suppose no previous disposition of the mind, but a general
sense and approbation of what is good ; which is never
called a prejudice but by those who have it not, and by a
gross abuse of language. The sense and approbation of
what is good is no infirmity, but the perfection of our na-
ture. Of our nature, did I say? — the approbation of what
is good, joined with the perfect understanding of it, is the
perfection of the Divine,

The reason that the authority of these internal percep-
tions of moral truth and good is often called in question is
this, — that from the great diversity that is found in the
opinions of men, and the different judgments that they
seem to pass upon the same things, it is too hastily inferred
that these original perceptions in various men are various,
and cannot therefore be to any the test of universal truth.
A Christian, for example, imagines a natural impurity in
sensual gratifications; a Mahometan is persuaded that
they will make a part of the happiness of the righteous in
a future state : the Christian reverences his Bible because
it prohibits these indulgences ; the Mahometan loves the
Koran because it permits them. Whence, it is said, is
this diversity of opinion, unless the mind of the Christian

519

perceives those things as impure which the mind of the
Mahometan equally perceives as innocent? From these
equal but various perceptions they severally infer the pro-
bability of their various faiths ; and who shall say that the
one judges more reasonably than the other, if both judge
from perceptions of which they are conscious ? Yet they
judge diflerently ; both therefore cannot judge aright, un-
less right judgment may be different from itself. Must it
not then be granted, either that these perceptions are un-
certain and fallacious, — or, which may seem more reason-
able, since no man can have a higher certainty than that
which arises from a consciousness of his own feelings, that
every man hath his own private standard of moral truth
and excellence, purity and turpitude ; that right and wrong-
are nothing in themselves, but are to every man what his
particular conscience makes them ; and that the universal
idea of moral beauty, of which some men have affected to
be so vehemently enamoured, and which is set up as the
ultimate test of truth in the highest speculations, is a mere
fiction of the imagination ?

It is not to be wondered that many have been carried
away by the fair appearance of this argument, in which
nothing seems to be alleged that is open to objection.
Nevertheless, the conclusion is false, and the whole rea-
soning is nothing better than a cheat and a lie; the pre-
mises on which it is founded being a false fact, with much
art tacitly taken for granted. The whole proceeds on this
assumption, — that men, in forming their judgments of
things, do always refer to the original perceptions of their
own minds, that is, to conscience. Deny this, and the
diversity of opinions will no longer be a proof of a diver-
sity of original perceptions ; from which supposed diversity
the fallaciousness of that perception was inferred. And
is not this to be denied ? Is it not rather the truth, that
no man is at all times attentive to these perceptions? that
many men never attend to them at all ? that in many they
are stilled and overcome, — in some, by education, fashion.

520

or example ; in others, by the desperate wickedness of
their own hearts? Now, the mind in which this ruin hath
been effected hath lost indeed its natural criterion of truth ;
and judges not by its original feelings, but by opinions
taken up at random. Nevertheless, the nature of things
is not altered by the disorder of perverted minds ; nor is
the evidence of things the less to those who perceive them
as they are, because there are those who have not that per-
ception. No man the less clearly sees the light, whose
own eye is sound, because it is not seen by another who
is blind ; nor are the distinctions of colour less to all man-
kind, because a disordered eye confounds them. The
same reasoning may be applied to our mental perceptions :
the Christian's discernment of the purity of the gospel doc-
trine is not the less clear — his veneration for it arising
from that discernment not the less rational, because a Ma-
hometan may, with equal ardour, embrace a corrupt sys-
tem, and may be insensible to the greater beauty of that
which he rejects. In a word, every man implicitly tinists
his bodily senses concerning external objects placed at a
convenient distance ; and every man may, with as good a
reason, put even a greater trust in the perceptions of which
he is conscious in his own mind ; which indeed are nothing
else than the first notices of truth and of Himself which
the Father of Spirits imparts to subordinate minds, and
which are to them the first principles and seeds of intel-
lect.

I have been led into an abstruse disquisition ; but I
trust that I have shown, and in a manner that plain men
may understand, that there is an infallible certainty in our
natural sense of moral right and wrong, purity and turpi-
tude ; and that I have exposed the base sophistry of that
ensnaring argument by which some men would persuade
the contrary : consequently, the internal probability of our
most holy religion is justly inferred from the natural sense
of the excellence of its doctrines; and a faith built on
the view of that probability rests on the most solid foun-

521

elation. The external evidence which is to complete the
proof is much the same to every man at this day as the
external evidence of the resurrection was to Thomas upon
the report of the other ten apostles ; with this diiference,
— that those wonderful facts of our Saviour's life which
Thomas knew by ocular proof, we receive from the testi-
mony of others.

The credibility of this testimony it is not difficult for
any one to estimate, who considers how improbable it is
that the preachers of a righteous doctrine, a pure mora-
lity, a strict religion, should themselves be impostors, —
how improbable that the apostles and first preachers could
be deceived in things which passed before their eyes ; and
how much credit is naturally due to a number of well-
informed men, of unimpeached character, attesting a thing
to their own loss and at the hazard of their lives. This
is the summary of the external evidence of Christianity as
it may appear to men in general — to the most illiterate
who have had any thing of a Christian education. The
general view of it, joined to the intrinsic probability of
the doctrine, may reasonably work that determined con-
viction which may incline the illiterate believer to turn
a deaf ear to objections which the learned only can be
competent to examine; and to repose his mind in this
persuasion, — that there is no objection to be brought,
which, if understood, would appear to him sufficient to
outweigh the mass of evidence that is before him.

It is to be observed, that all the writers who have
attacked the external evidence, seem to have taken it for
granted that the thing to be proved is in itself improbable.
None, I believe, hath been so inconsiderate as to assert,
that if the Christian scheme were probable in itself, the
evidence we have of it, with all the difficulties they have
been able to raise in it, would not be amply sufficient.
That they do not perceive the intrinsic probability of
Christianity," — those of them, I mean, who discover a due
respect for natural religion, — that these do not perceive

522

the intrinsic probability of the doctrines of our religion, I
would not willingly impute to any moral depravity of
heart : I will rather suppose that they have attended
singly to the marvel of the story, and have never taken a
near view of the beauty and perfection of the moral and
theological system.

From this general state of the principles on which the
faith of Christians in these ages may be supposed to rest,
when none can have the conviction of ocular proof, it is
not difficult to understand what is the peculiar merit of
that faith which believes what it hath not seen, whereby
it is entitled to our Saviour's blessing. The merit of
this faith is not to be placed merely in its consequences,
in its effects on the believer's life and actions. It is
certain, that faith which hath not these effects is dead :
there can be no sincere and salutary faith, where its
natural fruit, a virtuous and holy life, is wanting. But
faith, if I mistake not, hath, besides, another merit more
properly its own, not acquired from its consequences,
but conveyed to it from the principles in which it takes its
rise. These, indeed, are what gives to every action, much
more than its consequences, its proper character and de-
nomination ; and the principles in which faith is founded
appear to be that integrity, that candour, that sincerity of
mind, that love of goodness, that reverent sense of God's
perfections, which are in themselves the highest of moral
endowments and the sources of all other virtues, if indeed
there be any virtue which is not contained in these. Faith,
therefore, in this view of it, is the full assemblage and
sum of all the Christian graces, and less the beginning
than the perfection of the Christian character : but if in
any instance the force of external evidence should work
an unwilling belief where these qualities of the heart are
wanting, in the mere act of forced belief there is no merit :
" the devils believe and tremble." Hence, we may under-
stand upon what ground and with what equity and reason
salvation is promised in Scripture to faith, without the ex-

523

press stipulation of any other condition. Every thing
that could be named as a condition of salvation on the
gospel plan is included in the principle no less than in the
effect of that faith to vv^hich the promises are made.

On the other hand, it is easy to perceive that the sen-
tence of condemnation denounced ao^ainst the iinbelievino-
is not to be applied to the ignorance or the error of the
understanding; but to that unbelief which is the proper
opposite of the faith which shall inherit the blessing, —
that which arises from a dishonest resistance of conviction
— from a distaste for moral truth — from an alienation of
the mind from God and goodness. This unbelief contains
in it all those base and odious qualities which are the op-
posites of the virtue of which true faith is composed : it
must be " nigh unto cursing," inasmuch as in the very
essence and formality of its nature it is an accursed thing.

Lest any thing that has been said should seem to dero-
gate from the merit of the apostles' faith, I would observe,
that whatever degree of evidence they might have for
some part of their belief, in particular for the important
fact of our Lord's resurrection, they had ample exercise
for it in other points, where the evidence of their sense
was not to be procured, or any external evidence that
might be equally compulsive, for the whole of their faith.
For the great doctrines of the Father's acceptance of
Christ's sacrifice of himself — of the efficacy of the Media-
torial intercession — of the ordinary influences of the Holy
Spirit — of the resurrection of the body — of the future
happiness of the righteous and misery of the wicked — of
the future judgment to be administered by Christ, — for
these and many other articles, the apostles had not more
than we the testimony of their senses : it is not, therefore,
to be imagined that they were deficient in that merito-
rious faith which belie.veth what it hath not seen ; nor is
the reproof to Thomas to be extended to the whole of his
conduct, but confined to that individual act of incredulity
which occasioned it. Thomas, with the rest of the dele-

524

gated band, set the world a olorious example of an active
faith, which they are the happiest who best can imitate :
and, seeing faith hath been shown to partake in its begin-
nings of the evidence of consciousness itself, and to hold
of those first principles of knowledge and intellect of
which it cannot be doubted that they are the immediate
gift of God, let us all believe ; and let us pray to the Fa-
ther to shed more and more of the light of his Holy Spirit,
and to help our unbelief.

SERMON XLIII.

And every man that hath this hope in liim purltieth himself, even as
He is pure. — 1 John iii. 3.*

That the future bliss of the saints in glory will in part
at least consist in certain exquisite sensations of delight,
— not such as the debauched imagination of the Arabian
impostor prepared for his deluded followers, in his para-
dise of dalliance and revelry, — but that certain exquisite
sensations of delight, produced by external objects acting
upon corporeal organs, will constitute some part of the
happiness of the just, is a truth with no less certainty de-
ducible from the terms in which the Holy Scriptures de-
scribe the future life, than that corporal sufferance, on the
other hand, will make a part of the punishment of the
wicked.

Indeed, were holy writ less explicit upon the subject
than it is, either proposition, that the righteous shall be
corporally blessed, and the wicked corporally punished,
seems a necessary and immediate inference from the pro-
mised resurrection of the body : for to what purpose of
God's wisdom or of his justice — to what purpose of the

* Preached at the Anniversary of tlie Institution of the Magdalen
Hospital, April 22^ 1795.

525

creature's own existence, should tlie soul either of saint or
sinner be reunited to the body, as we are taught in Scrip-
ture to believe the souls of both shall be, unless the body
is in some way or another to be the instrument of enjoy-
ment to the one and of sufiering to the other? Or how is
the union of any mind to any body to be understood,
without a constant sympathy between the two, by virtue
of which they are reciprocally appropriated to each other,
in such sort that this individual mind becomes the soul of
that individual body, and that body the body of this mind,
• —the energies of the mind being modified after a certain
manner by the state and circumstances of the body to
which it is attached, and the motions of the body go-
verned under certain limitations by the will and desires of
the mind ? Without this sympathy, the soul could have
no dominion over the body it is supposed to animate,
nor bear, indeed, any nearer relation to it than to any
other mass of extraneous matter : this, which I call my
body, would in truth no more be mine than the body of
the planet Jupiter : I could have no more power to put
my own limbs in motion, as I find I do, by the mere act
of my own will, than to invert the revolutions of the
spheres ; — which were in effect to say, that no such thing
as animation could take place. But this sympathy be-
tween soul and body being once established, it is impos-
sible but that the conscious soul must be pleasurably or
otherwise affected, according to the various impressions
of external objects upon the body which it animates.
Thus, that in the future state of retribution, the good will
enjoy corporal pleasure and the bad suffer corporal pain,
would be a necessary consequence of that reunion of the
soul and the body which we are taught to expect at the
last day, had the Holy Scriptures given no other informa-
tion upon the subject.

But they are explicit in the assertion of this doctrine.
With respect to the wicked, the case is so very plain that
it is unnecessary to dwell upon the proof. With respect

o26
to tlie righteous, the thing migjit seem more doubtful, ex-
cept so far as it is deducible, in what manner I have
shown, from the general doctrine of the resurrection, —
were it not for one very explicit and decisive passage in
the second of St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. This
passage hath unfortunately lost somewhat, in our public
translation, of the precision of the original text, by an
injudicious insertion of unnecessary words, meant for
illustration, which have nothing answering to them in
the original, and serve only to obscure what they were
intended to elucidate. By the omission of these unne-
cessary words, without an}^ other amendment of the
translation, the passage in our English Bibles will be re-
stored to its genuine perspicuity ; and it will be found to
contain a direct and positive assertion of the doctrine we
have laid down. " We must all appear," says the apostle,
"before the judgment-seat of Christ." And this is the
end for which all must appear before that awful tribunal,
• — namely, " That every one may receive the things in the
body, according to that he hath done, whether good or ■
bad ;"* that is to say, that every one may receive in his
bod}^ such things as shall be analogous to the quality of
his deeds, whether good or bad, — good things in the
body, if his deeds have been good ; bad things, if bad.
Thus, the end for which all are destined to appear before

* Tec ^la rov ax'ij.o'.To; — not ill rendered by the Vulgate, propria cor-
poris. But this rendering, though the Latin words, rightly understood,
convey the true sense of the Greelc, has given occasion, through a mis-
ap])rehension of the true force of the word propria, to those paraphras-
tic renderings which we find in our English Bible,' and in many other
modern translations ; which entiiely conceal the particular interest the
body hath in this passage. To the same misapprehension of the true
sense of the Vulgate, we owe, as I suspect, a various reading of the
Greek text — ihcx, for ra ^*«, which appears in the Complutensian and
some old editions ; and is very injudiciously approved by Grotius, and
by Mills, if I understand him right ; though it has not the authority of
a single Greek manuscript, or the decided authority of any one of the
Greek fathers, to support it. The Syriac renders the true sense of the
Greek, rcc ^ix rov auixoiTo;, with precision and without ambiguity.

527

the judgment-seat of Christ is declared by the apostle to
be this, — that every individual may be rewarded with
corporal enjoyment, or punished with corporal pain, ac-
cording as his behaviour in this life shall have been
found to have been generally good or bad, upon an exact
account taken of his good and evil deeds.

What those external enjoyments will be which will
make a portion of our future bliss — in what particulars
they will consist, we are not informed ; probably for this
reason, — because our faculties, in their present imperfect
and debased state, the sad consequence of Adam's fall,
are not capable of receiving the information. And yet
we are not left destitute of some general knowledge, of
no inconsiderable importance.

It is explicitly revealed to us, that these joys will be
exquisite in a degree of which, in our present state, we
have neither sense nor apprehension. " Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
of man to conceive, such good things as God hath pre-
pared for them that love him," Numberless and ravish-
ing are the beauties which the mortal eye beholds in the
vafious works of creation and of art ! Elegant and of end-
less variety the entertainments which are provided for the
ear, — whether it delight to listen to the sober narratives
of history, or the wild fictions of romance, — whether it
hearken to the grave lessons of the moralist, to the ab-
struse demonstrations of science, the round periods of elo-
quence, the sprightly flourishes of rhetoric, the smooth
numbers and bold flights of poetry, or catch the enchant-
ing sounds of harmony — that poetry which sings in its
inspired strains the wonders of creating power and re-
deeming love — that harmony which fans the pure flame
of devotion, and wafts our praises upon its swelling notes
up to the eternal throne of God ! Infinite is the multitude
of pleasurable forms which Fancy's own creation can at
will call forth : but in all this inexhaustible treasure of
external gratifications with which this present world is

528

stored, — amidst all the objects which move the senses
with pleasure, and fill the admiring soul with rapture and
delight, — nothing is to be found which may convey to our
present faculties so much as a remote conception of those
transporting scenes which the better world in which they
shall be placed shall hereafter present to the children
of God's love.

It is farther revealed to us, that these future enjoyments
of the body will be widely different in kind from the plea-
sures which in our present state result even from the most
innocent and lawful gratifications of the corporeal appe-
tites. " In the resurrection, they neither marry," saith
our Lord, "nor are given in marriage; but are as the
angels of God in heaven."

But this is not all : another circumstance is revealed to
us, which opens to our hope so high a prospect as must
fill the pious soul no less with wonder than with love. It
is plainly intimated, that the good things which the righ-
teous will receive in their bodies will be the same in kind,
— far inferior, doubtless, in degree, — but the same they
will be in kind, which are enjoyed by the human nature
of our Lord, in its present state of exaltation at the right
hand of God. It is revealed to us, that our capacity of
receiving the good things prepared for us will be the effect
of a change to be wrought in our bodies at Christ's second
coming, by which they will be transformed into the like-
ness of the glorified body of our Lord. " The first man,"
saith St. Paul, " was of the earth, moulded of the clay; the
second man is the Lord from heaven." " And as we have
borne the image of the man of cleiy, we shall also bear the
image of the man in heaven." And in another place,
" We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like
unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby
he is able to subdue all things unto himself." This change
the same apostle in another place calls " the redemption
of the body;" and he speaks of it as " the adoption" for

529

which we wait. The apostle St. John, in the former part
of the Discourse from which my text is taken, speaks of
this glorious transformation as the utmost that we know
with certainty about our future condition. " Beloved," he
saith, " now we are the sons of God : and it doth not yet
appear what we shall be; but we know, that when He
shall appear'" (that is, when Christ shall appear, of whose
appearance the apostle had spoken just before in the
former chapter : we know this, though we know nothing else,
that when Christ shall appear), " we shall be like him; for
we shall see him as he is." To this declaration the apostle
subjoins the solemn admonition which I have chosen for
my text : " and every man that hath this hope in him,"
this hope of being transformed in his body into the like-
ness of his glorified Lord, '' purifies himself, as He is
pure."

For the right understanding of this admonition, it is of
importance to remark, that the pronoun " He" is to be
expounded not of God, but of Christ. Every one who
seriously cherishes this glorious hope "purifies himself,
as Christ is pure." It is the purity, therefore, of the human
nature in Christ Jesus, not the essential purity of the
Divine nature, that is proposed to us as an example for
our imitation. An inattention to this distinction was the
cause of much folly in the speculations, and of much im-
purity in the lives, of many of the ancient Mystics. The
purity of the Divine nature is one of the incommunicable
and inimitable perfections of God : it consists in that dis-
tance and separation of the Deity from all inferior natures
which is the sole prerogative of Self-existence and Omni-
potence. Sufficient in himself to his own happiness, and
to the purposes of his own will, it is impossible that God
can be moved by any desires towards things external, —
except it be in the delight he takes in the goodness of his
creatures ; and this ultimately resolves itself into his self-
complacency in his own perfections. The Mystics of
antiquity, rightly conceiving this purity of the Divine
2 M

530

nature, but not attending to the infinite distance between
the first intellect and the intelligent principle in man,
absurdly imagined that this essential purity of God him-
self was what they were required to imitate : then observ-
ing, what plainly is the fact, that all the vices of men
proceed from the impetuosity of those appetites which
have their origin in the imperfections and infirmities of
the animal nature, — but forgetting that the irregularity of
these appetites is no necessary effect of the union of the
soul to the body, but a consequence of that depravity of
both which was occasioned by the first transgression, —
they fell into this extravagance, — they conceived, that the
mind, in itself immaculate and perfect, became contami-
nated with vicious inclinations, and weakened in its
powers, by its connexion with the matter of the body, to
which they ascribed all impurity: hence they conceived,
that the mind, to recover its original purity and vigour,
must abstract itself from all the concerns of the animal
nature, and exercise its powers, apart as it were from the
body, upon the objects of pure intellect. This effort of
enthusiasm they vainly called an imitation of the Divine
purity, by which they fancied they might become united
to God. This folly was the most harmless when it led to
nothing worse than a life of inoffensive quietism; which,
however, rendered the individual useless in society, re-
gardless of the relative duties, and studious only of that
show of " will worship and neglecting of the body" which
is condemned by St. Paul. But among some of a warmer
temperament, the consequences were more pernicious.
Finding that total abstraction from sense at which they
aimed impracticable, and still affecting in the intelligent
part parity with God, they took shelter under this prepos-
terous conceit, — they said, that impurity so adhered to
matter, that it could not be communicated to mind ; that
the rational soul was not in any degree sullied or debased
by the vicious appetites of the depraved animal nature:
and under this whether serious persuasion or hypocritical

531

pretence, they profanely boasted of an intimate commu-
nion of their souls with God, while they openly wallowed
in the grossest impurities of the flesh. These errors and
these enormities had been prevented, had it been under-
stood that it is not the purity of the Divine nature in itself,
but the purity of the human nature in Christ, which reli-
gion proposes to man's imitation.

But again: the purity of the human nature in Christ,
which we are required to imitate, is not that purity which
the manhood in Christ now enjoys in its present state of
exaltation ; for even that will not be attainable to fallen
man, till "the redemption of the body' shall have taken
place: the purity which is our present example is the
purity of Christ's life on earth in his state of humiliation;
in which " he was tempted in all things like unto us, and
yet was without sin."' In what that purity consisted, may
be best learnt in the detail by diligent study and meditation
of Christ's holy life. A general notion of it may easily
be drawn from our Lord's enumeration of the things that
are the most opposite to it, and are the chief causes of
defilement: "These," saith our Lord, "are the things
which defile a man, — evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies."

Of these general defilements the most difficult to be
entirely escaped are the three of evil thoughts, adulteries,
and fornications. Few have hardened their hearts to
the cruelty of murder, or their foreheads against the shame
of theft or perjury; few are capable of the impiety of di-
rect blasphemy : but to the solicitations of what are called
the softer passions, we are apt to yield with less repug-
nance; probably for this reason, — that neither the injury
of our neighbour, nor a sordid self-advantage, nor the
affront of God, being so immediately the object of the act
in these as in the other instances, we are not equally de-
terred from the crime by any atrocious malignity or dis-
gusting meanness that it carries in its very first aspect.
Hence these are the sins with which the generality of
2 M 2

532

mankind, in the gaiety of their thoughtless hearts, are
most easily beset; and perhaps very few indeed hold in
such constant and severe restraint as might be deemed
any thing of an imitation of Christ's example, the wan-
derings of a corrupt imagination, the principal seat of
fallen mans depravity, toward the enticing objects of
illicit pleasures.

For this reason, the Holy Scriptures with particular
earnestness enjoin an abstinence from these defilements.
" Flee from fleshly lusts," says St. Peter, " which war
against the soul." And to these pollutions the admoni-
tion in the text seems to have a particular regard; for
the original word which we render " pure" is most pro-
perly applied to the purity of a virgin.

" Purifies himself as he is pure." Would God, a
better conformity to the example of his purity than ac-
tually obtains were to be found in the lives of nominal
Christians ! — the numbers would be greater which might
entertain a reasonable hope that they shall be made like
to him when he appeareth. But, thanks be to God, re-
pentance, in this as in other cases — genuine, sincere
repentance, shall stand the sinner in the stead of inno-
cence: the penitent is allowed to wash the stains even of
these pollutions in the Redeemer's blood.

By the turn of the expression in my text, the apostle
intimates, that every one's purification from defilements,
which in a greater or a less degree few have not con-
tracted— the individual's personal purification, must,
under God, depend principally upon himself — upon his
care to watch over the motions of his own heart — upon his
vigilance to guard against temptations from without —
upon his meditation of Christ's example — upon his assi-
duity to seek in prayer the necessary succour of God's
grace. Much, however, may be done for the purification
of the public manners, by wise and politic institutions; —
in which the first object should be, to guard and secure
the sanctity of the female character, and to check the pro-

533

gress of its incipient corruption; for the most effectual
restraint upon the vicious passions of men ever will be a
general fashion and habit of virtue in the lives of the
women.

This principle appears indeed to have been well under-
stood and very generally adopted in the policy of all civi-
lized nations ; in which the preservation of female chastity,
in all ages and in all parts of the world, hath been an ob-
ject of prime concern. Of various means that have been
used for its security, none seem so well calculated to at-
tain the end, nor have any other proved so generally suc-
cessful, as the practice which hath long prevailed in this
and other European countries, of releasing our women from
the restraints imposed upon them by the jealousy of Eas-
tern manners; but under this indispensable condition, that
the female, in whatever rank, who once abuses her liberty
to bring a stain upon her character, shall from that mo-
ment be consigned to indelible disgrace, and expelled for
the whole remainder of her life from the society of the
virtuous of her own sex. But yet, as imperfection attends
on all things human, this practice, however generally con-
ducive to its end, hath its inconveniences, I might say its
mischiefs.

It is one great defect, that by the consent of the world
(for the thing stands upon no other ground), the whole in-
famy is made to light upon one party only in the crime
of two ; and the man, who for the most part is the author,
not the mere accomplice of the woman's guilt, and for
that reason is the greater delinquent, is left unpunished
and uncensured. This mode of partial punishment af-
fords not to the weaker sex the protection which injustice
and sound policy is their due against the arts of the se-
ducer. The Jewish law set an example of a better policy
and more equal justice, when, in the case of adultery, it
condemned both parties to an equal punishment; which
indeed was nothing less than death.

A worse evil, a mischief, attending the severity, the

534

salutary severity upon the whole, of our dealing with the
lapsed female, is this, — that it proves an obstacle almost
insurmountable to her return into the paths of virtue and
sobriety, from which she hath once deviated. The first
thing- that happens, upon the detection of her shame, is,
that she is abandoned by her friends, in resentment of the
disgrace she hath brought upon her family; she is driven
from the shelter of her father's house ; she finds no refuge
in the arms of her seducer, — his sated passion loathes the
charms he hath enjoyed ; she gains admittance at no hos-
pitable door; she is cast a wanderer upon the streets,
without money, without a lodging, without food : in this
forlorn and hopeless situation, suicide or prostitution is
the alternative to which she is reduced. Thus, the very
possibility of repentance is almost cut off; unless it be
such repentance as may be exercised by the terrified sinner
in her last agonies, perishing in the open streets, under
the merciless pelting of the elements, of cold and hunger
and a broken heart. And yet the youth, the inexperience,
the gentle manners once, of many of these miserable vic-
tims of mans seduction, plead hard for mercy, if mercy
might be consistent with the safety of the treasure we so
sternly guard. We have high authority to say, that these
fallen women are not of all sinners the most incapable of
penitence — not the most unlikely to be touched with a
sense of their guilt — not the most insusceptible of religious
improvement; they are not of all sinners the most without
hope, if timely opportunity of repentance were afforded
them : sinners such as these, upon John the Baptist's first
preaching, found their way into the kingdom of heaven,
before the Pharisees, with all their outward show of sanc-
tity and self-denial.

This declaration of our Lord justifies the views of this
charitable institution, which provides a retreat for these
wretched outcasts of society, — not for those only who by a
single fault, seldom without its extenuations, have forfeited
the protection of their nearest friends; but even for those,

535

generally the most unpitied but not always the most un-
deserving of pity among the daughters of Eve, whom
desperation, the effect of their first false step, hath driven
to the lowest walks of vulgar prostitution. In the retire-
ment of this peaceful mansion — withdrawn from the
temptations of the world — concealed from the eye of
public scorn — protected from the insulting tongue of ob-
loquy— provided with the necessaries of life, though de-
nied its luxuries — furnished with religious instruction, and
with employment suited to their several abilities — they
have leisure to reflect on their past follies; they are rescued
from despair, that worst enemy of the sinner's soul ; they
are placed in a situation to recover their lost habits of
virtuous industry — the softness of their native manners,
and to make their peace with their offended God.

The best commendation of this charity is the success
with which its endeavours, by God's blessing, have been
crowned. Of three thousand women admitted since the
first institution, two-thirds, upon a probable computation
formed upon the average of four years, have been saved
from the gulf in which they had well nigh sunk, restored
to the esteem of their friends, to the respect of the world,
to the comforts of the present life, and raised from the
death of sin unto the life of righteousness and the hope of
a glorious immortality.

Happier far their lot than that of their base seducers !
who, not checked, like these, in their career of guilty
pleasure, by any frowns or censures of the world, " have
rejoiced themselves in their youth" without restraint —
" have walked," without fear and without thought, " in
the ways of their heart, and in the sight of their eyes" —
and at last perhaps solace the wretched decrepitude of a
vicious old age with a proud recollection of the triumphs
of their early manhood over unsuspecting woman's frailty;
nor have once paused to recollect, that *'God for these
things will bring them into judgment." But with Him is

536

laid up the cause of ruined innocence: he hath said, and
he will make it good, " Vengeance is mine, and I will
repay."

SERMON XLIV.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. — Romans xiii, 1.*

The freedom of dispute, in which for several years past
it hath been the folly in this country to indulge, upon
matters of such high importance as the origin of govern-
ment and the authority of sovereigns, — the futility of the
principles which the assertors, as they have been deemed,
of the natural rights of men, allege as the foundation of
that semblance of power which they would be thought
willing to leave in the hands of the supreme magistrate
(principles rather calculated to palliate sedition than to
promote the peace of society and add to the security of go-
vernment),— this forwardness to dispute about the limits of
the sovereign's power, and the extent of the people's rights,
with this evident desire to set civil authority upon a foun-
dation on which it cannot stand secure, — argues, it should
seem, that something is forgotten among the writers who
have presumed to treat these curious questions, and among
those talkers who, with little knowledsfe or reflection of
their own, think they talk safely after so high authorities :
it surely is forgotten, that whatever praise may be due to
the philosophers of the heathen world, who, in order to
settle, not to confound the principles of the human con-
duct, set themselves to investigate the source of the obli-
gations of morality and law, — whatever tenderness may

* Preached before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, January 30,
1793 ) being the Anniversary of the Martyrdom of King Charles the
First.

537

be due to the errors into which they would inevitably fall,
in their speculations concernuig- the present condition of
mankind, and the apparent constitution of the moral world
— of which, destitute as they were of the light of revela-
tion, they knew neither the beginning- nor the end, — the
Christian is possessed of a written rule of conduct deli-
vered from on high, which is treated with profane contempt
if reference be not had to it upon all questions of duty, or
if its maxims are tortured from their natural and obvious
sense to correspond with the precarious conclusions of any
theory spun from the human brain: it hath been forgotten,
that Christians are possessed of authentic records of the
first ages, and of the very beginning of mankind, which
for their antiquity alone, independent of their Divine au-
thority, might claim to be consulted in all inquiries,
where the resolution of the point in question depends upon
the history of man.

From these records it appears, that the Providence of
God was careful to give a beginning to the human race,
in that particular way which might for ever bar the exist-
ence of the whole or of any large portion of mankind in
that state which hath been called the state of nature.
Mankind from the beginning never existed otherwise than
in society and under government: whence follows this
important consequence, — that to build the authority of
princes, or of the chief magistrate under whatever deno-
mination, upon any compact or agreement between the
individuals of a multitude living previously in the state of
nature, is in truth to build a reality upon a fiction. That
government, in various forms, is now subsisting in the
world, is a fact not easily to be denied or doubted; that
the state of nature ever did exist, is a position of which
proof is wanting : that it existed not in the earliest ages,
the pretended time of its existence, is a fact of which proof
is not wanting, if credit may be given to the Mosaic
records : but to derive governments which now arc from a
supposed previous condition of mankind wliich never was,

538

is at the best an absurd and unphilosophical creation of
something out of nothing.

But this absurdity is in truth but the least part of the
mischief which this ill-conceived theory draws after it.
Had what is called the state of nature, — though a thing
so unnatural hath little title to the name, — but had this
state been in fact the primeval condition of mankind ; that
is, had the world been at first peopled with a multitude of
individuals no otherwise related than as they had partaken
of the same internal nature and carried the same external
form — without distinct property, yet all possessing equal
right to what they might have strength or cunning to ap-
propriate each to himself of the earth's common store —
without any governor, head, or guardian, — no government
could ever have been formed by any compact between the
individuals of this multitude, but what their children in
the very next generation would have had full right to abo-
lish, or any one or more of those children, even in opposi-
tion to the sense of the majority, with perfect innocence,
though not without imprudence, might have disobeyed:
insomuch, that if such compact be the true foundation of
sovereign authority, the foundation is weaker than these
republican theorists themselves conceive.

The whole foundation of government, in their view of
it, is laid in these two assumptions, — the first, that the will
of a majority obliges the minority; and the second, that
the whole posterity may be bound by the act and deed of
their progenitors. But both these rights, — that of the
many to bind the few, and that of the father to make a
bargain that shall bind his unborn children, — both these
rights, though sacred and incontrovertible in civil society,
are yet of the number of those to which civil society itself
gives birth ; and out of society they could have no exist-
ence. The obligations on the minority and on the child
to stand by the resolutions of the majority and the engage-
ments of the father, arise not from any thing in the nature
of man individually considered : they are rather indeed

539

unnatural; lor all obligations, strictly speaking, are unna-
tural, which bind a man to the terms of a covenant made
without his knowledge and consent : but they arise from
the condition of man as a member of society, — that is,
from the relation of the individual to the public ; a relation
which subsists not till a public is formed. And to make
those civil rights and obligations the parents of public
authority which are indeed its offspring, is strangely to
confound causes and effects.

The plain truth is this : the manner in which, as we
are informed upon the authority of God himself, God gave
a beginning to the world, evidently leads to this conclusion,
— namely, that civil society, which always implies govern-
ment, is the condition to which God originally destined
man : whence, the obligation on the citizen to submit to
government is an immediate result from that first principle
of religious duty which requires that man conform himself,
as far as in him lies, with the will and purpose of his
Maker. The governments which now are have arisen not
from a previous state of no government, falsely called the
state of nature ; but from that original government under
which the first generations of men were brought into ex-
istence, variously changed and modified, in a long course
of ages, under the wise direction of God's overruling pro-
vidence, to suit the various climates of the world, and the
infinitely varied manners and conditions of its inhabitants.
And the principle of subjection is not that principle of
common honesty which binds a man to his own engage-
ments, much less that principle of political honesty which
binds the child to the ancestor's engagements; but a con-
scientious submission to the will of God.

I must observe, that the principles which I advance
ascribe no greater sanctity to monarchy* than to any other

* It is true, that for many generations after the creation, the whole
world must have been under the monarchy of Adam ; and of Noah, for
some time after the flood : but this primitive patriarchal government,
in which the sovereign was in a literal sense the father of the people.

540

form of established government ; nor do they at ail involve
that exploded notion, that all or any of the present sove-
reigns of the earth hold their sovereignty by virtue of such
immediate or implied nomination on the part of God, of
themselves personally, or of the stocks from which they
are descended, as might confer an endless, indefeasible
right upon the posterity of the persons named. In con-
tending that government was coeval with mankind, it will
readily be admitted, that all the particular forms of govern-
ment which now exist are the work of human policy, un-
der the control of God's general overruling providence ;
that the Israelites were the only people upon earth whose
form of government was of express Divine institution, and
their kings the only monarchs who ever reigned by an
indefeasible divine title : but it is contended, that all
government is in such sort of Divine institution, that be
the form of any particular government what it may, the
submission of the individual is a principal branch of that
religious duty which each man owes to God : it is con-
tended, that the state of mankind was never such, that it
was free to any man or to any number of men, to choose for
themselves whether they would live subject to government
and united to society, or altogether free and unconnected.
It is true, that in the world, taken as it now is and hath
been for many ages, cases happen in which the sovereign
power is conferred by the act of the people, and in which
that act alone can give the sovereign a just title. Wot
only in elective monarchies, upon the natural demise of
the reigning prince, the successor is raised to the throne
by the suffrage of the people ; but in governments of
whatever denomination, if the form of government under-
go a change, or the established rule of succession be set
aside by any violent, or necessary revolution, the act of

was so much sui generis, so different from any of the monarchical forms
which have since taken place, that none of these can build any right of
preference upon those examples.

541

the nation itself is necessary to erect a new sovereignty,
or to transfer the old right to the new possessor. The
condition of a people, in these emergencies, bears no re-
semblance or analogy to that anarchy which hath been
called the state of nature : the people become not in these
situations of government what they would be in that state,
a mere multitude ; they are a society, — not dissolved, but
in danger of dissolution ; and, by the great law of self-
preservation inherent in the body politic no less than in
the solitary animal, a society so situated hath a right to
use the best means for its own preservation and perpetuity.
A people therefore in these circumstances hath a right,
which a mere multitude unassociated could never have,
of appointing, by the consent of the majority, for them-
selves and their posterity, a new head : and it will readily
be admitted, that of all sovereigns, none reign by so fair
and just a title as those who can derive their claim from
such public act of the nation which they govern. But it
is no just inference, that the obligation upon the private
citizen to submit himself to the authority thus raised arises
wholly from the act of the people conferring it, or from
their compact with the person on whom it is conferred.
In all these cases, the act of the people is only the means*"
which Providence employs to advance the new sovereign
to his station : the obligation to obedience proceeds secon-
darily only from the act of man, but primarily from the
will of God;t who hath appointed civil life for man's
condition, and requires the citizen's submission to the
sovereign whom his providence shall by whatever means
set over him.

*■ " Quasi vero Deus non ita regat populum, ut cui Deus vult, reg-
mim tradat popuhis." — Milton, Defensio pro Pop. Angl.

t " Ratio cur debearaus subject! esse magistratibus, quod Dei ordi-
natioue sunt constituti : quod si ita placet Domino mundum gubernare,
Dei odinem invertere nititur, adeoque Deo ipsi resistit, quisquis potes-
tatem aspernatur ; quaudo ejus, qui juris politici auctor est, Providen-
tiam contemnere, bellum cum eo suscipere est." — Calvin, in Rom.
xiii. I.

442

Thus, in our own country, at the glorious epoch of the
Revolution, the famous Act of Settlement was the means
which Providence employed to place the British sceptre
in the hands which now wield it. That statute is con-
fessedly the sole foundation of the sovereign's title ; nor
can any future sovereign have a just title to the crown,
the law continuing as it is, whose claim stands not upon
that ground. Yet it is not merely by virtue of that act
that the subject's allegiance is due to him whose claim is
founded on it. It is easy to understand, that the principle
of the private citizen's submission must be quite a distinct
thing from the principle of the sovereign's public title ;
and for this plain reason, — the principle of submission, to
bind the conscience of every individual, must be some-
thing universally known, and easy to be understood ; the
ground of the sovereign's public title, in governments
in which the fabric of the constitution is in any degree
complex and artificial, can be known only to the few who
have leisure and ability and inclination for historical and
f)olitical researches. In this country, how many thousands
and ten thousands of the common people never heard of
the Act of Settlement ! — of those to whom the name may
be familiar, how many have never taken the pains to ac-
quire any accurate knowledge of its contents ! — yet not one
of these is absolved from his allegiance, by his ignorance
of his sovereign's title. Where then shall we find that
general principle that binds the duty of allegiance equally
on all, read or unread in the statute-book and in the his-
tory of their country? Where shall we find it, but among
those general rules of duty which proceed im.mediately
from the will of the Creator, and have been impressed
upon the conscience of every man by the original consti-
tution of the world ?

This divine right of the first magistrate in every polity
to the citizen's obedience is not of that sort which it were
high treason to claim for the sovereigns of this country:
it is quite a distinct thing from the pretended divine right

543

to the inlieritance of the crown : it is a right which the
most zealous republicans acknowledged to be divine, in
former times, before republican zeal had ventured to es-
pouse the interests of atheism :* it is a right which in no
countiy can be denied, without the highest of all treasons ;
— the denial of it were treason against the paramount
authority of God.

These views of the authority of civil governors, as they
are obviously suggested by the Mosaic history of the first
ages, so they are confirmed by the precepts of the gospel ;
— in which, if any thing is to be found clear, peremptory,
and unequivocal, it is the injunction of submission to the
sovereign authority ; and, in monarchies, of loyalty to the
person of the sovereign.

" Let every soul," says the apostle in my text, " be sub-
ject to the higher powers."

The word " powers" here signifies persons bearing-
power : any other meaning of it, whatever may be pre-
tended, is excluded by the context.'!' The text, indeed,

* " All kings but such as are immediately named by God himself
have their power by human right only ; though, after human composi-
tion and agreement, their lawful choice is approved of God^ and obedi-
ence required to them by divine right." These are the words in which
Bishop Hoadly states Hooker's sentiments. Hooker's own words are
stronger and more extensive : but the sentiment to the extent in which
it is conveyed in these terms, the republican Bishop approved. — See
Hoadly' s Defence of Hooker,

" Quod Dii uuucupantur, quicunque magistratum gerunt, ne in ea ap-
pellatione leve inesse momentum quis putet : ea enim significatur, man-
datum a Deo habere, Divina auctoritatc praeditos esse, ac omnino Dei
personam sustinere, cujus vices quodammodo agunt." — Calvin. Inst,
lib. iv. cap. 20. sect. 4.

" Resisti magistratui non potest, quin simul Deo resistatur." — Cal-
vin. Inst, lib. iv. cap. 20. sect. 23.

t It has been a great point with republican divines to explain away
the force of this text. But, for this purpose, they have never been able
to fall upon any happier expedient, than to say that the word " power,"
e|oi/(tiki, signifies not persons bearing power, but forms of government :
then, restraining the precept to such governments as are perfectly well
administered, and finding hardly any government upon earth adminis-

544

had been better rendered — " Let every soul be subject to
the sovereign powers," The word " sovereign" renders
the exact meaning of that Greek word for which the Eng-
lish Bible in this place rather unhappily puts the compa-
rative " higher :" in another passage it is very properly
rendered by a word equivalent to sovereign, by the word
" supreme." — " Let every soul be subject to the sovereign
powers." The sovereignty particularly intended, in the
immediate application of the precept to those to whom the
Epistle was addressed, was the sovereign authority of
the Roman Emperor. Nero was at the time the possessor
of that sovereignty ; and the apostle, in what he immedi-
ately subjoins to enforce his precept, seems to obviate an

tered to their mind (for tliey never make allowance for the inevitable
imperfection and infirmity of all things human), they get rid of the
constraint of this Divine injunction ; which, by this interpretation and
this limitation, they render as nugatory as any of their own maxims;
and find their conscience perfectly at ease while they make free in word
and in deed with thrones, dominions, and dignities. Whatever be the
natural import of the word i^oxjo-ioti, the epithet which is joined to it in
the text shows that it must be understood here of something which
admits the degree of high and low. But of this forms of government
are incapable : every form is supreme where it is established ; and
since different forms of government cannot subsist at the same time
among the same people, it were absurd to say of forms of government
that one is higher than another. Again, in the third verse of this same
chapter, the power (sloyo-ta) is said to bestow praise upon those who do
good; in the fourth, to be ''the minister of God;" and in the sixth,
to receive tribute as the wages of a close attendance upon that ministry.
None of these things can be said of forms of government, without a
harshness of metaphor unexampled in the didactic parts of holy writ :
but all these things may be said with great propriety of the persons
governing.

In the twelfth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, the first preachers are
warned that they are to be brought before synagogues, and magistrates,
and powers (floi-a-ja?)- There the word evidently signifies persons
bearing power. I will venture to add, that not a single instance is to
be found in any writer, sacred or profane, of the use of the word c^ovo-kx.
to signify form of government ; nor is that sense to be extracted by
any critical chemistry from the etymology and radical meaning of the
word.

I

I

545

objection which he was well aware tlie example of Nero's
tyranny might suggest. His reasoning is to this effect :
" The sovereignty, you will say, is often placed in unfit
hands, and abused to the worst purposes. It is placed in
the hands of sensual, rapacious men, of capricious women,
and of ill-conditioned boys. It is in such sort abused, as
to be made the instrument of lust and ambition, of avarice
and injustice : you yourselves, my brethren, experience
the abuse of it in your own persons. It may seem to you,
that power derived from the Author of all Good would
never be so misplaced, nor be permitted to be so misused ;
and you may perhaps be ready to conclude, that the Fa-
ther of Lies once at least spake truth, when he claimed
the disposal of earthly sceptres as his own prerogative.
Such reasonings (saith the apostle) are erroneous : no
kmg, however he might use or abuse authority, ever
reigned but by the appointment of God's providence.*
There is no such thing as power but from God : to him,
whatever powers, good or bad, are at any time subsisting
in the world, are subordinate : he has Q-ood ends of his

* " Hoc nobis si assidue ob animos et oculos obversetur, eodem de-
creto constitui etiain nequissimos reges, quo regum authoiitas statuitur j
iiunquain in animum nobis seditiosa ilia; cogitationes venient, ' trac-
tandum esse pro mentis regem, nee aequum esse ut subditos ei nos
praestemus, qui vicissiui regem nobis se non prjestat.' " — Calvin. Inst,
iv. 20. sect. 27.

" Si ill Dei verbum respicimus longius nos deducet, ut non eorum
modo priucipum imperio sabditi simus, qui probe, et qua debent fide,
nuuiere suo erga nos defunguuiur, sed omnium, qui quoquo modo rerum
potiuntur, etiamsi nihil uiiuais praestent, quam quod ex officio erat priu-
cipum."

" In eo probando insistamus magis, quod nou ita facile in hominum
mentes cadit, in homine deterrimo, houoreque omni indignissimo, penes
quem modo sit publica potestas, praeclaram illam et Divinam potesta-
tem residere, quam Dominus justitiae ac judicii sui ministris, verbo suo,
detulit : proinde a subditis eadem in reverentia et dignitate habendum,
quantum ad publicam obedientiam attinet, qua optimum regem, si dare-
tur, habituri essent." — Calvin. Inst. iv. 20. 25.
2 \

540'

own, not always to be foreseen by us, to be eft'ected by the
abuse of povfer, as by other partial evils ; and to his
own secret purpose he directs the worst actions of tyrants,
no less than the best of godly princes. Man's abuse,
therefore, of his delegated authority is to be borne with
resignation, like any other of God's judgments. The op-
position of the individual to the sovereign power is an
opposition to God's providential arrangements ; and it is
the more inexcusable, because the well-being of mankind
is the general end for which government is obtained ; and
this end of government, under all its abuses, is generally
answered by it : for the good of government is perpetual
and universal ; the mischiefs resulting from the abuse of
power, temporary and partial : insomuch, that in govern-
ments which are the worst administered, the sovereign
power, for the most part, is a terror not to good works,
but to the evil ; and upon the whole, far more beneficial
than detrimental to the subject.* But this general good
of government cannot be secured upon any other terms
than the submission of the individual to what may be
called its extraordinary evils."

Such is the general scope and tenor of the argument by
which St. Paul enforces the duty of the private citizen's
subjection to the sovereign authority. He never once
mentions that god of the republican's idolatry, the consent
of the ungoverned millions of mankind if he represents

* " Nulla tyrannis esse potest, quae non aliqua ex parte subsidio sit
ad tuendam homimim societatem." — Calvin, in Rom. xiii. 1.

t The first meutioM that I remember to have found anywhere of
compact as the first principle of government is in the " Crito" of Plato;
where Socrates alleges a tacit agreement between the citizen and the
laws as the ground of an obligation to which he thought himself sub-
ject— of implicit obedience even to an unjust sentence. It is remark-
able, that this fictitious compact, which in modern times hath been
made the basis of the unqualified doctrine of resistance, should have
been set up by Plato in the person of Socrates as the foundation of the
opposite doctrine of the passive obedience of the individual.

547

the earthly sovereign as the vicegerent of God, accounta-
ble for misconduct to his heavenly Master, but entitled to
obedience from the subject.*

While thus we reprobate the doctrine of the first forma-
tion of government out of anarchy by a general consent,
we confess — with thankfulness to the overruling provi-
dence of God we confess, — and we maintain, that in this
country the king is under the obligation of an express con-
tract with the people. I say, of an e.vpress contract. In
every monarchy in which the will of the .sovereign is in
any degree subject (as more or less indeed it is in all)
either to the control of custom, or to a fixed rule of law,
something of a compact is implied at least between the
king and nation ; for limitation of the sovereign power
implies a mutual agreement, which hath fixed the limits :
but in this country, the contract is not tacit, implied, and
vague ; it is explicit, patent, and precise ; it is summarily
expressed in the coronation oath ; it is drawn out at length
and in detail in the Great Charter and the corroborating
statutes, in the Petition of Right, in the Habeas Corpus
Act, in the Bill of Rights, and in the Act of Settlement
Nor shall we scruple to assert, that our kings in the exer-
cise of their sovereignty are held to the terms of this ex-
press and solemn stipulation ; which is the legal measure
of their power and rule of their conduct. The conse-
quence which some have attempted to deduce from these
most certain premises we abominate and reject, as wicked
and illegitimate, — namely, that " our kings are the ser-
vants of the people ; and that it is the right of the people
to cashier them for misconduct." Our ancestors are slan-
dered— their wisdom is insulted — their virtue is defamed,
when these seditious maxims are set forth as the princi-
ples on which the great business of the Revolution was

* " Neque enira si ultio Domini est effraenatae dominationis correc-
tio, ideo protinus demandatam nobis arbitremur, quibus nullum aliud
qiiam parendi et patiendi datum est niandatftm." — Calvin. Inst. iv. 20.
31. De pvivatis hominibns semper loquor. Ibid.

2 n2

548

conclucted, or as the groundwork on which that noblest
production of human reason, the wonderful fabric of the
British constitution, stands.

Our constitution hath indeed effectually secured the
monarch's performance of his engagements, — not by that
clumsy contrivance of republican wit, the establishment of
a court of judicature with authority to try his conduct and
to punish his delinquency, — not by that coarser expedient
of modern levellers, a reference to the judgment and the
sentence of the multitude — wise judgment, I ween, and
righteous sentence ! — but by two peculiar provisions of a
deep and subtle policy, — the one in the form, the other
in the principles of government ; which, in their joint
operation, render the transgression of the covenant on the
part of the monarch little less than a moral impossibility.
The one is the judicious partition of the legislative autho-
rity, between the King and the two houses of Parliament;
the other, the responsibility attaching upon the advisers
and official servants of the Crown. By the first, the no-
bles and the representatives of the commons are severally
armed with a power of constitutional resistance, to oppose
to prerogative overstepping its just bounds, by the exer-
cise of their own rights and their own privileges; which
power of the estates of Parliament with the necessity takes
away the pretence for any spontaneous interference of the
private citizen, otherwise than by the use of the elective
franchise and of the right of petition for the redress of
grievances : by the second, those who might be willing to
be the instruments of despotism are deterred by the dan-
gers which await the service. Having thus excluded all
probability of the event of a systematic abuse of royal
power, or a dangerous exorbitance of prerogative, our con-
stitution exempts her kings from the degrading necessity
of being accountable to the subject : she invests them with
the high attribute of political impeccability ; she declares,
that wrong, in his public capacity, a king of Great Britain
cannot do ; and thus unites the most perfect security of

549

the subject's liberty with the most absokite inviolability
of the sacred person of the sovereign.

Such is the British constitution,— its basis, religion ; its
end, liberty; its principal means and safeguard of liberty,
the majesty of the sovereign. In support of it the king is
not more interested than the peasant.

It was a signal instance of God's mercy,— not imputing
to the people of this land the atrocious deed of a desperate
faction ; it was a signal instance of God's mercy, that the
goodly fabric was not crushed in the middle of the last
century, ere it had attained its finished perfection, by the
phrensy of that fanatical banditti which took the life of
the First Charles. In the madness and confusion which
followed the shedding of that blood, our history holds
forth an edifying example of the effects that are ever to
be expected— in that example, it gives warning of the
effects that ever are intended, by. the dissemination of those
infernal maxims, that kings are the servants of the people,
punishable by their masters. The same lesson is confirmed
by the horrible example which the present hour exhibits,
in the unparalleled misery of a neighbouring nation, once
great in learning, arts, and arms; now torn by contending
factions — her government demolished — her altars over-
tlirown— her firstborn despoiled of their birth-right— her
nobles degraded — her best citizens exiled— her riches, sa-
cred and profane, given up to the pillage of sacrilege and
i-apine— atheists directing her councils— desperadoes con-
ductincr her armies — wars of unjust and chimerical ambi-
tion consuming her youth — her granaries exhausted— her
fields uncultivated— famine threatening her multitudes—
her streets swarming with assassins, filled with violence,
deluged with blood !

Is the picture frightful? Is the misery extreme— the
guilt horrid? Alas ! these things were but the prelude of
the tragedy : public justice poisoned in its source, profaned
in the abuse of its most solemn forms to the foulest pur-
poses a monarch deliberately murdered — a monarch,

550

whose only crime it was that he inherited a sceptre the
thirty-second of his illustrious stock, butchered on a public
scaffold, after the mockery of arraignment, trial, sentence
— butchered without the merciful formalities of the vilest
malefactor's execution — the sad privilege of a last farewell
to the surrounding populace refused — not the pause of a
moment allowed for devotion — honourable interment de-
nied to the corpse — the royal widow's anguish imbittered
by the rigour of a close imprisonment; with hope indeed,
at no great distance, of release, of such release as hath
been given to her lord !

This foul murder, and these barbarities, have filled the
measure of the guilt and infamy of France. O my coun-
try ! read the horror of thy own deed in this recent heigh-
tened imitation ! lament and weep that this black French
treason should have found its example in the crime of thy
unnatural sons ! Our contrition for our guilt that stained
our land — our gratitude to God, whose mercy so soon re-
stored our church and monarchy — our contrition for our
own crime, and our gratitude for God's unspeakable mercy,
will be best expressed by us all, by setting the example of
a dutiful submission to government in our own conduct,
and by inculcating upon our children and dependants
a loyal attachment to a king who hath ever sought his own
glory in the virtue and prosperity of his people ; and ad-
ministers justice with an even, firm, and gentle hand, — a
king who, in many public acts, hath testified his aiiection
for the free constitution of this country, — a king, of whom,
or of the princes issued from his loins and trained by his
example, it were injurious to harbour a suspicion that they
will ever be inclined to use their power to any other end
than for the support of public liberty. Let us remember,
that a conscientious submission to the sovereign powers is,
no less than brotherly love, a distinctive badge of Christ's
disciples. Blessed be God, in the Church of England
both those marks of genuine Christianity have ever been
conspicuous. Perhaps in the exercise of brotherly love it is

551

the amiable infirmity of Englishmen to be too easy to admit
the claim of a spiritual kindred : the times compel me to
remark that brotherly love embraces only brethren : the term
of holy brotherhood is profaned by an indiscriminate ap-
plication. We ought to mark those who cause divisions
and oftences. 'Nice scruples about external forms, and
differences of opinion upon controvertible points, cannot
but take place among the best Christians, and dissolve not
the fraternal tie : none indeed, at this season, are more
entitled to our offices of love, than those with whom the
ditlerence is wide, in points of doctrine, discipline, and
external rites — those venerable exiles, the prelates and
clergy of the fallen church of France, endeared to us by
the edifying example they exhibit of patient suffering for
conscience' sake : but if any enjoying the blessings of the
British government, living under the protection of its free
constitution and its equal laws, have dared to avow the
wicked sentiment, that this day of national contrition, this
rueful day of guilt and shame, " is a proud day for Eng-
land, to be remembered as such by the latest posterity of
freemen," with such persons it is meet that we abjure all
brotherhood. Their spot is not the spot of our family ;
they have no claim upon our brotherly affection : upon
our charity they have indeed a claim. Miserable men !
" they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of
iniquity:" it is our duty to pray God, if perhaps the
thought of their heart may be forgiven them.

.5o2

APPENDIX

PRECEDING SERMO

N.

they who thinUt n,i:red X^Xdtfit'^''
v.ve in a la.e work of great erud.io^l' /rb ,[:
of he execution, as well as for the intention, of o-reat „ ril

^:^.rL1r^t:L;^r:ro^^^^^^^^^^^
the additional weight 0^^^:;!'^:::;' :;^

~t: but he cannot allow himself not toli ad
age of an occasion spontaneously as it were arisin!.f

SiTe^r °'"^™'"" ^ '"™«'^ of ^ -" to whL'r
bTirw^dTrc':":' ^^*™^'- '-"'-^^ --

553

Calvin was unquestionably in tlieoiy a republican : he
freely declares his opinion, that the republican form, or an
aristocracy reduced nearly to the level of a republic, was
of all the best calculated in general to answer the ends of
government. So wedded indeed was he to this notion,
that, in disregard of an apostolic institution and the ex-
ample of the primitive ages, he endeavoured to fashion
the government of all the Protestant churches upon repub-
lican principles ; and his persevering zeal in that attempt,
though in this country through the mercy of God it failed,
was followed upon the whole with a wide and mischievous
success. But in civil politics, though a republican in
theory, he was no leveller. That he was not, appears
from the passages cited in the notes upon the foregoing
Discourse; and will be still more evident to any who will
take the trouble to peruse the w^iole of the last chapter of
the last book of his "Institutions of the Christian Reli-
gion." In that chapter, he professedly treats the question
of the consistency of civil government with the scheme of
Christianity; which he maintains against the fanatics of
his times.* He shows that submission to the magistrate is
under all forms of government a religious duty :f he de-
clares his preference of a republican aristocracy to any
other form :f but this declaration is prefaced with an ex-
press protest against the futility of the question, what form
is absolutely and in itself the best if he affirms, that the
advantage of one government above another depends
much upon circumstances;'}" that the circumstances of
different countries require different forms ; that govern-
ment under every form is a divine ordinance ;J that
the variety of governments in the different regions of
the earth is no less conducive to the general benefit of
mankind, and no less the work of Providence, than the
variety of climates :§ and with respect to monarchy in

* Institut. lib. iv. cap. xx. sect. 1 — 3.
t Sect. 8. t Sect. 4. § Sect. 8.

554

particular (by vvliich, it is to be observed, he means
absolute monarchy), he remarks, that submission to mo-
narchical governments is particularly enjoined in holy
writ; for this especial reason, — that monarchy was the
form which in the early ages was the most disliked.*
Whatever preference, therefore, in speculation, he might
give to the republican form, he could not, with these prin-
ciples, be practically an enemy to the government of kings.
This last chapter of his " Institutions," in which he ex-
pressly treats the general question of government, must
be supposed to contain the authentic exposition of his
deliberate opinions upon the whole of the subject, — -the
confession of his political faith ; and by reference to this,
any passages in other parts of his writings, in which subor-
dinate questions are incidentally touched, ought in can-
dour to be interpreted. The passages in which he has
been supposed to betray the principles of a leveller lie
widely scattered in his comment on the book of Daniel.
They shall be briefly examined, nearly in the order in
which they occur. If it should be found that they bear
a different sense from that which hath been imposed
upon them, it will necessarily follow, that they will not
justify the reflections which have been cast.

In the thirty-ninth verse of the second chapter, " And
after thee shall arise another kingdom, inferior to thee,"
this difficulty presents itself: with what truth could the
prophet say, that the kingdom which was to arise next
after Nebuchadnezzar's, namely the Medo-Persian, should
be inferior to his, when in fact, in wealth and power it
was greatly the superior of the two ; for Nebuchadnezzar's
Chaldean kingdom, with its appendages, made a part only
of the vast empire of the Medes and Persians under Cy-
rus? Calvin's solution of the difficulty is this, — whether
it be the true one or no, is not the question ; but it is this,

* Sect. 7.

— that the Medo-Persian empire was in this respect inte-
rior to Nebuchadnezzar's, that it was worse in a moral
sense; the condition of mankind being more miserable,
and the manners more degenerate : the cause of which he
refers to this general maxim, — that the more monarchies
(that is, empires, under whatever form of government) ex-
tend themselves to distant regions, the more licentiousness
rages in the world.* That the word " monarchiae" he
renders *' empires" without regard to any particular form
of government, is most manifest, from the use of it in the
comment on the very next verse ; where, after the example
of his inspired author, the expositor applies it to the Ro-
man empire under its popular government. From this
general observation upon the baleful influence of over-
grown empires upon the happiness and morals of man, he
draws this conclusion: "Hence it appears, how great is
the folly and madness of the generality, who desire to
have kings of irresistible power ; which is just the same
as to desire a river of irresistible rapidity, as Isaiah speaks,
exposing this folly :" and again, " They are altogether
mad who desire monarchies of the first magnitude ; for it
cannot be but that political order should be much im-
paired where a single person occupies so wide a space. "f
It is evident that this passage expresses no general disap-
probation of monarchy, but of absolute monarchy — of the
arbitrary rule of one man — of such arbitrary rule stretched
over a vast extent of country — and of such extensive arbi-
trary dominion founded upon conquest. In truth, irre-
sistible military force is the specific thing intended under

* " Quo sese longius extendunt monarchiae, eo etiam plus licentiae
in mundo grassatur."

t " Unde apparet, quanta sit omnium fere stiiltitia ct vesauia, qui
cupiunt habere reges potentissimos ; perinde ac siquis appeteret (lu-
vium rapidissimum, quemadmodum lesaias loquitur, coarguens hanc
stultitiam." " Prorsus igitur delirant, ([ui appetunt summas monar-
chias 3 quia fieri non potest, quin tantundem decedat ex legitimo ordine,
u&i unus occupat tarn latum spatium."

556

the epithet "potentissimos ;" as appears by the reference
to the prophet Isaiah ; for tliat is the power represented
by Isaiah under the image of a flood, when he would ex-
pose the folly of those who court the alliance of such
princes. And it is to be observed, that though such
power is reprobated in speculation, as what none but
a madman could wish to see in its plenitude, yet it is
not said, nor is it insinuated, that the o-overnment of a
conqueror is not to be quietly submitted to, when once
liis dominion is established, or that conquest may not
be the foundation of a just title to dominion. It is
only in a loose translation^ in which the natural force
of the epithets " potentissimos" and " summas" is neg-
lected, and their specific application of these sentences,
taken in connexion with the entire discourse, overlooked,
that the passage can appear as a sly insinuation against
monarchical government in general, or an oblique hint
to the subjects of any monarchy to rise in rebellion
against their prince.

Chapter iv. 25 : " Till thou know that the Most High
ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whom-
soever he will." — Upon this passage Calvin remarks, that
" it teaches us how difficult it is for us to ascribe supreme
power to God : especially when God hath raised us to
any degree of dignity, we forget that we are men."
" Monarchs," says he, " hold forth in their titles, that
they are ki-ngs, and dukes, and counts, by the grace of
God: but many of them make a false pretence of the
name of God, to found a claim of absolute dominion
for themselves ; meanwhile they would willingly trample
under foot that God under whose shield they shelter
themselves; so little do they seriously reflect that it is
by his favour that they i-eign. It is mere disguise,
therefore, when they give it out that they reign by the
grace of God."* In this he means not to deny the

* " Iterum docet hie locus, quani difficile sit nobis Deo tribuere
summain potentiaiii. Praisertim iibi Deus nos extulit in aliqiieai

5.57

doctrine that princes reion by tlie grace of God ; of
which he was indeed a strenuous assertor : lie condemns
not the use of such titles, but the abuse of them : he says
the title is abused when it is made the pretence and in-
strument of tyranny : he says that the prince who in the
exercise of his power profanely forgets the God whom he
confesses in his title, is a hypocrite : he says these solemn
titles have in fact been so abused, and that princes have
been guilty of this hypocrisy. Would God that history
refuted him in these assertions !

Chapter vi. 25, 27. — Upon the edict of Darius enjoin-
ing the worship of the God of Daniel, Calvin remarks to
this effect : " Darius, by his example, will condemn all
those who at this day profess themselves either Catholic
kings, or Christian kings, or Defenders of the Faith ; and
at the same time not only bear down true piety, but, as
far as lies in them, shake the whole worship of God, and,
could they have their will, would blot his name out of
the world, — who exercise tyranny against all pious men,
and by their cruelty establish impious superstitions."* It
is not to be wondered, that this exaggerated and indecent
language of invective should be offensive to the learned
author of the " Jura Anglorum :" it is to be hoped, that
in the present age it is oti'ensive to every one, of whatever

dignitatis gradum, oblivlscimur nos esse homines. Hodie monar-

chiae semper iu suis titulis hoc obtendunt, se esse reges, et duces, et
comites, Dei gratia : sed qnam multi falso nomen Dei praetextunt in

huuc finem, ut sibi asseraut sumniiim imperium. Interea libentcr

Deiini, cujus cb^>eo se proteffint, calcarent pedibus ; tantum abest ut
serio reputent se hal)cre ejus beneficio ut regnent. Meius igitur fucus
est, quod jactant se Dei gratia pollere domiiiatione."

* " Darius exemph) suo, damnabit omnes eos, qui hodie se pro-

fitentur vel Catholicos reges, vel Christianos, vel Protectores Fidei ; et
interea non^iodo obruuut verani pietatem, sed etiam, quantum in seest,
labefactant %tum Dei cultum, et libcnter nomen ejus extinguerunt e
mundo ; exercent saevam tyrannidem adversus omnes pios, stabiliuiit
sua saevitia impias snperstitiones."

558

communion he may be, who reads the passag-e. It is not
indeed to be borne, that the forms of worship of any Chris-
tian church, however grievous its corruptions, should be
uncharitably stigmatized in the gross with the odious
name of impious superstitions ; nor is it true of the princes
who persecuted the reformed churches, cruel as the perse-
cutions were, that their object was to overturn the whole
worship of God, and blot his name out of the world : that
project was reserved for the accursed crew of French phi-
losophers, turned politicians, at the close of the eighteenth
century. But it is to be remembered, that Calvin lived
in an age when neither the Christianity nor the good po-
licy of religious toleration was understood ; and he him-
self possessed a large share of the intolerant spirit of his
times. How little he possessed of the spirit of a leveller,
appears from what he says, upon chapter iv. 19, of the
duty of submission to those very princes whose conduct
he so vehemently arraigns. The learned reader will find
the passage entire at the bottom of the page.*

Chapter vi. 22. — The exposition of this verse concludes
thus: " Earthly princes divest themselves of their authority
when they rise in rebellion against God ; nay, they are
unworthy to be reputed among men. It were better there-
fore to spit upon their persons than to obey them, where
they so far exceed all bounds as to attempt to rob God
of his right, and as it were take possession of his tiirone,
as if they were able to drag him down from heaven."t

* " Dlscamus igitur, exemplo prophetae, bene precari pro inimicis
iiostris, qui cupiunt nos perditos ; maxime vero precari pro tyrannis,
si Deo placeat nos siibjici eorum libidini : quia, etsi indigni sint ullo
humanitatis officio, quia tamen non praesunt nisi Deo ita volente, nio-
deste feranms jugum j neque id tantum propter iram, ut Paulus adrao-
net, sed propter conscientiam ; alioqui, non tantum illis, sed etiain Deo
ipsi, sumus rebelles."

t " Abdicant enim se potestate terreni principes, dom insurgunt
contra Deum ; imo, indigni sunt qui censeantur in hominum nuraero.

559

This passage, taken by itself, may seem, it must be con-
fessed, to go to the full extent of those detestable maxims
which had been propagated in an earlier age, — that " he
who is in mortal sin is no civil magistrate;" and that "a
king not having the spirit of God forfeits his dominion."
Accordingly, it is produced as affirming the same or equi-
valent propositions : but if it be considered not by itself,
but in its connexion with the discourse of which it makes
the close, the sense of the expressions will be found so
restrained by the subject-matter as to convey nothing of
this pernicious meaning. Daniel, having openly paid his
daily devotions to his God, during the time that the edict
of Darius was in force prohibiting the adoration of god or
mortal but the king himself for thirty days, was in pursu-
ance of the edict thrown to the lions, and lay in the den
the whole night: the next morning, when he was found
alive by the king himself, he gives the king this account
of his deliverance : " My God hath sent his angel, and
hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me :
forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and
also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." Daniel
had disobeyed the king's edict; yet he says that even with
respect to the king he had committed no offence ; and he
alleges his innocence in that respect as in part the ground
of his miraculous deliverance ; intimating, that he should
not have been thought worthy of the Divine protection,
could he not have said for himself with truth that " before
the king he had done no hurt." Calvin contends, that it
was with great truth and justice that the prophet thus as-
serted his innocence, even as a subject. To make this
out, it is necessary to show (for the thing could be made
out in no other way) that the king's edict was in itself a

Potius ergo conspuere oportet in ipsorum capita, quam illis parere, ubi
ita proterviunt, ut veliut etiam spoliare Deuin jure suo, ac si possent
cum e coelo detraheie."

560

nullity. This is the point which Calvin argues ; and thus
he argues it : " Earthly kingdoms are established by God ;
but under this condition, that God derogates nothing from
himself, but that whatever there may be of pre-eminence
in the world be subordinate to his glory. ' Fear God, and
honour the king,' is one entire precept: the two parts are
to be taken in connexion, and cannot be separated; and
the fear of God must precede, in order that kings may
maintain their proper authority. Daniel, therefore, upon
just ground here defends himself, as having done no harm
against the king; inasmuch as it was under the obligation
of paying obedience to the government of God that he
neglected what the king commanded in opposition to it.
For earthly princes abdicate their own authority," &c. *
It is evident, that the subject-matter restrains this implied
abdication of authority to authority exercised in those in-
dividual commands which expressly contravene some ex-
press command of God ; and it is in the individual in-
stances of such commands that Calvin asserts that the
guilt and danger of contempt accompanying the just re-
fusal to obey would be nothing in comparison of the guilt
and danger of obedience. Certainly the priest Urijah,
had he spit upon king Ahaz when the king commanded
him to make an altar after the fashion of the idolatrous
altar at Damascus, though such contempt of majesty
would not have been altogether free of blame, had done
however better than he did when he executed the king's
order; and yet this wicked act of the king's was no for-

* " Sciinus constitui terrena imperia a Deo, sed hac lege, ut ipse

sibi nihil deroget et quicquid est praestantiae in mundo, ejus

gloriae sit subjectum. ' Deuin timete, regem honorate :' sunt

!ia?c duo inter se connexa, nee potest alteram ab altero divelli : prae-
cedat igitur oportet timor Dei, ut reges obtineant suani auctoritatem.

Jure ergo Daniel hie se defendit, * Quod nullam pravitatem

commiserit adversus regem/ quia scilicet, coactus parere Dei im-
perio, neglexerit quod in contrariam partem rex mandabat. Abdicant
enim," &c.

561

feiture of his title to the crown, nor a general release of
his subjects from their allegiance. This passage therefore
of Calvin carries in it no such meaning as may appear
upon the first view of it, detached from the context; but it
contains, indeed, a principle upon which the faithful are
bound to act when the dreadful necessity arises. Calvin
could never support the abominable doctrine that the or-
dinary misconduct of a king sets the subject free, without
contradicting the principles he lays down, in the last
chapter of his "Theological Institutions," of the duty of
submission, even to the worst of kings, in things not con-
trary to the express commands of God.

It is not to be apprehended that the learned and candid
author of the " Jura Anglorum" will be displeased that
the memory of a great man should be vindicated from an
unfounded accusation ; which has been revived, not origi-
nally set up, by him, upon the authority of Heylin and
other writers, on whom he thought he might rely. No
injustice of intention, nothing worse than a very pardon-
able mistake, is imputed to this respectable author. The
Christian spirit of charity and tolerance which breathes
through this work, and appears in the sentiments which
the author avowed in a former publication, entitled " The
Case Stated,"* acquits him of the most distant suspicion
of a design to advance the credit of his own church by
wilfully depreciating the character of an illustrious adver-
sary. In the citation of passages in proof of the charge,
it is justice to him to acknowledge, that he hath only
copied verhat'mi, as it should seem, from an anonymous
work entitled " Philanax Anglicus." He will certainly
esteem it no disservice done to that great cause in which
his learning and his talents have been so honourably en-
gaged— the cause of government and liberty united, — if

* See " The Case Stated,"' pages 42 — 48 ; but particularly ])ages
47, 48.

2o

562

the levellers are deprived of the authority of Calvin's
name; to which, together with that of Luther and of other
celebrated reformers, some among them have pretended,
in the pious design, no doubt, of passing off their political
opinions as a branch of the general doctrine of the refor-
mation. When Salmasius upbraided Cromwell's faction
with the tenets of the Brownists, the chosen advocate of
that execrable faction replied, that if they were Brownists,
Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Zwinglius, and all the most cele-
brated theologians of the orthodox, must be included in
the same reproach.^ A grosser falsehood, as far as Luther,
Calvin, and many others are concerned, never fell from the
unprincipled pen of a party-writer. However sedition
might be a part of the puritanic creed, the general faith
of the reformers rejects the infamous alliance.

It is alleged indeed against Calvin, by grave and re-
spectable historians, that he expressed approbation of the
outrages of John Knox in Scotland. If the charge be true,
his conduct in this instance was contrary to his avowed
principles. But the accusation requires better proof than
Knox's own interpretation of some general expressions
in Calvin's letters. It cannot, however, be denied, that he
too often indulges in a strain of coarse invective against
the foibles and the vices incident to kings; of which he
sometimes speaks as if he thought them inseparable from
royalty; and that he treats many of the princes of Europe,
his contemporaries, with indecent ill-language. Some al-
lowance is to be made for the natural harshness of the
man's temper — more for his keen sense of the cruel treat-
ment of Protestants in many kingdoms : but the best apo-
logy for him is, that he lived before a perfect specimen of
a just limited monarchy had been any where exhibited —
before the example of the British constitution in its finished

* " Ita Lutherus, Calviaus, Zwinglius, Bucerus, et orthodoxorum
(^uotquot celeberrimi theologi, fuere, tuo judlcio, Brunistse sunt." — De-
fens, pro Pop. Angl. cap. v. sub fin.

563

state and of the princes of the Brunswick line, had
taught the world this comfortable lesson, — that monarchy
and civil liberty are things compatible, and may be
brought to afford each other the most effectual support.

THE END.

PRINTED BY W. BAYNES, J UN. BABTHOLOMEW CL03E.

Date Due

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