Before our Lord healed the paralytic man who was brought to him, he said, Be of good cheer, thy fins are forgiven thee*. His outward malady rendered him an object of compaffion to those who brought him; but he appears to have been fenfible of an inward malady, which only Jefus could difcern, or pity, or relieve. I doubt not but his confcience was burdened with guilt. An affurance therefore that his fins were forgiven, was fufficient to make him be of good cheer, whether his palfy were removed or not. To this purpose the Pfalmift fpeaks abfolutely and without exception. Bleffed is the min, however circumftanced, whofe ransgreffion is forgiven, whofe iniquity is covered +. Though he be poor, afflicted, difeafed, neglected or defpifed, if the Lord imputeth not his iniquity to him, he is a blessed man. There is no fituation in human life fo deplorable, but a fenfe of the pardoning love of God can fupport and comfort the fufferer under it, compofe his fpirit, yea, make him exceedingly joyful in all his tribulations. For he who feels the power of the blood of Jefus cleanfing his confcience from guilt, and giving him accefs by faith to the throne of grace, with liberty to say Abba, Father; he knows that all his trials are under the direction of wisdom and love, are all working together for his good, and that the heavieft of them are light, and the longest momentary, in comparison of that far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory which is referved for him in a better world ‡. Even at prefent in the midst of his fufferings, having communion withGod, and a gracious fubmiffion to his will, he poffeffes a peace that paffeth understanding, and which the world can neither give nor take away..

I fhall clofe this preliminary difcourfe with a few obfervations, by way of improvement.

B 6

1. How

Mark ii. 5. † Pfal. xxxii. 3. 42 Cor. iv. 16, 37,

1. How justly may we adopt the Prophet's words, Who is a God like unto thee! Behoid and admire his goodness! Infinitely happy and glorious in himfelf, he has provided for the comfort of those who were rebels against his government, and tranfgreffors of his holy law. What was degenerate Ifrael, and what are we, that he should thus prevent us with his mercy, remember us in our low eftate, and redeem us from mifery, in fuch a way, and at such a price! Salvation is wholly of grace; not only undeferved, but undefired by us, till he is pleased to awaken us to a fenfe of our need of it.

And then

we find every thing prepared that our wants require, or our wishes can conceive; yea, that he has done exceedingly beyond what we could either afk or think. Salvation is wholly of the Lord ‡, and bears thofe fignatures of infinite wifdom, power, and goodnefs, which diftinguish all his works from the puny imitations of men. It is every way worthy of himfelf, a great, a free, a full, a fure falvation. It is great, whether we confider the objects, miferable and hell-deferving finners; the end, the reftoration of fuch alienated creatures to his image and favour, to immortal life and happiness; or the means, the incarnation, humiliation, fufferings and death of his beloved Son. It is free, without exception of perfons or cafes, without any conditions or qualifications, but fuch as he himself performs in them, and bestows upon them. It is full, including every defirable bleffing; pardon, peace, adoption, protection and guidance through this world, and in the world to come eternal life and happiness, in the unclouded uninterrupted enjoyment of the favour and love of God, with the perfect and perpetual exclufion of every evil.

2. When the Lord God, who knows the human heart, would fpeak comfort to it, he proposes one

object,

* Micah vii. 18.

+Ephef. ii. 5.

Pfal. iii. 8.

poor

object, and only one, as the neceffary and all-fufficient fource of confolation. This is MESSIAH. Jefus in his perfon and offices, known and received by faith, affords a balm for every wound, a cordial for every care. If we admit that they who live in the fpirit of the world, can make a poor fhift to amuse themselves, and be tolerably fatisfied in a state of profperity, while every thing goes on according to their with; while we make this conceffion, (which however is more than we need allow them, for we know that no state of life is free from anxiety, difappointment, wearinefs, and disguft); yet we must confider them as objects of compaffion. It is a proof of the weakness and diforder of their minds, that they are capable of being fatisfied with fuch trifles. Thus if a lunatic conceives his cell to be a palace, that his chains are ornaments of gold, if he calls a wreath of his straw a crown, puts it on his head, and affects the language of majefty-we do not fuppofe the creature to be happy, because he tells us that he is fo; but we rather confider his complacence in his fituation, as an effect and proof of his malady. We pity him, and, if we were able, would gladly reftore him to his fenfes, though we know a cure would immediately put an end to his pleasing delufions. But, 1 fay, fuppofing or admitting the world could make its votaries happy in a state of profperity, it will, it muft, leave them without refource in the day of trouble. And they are to be pitied indeed, who, when their gourds are withered, when the defire of their eyes is taken from them with a stroke, or the evil which they moft feared touches them, or when death looks them closely in the face, have no acquaintance with God, no accefs to the throne of grace, but being without Chrift, are without a folid hope of good hereafter, though they are forced to feel the vanity and inconftancy of every thing here. But they who know MESSIAH, who believe in him,

and

and partake of his fpirit, cannot be comfortless. They recollect what he suffered for them, they know that every circumftance and event of life is under his direction, and defigned to work for their good; that though they fow in tears, they fhall foon reap in joy; and therefore they poffefs their fouls in patience, and are cheerful, yea comfortable, under thofe trying difpenfations of Providence, which when they affect the lovers of pleasure, too often either excite in them a fpirit of prefumptuous murmuring against the will of God; or fink them into defpondency, and all the melancholy train of evils attendant on those who languish and pine away under that depreffion of spirits, emphatically styled

a broken heart.

3. To be capable of the comfort my text proposes, the mind must be in a fuitable difpofition. A free pardon is a comfort to a malefactor, but it implies guilt; and therefore they who have no apprehenfion that they have broken the laws, would be rather offended than comforted, by an offer of pardon. This is one principal cause of that neglect, yea contempt, which the gofpel of the grace of God meets with from the world. If we could fuppofe that a company of people who were all trembling under an apprehenfion of his difpleafure, conftrained to confefs the juftice of the sentence, but not as yet informed of any way to escape, were to hear this meffage for the first time, and to be fully affured of its truth and authority, they would receive it as life from the dead. But it is to be feared, that for want of knowing themselves, and their real ftate in the fight of him with whom they have to do, many perfons, who have received pleasure from the mufic of the Meffiah, have neither found, nor expected, nor desired to find, any comfort from the words.

SER

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the defert a high-way for our God. Every valley fhall be exalted, and every mountain and bill fhall be made low; and the crooked fhall be made ftraight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord fhall be revealed, and all flesh fhall fee it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

TH

HE general style of the prophecies is poetical. The inimitable fimplicity which characterizes every part of divine Revelation, is diversified according to the nature of the fubject; and the magnificence and variety of imagery which conftitute the life and fpirit of poetry, evidently diftinguish the ftyle of the Pfalms, of Isaiah, and the other poetical books, from that of the hiftorical, even in the common verfions. The various rules and properties of Hebrew poetry are not, at this distance of time, certainly known. But the prefent Bishop of London, in his elegant and inftructive lectures on the subject, and in the discourse prefixed to his tranflation of Ifaiah, has fully demonftrated one property. It ufually confifts either of parallel, or contrafted fentences. The parallel expreffions (excepting in the book of Proverbs) are most prevalent. In these the fame thought, for fubftance, expreffed in the first member, is repeated, with fome difference of phrase, in the following; which, if it enlarges or confirms the import of what went before, feldom varies the idea. Almost any paffage I first cast my eye upon,

will