SERMON XIV.

Chrift the Healer of the Gentiles: Or, The Allegory of his healing the Centurion's Servant.

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MAT. viii. 13.

Jefus faid unto the Centurion, Go thy Way, and as thou haft believed, fo be it done unto thee. And his Servant was healed in the Self-fame Hour.

I

HAVE already obferved that the Mira- S ER M. cles of our Saviour were performed with

a mystical or allegorical View: i. e. that they were defigned to fignify more than what the outward Acts befpoke. He worked them not only to fhew his Divine Authority and Power, nor only for the fake of healing the Patients of their Infirmities and Diseases, or for supplying their Wants; but he intended likewife by the Cures he wrought, and by the Relief he afforded to the Bodies and external Circumstances of Men, to express the BeneU 2

fits

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SER M. fits and Advantages he defigned to their inter

XIV.. nal or fpiritual Condition and State. To this

end he made Choice of fuch Diftempers to cure, of fuch Neceffities to fupply, and of fuch Perfons to bestow his kind and beneficial Miracles upon,' as fhould intimate the Nature of those Diseases and Wants he meant to heal and relieve in the Soul, and fignify what Perfons he would make the Objects of his Pity and Love.

With this Key I have already opened and explained to you at large one Miracle of our Bleffed Lord, and the first he wrought: the Miracle of turning Water into Wine at the Marriage Feaft in Cana of Galilee. At prefent I propose to unfold to you another in the fame Manner. The mystical Meaning of the Miracle at Cana was to intimate the Power, the Life, and the Spirit of the GospelDifpenfation, over that which was introduced by Mofes, and was contained in the Law: But this now before us (if I rightly expound it) will not only hint to us the Advantage of one Religion above the other, but will further inftruct us how extensive the Benefits of Christianity are, compared with those of the Law; fince whilft the one was calculated for one fingle Nation, the other were freely

pro

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promulged and imparted to all Mankind, SER M. For I apprehend it to have been the Intention of our Lord in the Miracle of my Text to intimate his Defign of being a Saviour to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, and perhaps of taking the Gentiles for his People, when the Jews fhould refuse him.

To speak as intelligibly on this Point as I can, I think it not amifs previously to observe to you who they are we call the Gentiles, and why they are so called.

You must know then that about two thoufand Years before the Coming of Chrift, when the whole World was involved in Darkness and Idolatry, in Error and Sin, God fingled out Abraham, to whom he made himself known, and called him forth from his own Country into the Land of Canaan, and there entered into Covenant with him, to give him that Land, to make of him a great Nation, and that in his Seed all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed, Gen. xii. 1, 2, 3. This Promife in Procefs of Time he began to fulfil, when he conducted his Pofterity (the twelve Tribes of Ifrael which had sprang forth from Jacob's Sons) in fo miraculous a Manner from the Land of Egypt, where they had long been oppreffU 3

ed,

SER M. ed, into the Land of Promise, the Land of

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Canaan, a Land where the ancient Inhabitants were all destroyed to make Room for them, called afterwards from the Jews that poffeffed it the Land of Judea, a Land flowing, as long as they held it, with Milk and Honey. Here they lived under the immediate Favour and Protection of God, who often ftiles them for that Reafon his own People, and his peculiar People, a special or holy People chofen unto himself above all People or Nations that are upon the Face of the Earth, Deut. iv. 20. chap. vii. 6, 14. & alibi. Thus faith the Lord God that created thee, O facob, and he that formed thee, O Ifrael; Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by Name, thou art mine, Ifai. xliii. 1.

Now these Jews (though a very stiffnecked and rebellious People, for which for fome Time they were led into Captivity in another Land, yet) puffed up with this Preference of their own Nation, and the Privileges bestowed on them by God himself before all the Nations of the World befides, they called the People of all other Lands by one common or general Name of Goiim, which the Greeks tranflate by "Evo, or Heathens,

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thens, the Latines by Gentes or Gentiles, allS ER M. which Words fignify in English no more than the Nations, a common Appellative given them in Contempt; the Jews meaning that in Comparison with themselves all other Nations were but Refufe or Out-cafts, Infidels and Atheists, a Rabble of Nations, neither knowing God, nor known of him, but wholly disregarded and neglected by him, as indeed with respect to their wild Religions, their unfeemly Rites, and profane Worship, till the Time of our Saviour's coming, they

were.

But however God might have passed them by formerly, or in whatever Contempt they might be now held by the Jews; I imagine that our Saviour, by this Miracle, covertly fignified, that he intended to display the fame Pity to them, as to the Jews themselves; defigning to communicate the Bleffings of his Coming to all the Nations of the World alike; infomuch that if the Jews would not fubmit to be now only Sharers in them, he would reject and cut them off as they deferved, and admit the Heathens into Grace in their Stead. They fhould be received now to Pardon and Grace: He would purge away their Sins, heal their Blindness, strength