The aids of the Spirit plentifully afforded under the gospel. The admirable confirmation of this economy. The great extent and latitude of it. Judaism not capable of being communicated to all mankind. The comprehensiveness of the gospel. The duration of the evangelical covenant. The Mosaical statutes, in what sense said to be "for ever." The typical and transient nature of that state. The great happiness of Christians under the economy of the gospel.

God having from the very infancy of the world promised the Messiah, as the great Redeemer of mankind, was accordingly pleased in all ages to make gradual discoveries and manifestations of him, the revelations concerning him in every dispensation of the church still shining with a bigger and more particular light, the nearer this "sun of righteousness" was to his rising. The first gospel and glad tidings of him commenced with the fall of Adam, God, out of infinite tenderness and commiseration, promising to send a person who should triumphantly vindicate and rescue mankind from the power and tyranny of their enemies, and that he should do this by taking the human nature upon him, and being born of " the seed of the woman." No further account is given of him till the times of Abraham, to whom it was revealed, that he should proceed out of his loins, and arise out of the Jewish nation, though both Jew and Gentile should be made happy by him. To his grandchild Jacob, God made known out of what tribe of that nation he should rise, the "tribe of Judah ;" and what would be the time of his appearing, viz. the "departure of the sceptre from Judah," the abrogation of the civil and legislative power of that tribe and people, (accomplished in Herod the Idumæan, set over them by the Roman power.) And this is all we find concerning him under that economy. Under the legal dispensation, we find Moses foretelling one main errand of his coming, which was to be the great Prophet of the church," to whom all were to hearken, as an extraordinary person sent from God to acquaint the world with the counsels and the laws of heaven. The next news we hear from him is from David, who was told that he should spring out of his house and family, and who frequently speaks of his sufferings, and the particular manner of his death, by "piercing his hands and his feet;" of his powerful resurrection, that “God would not leave his soul in hell, nor suffer his holy one to see corruption;" of his triumphant ascension into heaven, and glorious

b Deut. xviiii, 15-19.

c Psalm. xxii. 15. xvi. 10. lxviii. 18. cx. 1.

"session at God's right hand." From the prophet Isaiah we have an account of the extraordinary and miraculous manner of his birth, that he should "be born of a virgin," and his name be Immanuel; of his incomparable furniture of gifts and graces for the execution of his office, of the entertainment he was to meet with in the world, and of the nature and design of those sufferings which he was to undergo. The place of his birth was foretold by Micah, which was to be Bethlehem-Ephratah, the least of the cities of Judah, but honoured above all the rest with the nativity of a prince, who was to be "ruler in Israel, whose goings forth had been from everlasting." Lastly, the prophet Daniel fixes the particular period of his coming, expressly affirming, that the Messiah should appear in the world, and be cut off as a victim and expiation for the sins of the people at the expiration of seventy prophetical weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, which accordingly punctually came to pass.

II. For the date of the prophetic scriptures concerning the time of the Messiah's coming being now run out, "in the fulness of time God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law:" this being the truth of which "God spake by the mouth of all his holy prophets, which have been since the world began." But because it was not fit that so great a person should come into the world without an eminent harbinger to introduce and usher in his arrival, God had promised that he would "send his messenger, who should prepare his way before him, even Elijah the prophet,"s whom he would send "before the coming of that great day of the Lord, who should turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,” &c. This was particularly accomplished in John the Baptist, who "came in the power and spirit of Elias." He was the morning-star to the Sun of righteousness, μέγας καὶ οὐκ ἄγνωσтоS & πрóдρоμos, as St. Cyril says of him," "the great and eminent forerunner,” a person remarkable upon several accounts. First, for the extraordinary circumstances of his nativity, his birth foretold by an angel sent on purpose to deliver this joyful message, a sign God intended him for great undertakings, this being never done but where God designed the person for some uncommon services; his parents aged, and though "both righteous

d Isai. vii. 14. lxi. 1, 2. liii. 1, 2, 3, etc. 8 Mal. iii. 1. iv. 5, 6.

e Mic. v. 2.

f Dan. ix. 24. 26. h Comm. in Joan. i. 15.

before God," yet hitherto childless: heaven does not dispense all its bounty to the same person; children, though great and desirable blessings, are yet often denied to those for whom God has otherwise very dear regards. "Elisabeth was barren, and they were both well stricken in years." But "is any thing too hard for the Lord?" said God to Abraham in the same case: God has the key of the womb in his own keeping, it is one of the divine prerogatives, that "he makes the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children." A son is promised, and mighty things said of him: a promise which old Zachary had scarce faith enough to digest, and therefore had the assurance of it sealed to him by a miraculous dumbness imposed upon him till it was made good, the same miracle at once confirming his faith and punishing his infidelity. Accordingly, his mother conceived with child, and as if he would do part of his errand before he was born, he "leaped in her womb" at her salutation of the Virgin Mary, then newly conceived with child of our blessed Saviour; a piece of homage paid by one, to one, yet unborn.

III. These presages were not vain and fallible, but produced a person no less memorable for the admirable strictness and austerity of his life. For having escaped Herod's butcherly and merciless executioners, (the Divine Providence being a shelter and a cover to him,) and been educated among the rudenesses and solitudes of the wilderness, his manners and way of life were very agreeable to his education. His garments borrowed from no other wardrobe than the backs of his neighbour-creatures, the skins of beasts, camel's hair, and a leathern girdle; and herein he literally made good the character of Elias, who is described as "an hairy man, girt with a leathern girdle about his loins." His diet suitable to his garb, "his meat was locusts and wild honey:" locusts, accounted by all nations among the meanest and vilest sorts of food; wild honey, such as the natural artifice and labour of the bees had stored up in caverns and hollow trees, without any elaborate curiosity to prepare and dress it up. Indeed, his abstinence was so great, and his food so unlike other men's, that the evangelist says of him, that “he came neither eating nor drinking," as if he had eaten nothing, or at least what was worth nothing. But "meat commends us

i 2 Kings i. 8.

not to God;" it is the devout mind and the honest life that makes us valuable in the eye of heaven. The place of his abode was not in king's houses, in stately and delicate palaces, but where he was born and bred, "the wilderness of Judea, he was in the deserts until the time of his shewing unto Israel.” Divine grace is not confined to particular places, it is not the holy city, or the temple at mount Sion makes us nearer unto heaven; God can, when he please, consecrate a desert into a church, make us gather grapes among thorns, and religion become fruitful in a barren wilderness.

IV. Prepared by so singular an education, and furnished with an immediate commission from God, he entered upon the actual administration of his office: "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He was Χριστοῦ τῆς πρώτης φανερώσεως κῆρυξ, as Justin Martyr calls him,' "the herald to proclaim the first approach of the holy Jesus;" his whole ministry tending to prepare the way to his entertainment, accomplishing herein what was of old foretold concerning him: "For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." He told the Jews, that the Messiah whom they had so long expected was now at hand, and his kingdom ready to appear; that the Son of God was come down from heaven, a person as far beyond him in dignity as in time and existence, to whom he was not worthy to minister in the meanest offices; that he came to introduce a new and better state of things; to enlighten the world with the clearest revelations of the divine will, and to acquaint them with counsels brought from the bosom of the Father; to put a period to all the types and umbrages of the Mosaic dispensation, and bring in the truth and substance of all those shadows, and to open a fountain of grace and fulness to mankind; to remove that state of guilt into which human nature was so deeply sunk, and, as the Lamb of God, by the expiatory sacrifice of himself, to take away the sin of the world, not like the continual burnt-offering, the lamb offered morning and evening, only for the sins of the house of Israel, but for Jew and Gentile, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and free. He 1 Dial. cum Tryph. s. 49.

k Luke i. 80.

told them, that God had a long time borne with the sins of men, and would now bring things to a quicker issue, and that therefore they should do well to break off their sins by repentance, and by a serious amendment and reformation of life dispose themselves for the glad tidings of the gospel; that they should no longer bear up themselves upon their external privileges, the fatherhood of Abraham, and their being God's select and peculiar people; that God would raise up to himself another generation, a posterity of Abraham from among the Gentiles, who should walk in his steps, in the way of his unshaken faith and sincere obedience; and that if all this did not move them to bring "forth fruits meet for repentance," the "axe was laid to the root of the tree," to extirpate their church, and to hew them down as fuel for the unquenchable fire. His free and resolute preaching, together with the great severity of his life, procured him a vast auditory, and numerous proselytes, for "there went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and the region round about Jordan ;" persons of all ranks and orders, of all sects and opinions, Pharisees and Sadducees, soldiers and publicans, whose vices he impartially censured and condemned, and pressed upon them the duties of their particular places and relations. Those whom he gained over to be proselytes to his doctrine he entered into this new institution of life by baptism, (and hence he derived his title of the Baptist,) a solemn and usual way of initiating proselytes, no less than circumcision, and of great antiquity in the Jewish church. "In all times, (says Maimonides,") if any Gentile would enter into covenant, remain under the wings of the Shechinah, or Divine Majesty, and take upon him the yoke of the law, he is bound to have 127 a, circumcision, baptism, and a peaceoffering and if a woman, baptism and an oblation, because it is said, As ye are, so shall the stranger be; as ye yourselves entered into covenant by circumcision, baptism, and a peaceoffering, so ought the proselyte also, in all ages, to enter in." Though this last, he confesses, is to be omitted during their present state of desolation, and to be made when their temple shall be rebuilt. This rite they generally make contemporary with the giving of the law. So Maimonides : By three things

6

n

66

m Maim. Issur. Biah. c. 13. vid. Jac. Alting. Dissert. Philol. vii. de Proselyt. sect. 25. num. 15, 16. n Ibid. s. 24.