of Him, who was thus by the Spirit conceived in the flesh; for in Him alone is the promise of God fulfilled; "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." And what do the Scriptures further testify concerning the Son of God? They bear testimony of Him in more points abundance than I have either time or strength, or is needful, at this time to go through; because most of you now in my audience, (of several persuasions,) have read the Holy Scriptures, I do not doubt; yet I desire and exhort you young men and women especially, not only to read them, but consider them, that you may understand them, and be more fully informed in those points and others by them; waiting, in the mean time, for the inbreathing of the Life and Light of the Lord Christ, by the influence of whose Spirit they were first written, without which they are not rightly to be understood, or the true end of them attained.* Yet the concern and influence I am now under may carry me further on this subject, for your sakes, than I am now aware of. The Lord Jesus was concealed from the people till about the twelfth year of his age, and then a glimpse of the Wisdom of the Father shone in Him, and through Him, among the wise and learned in that day among them; yet He was not made manifest as the Messiah, until the Divine Influence of the same Power which operated in his bodily production, did anoint or fit Him to preach the Gospel of Salvation unto his people. (i) And then He was made manifest, not only by wonderful works, but by his doctrines which He pub * Luke xxiv, 45. Jolin xx, 22. (i) We hear nothing of the child Jesus until he was thirty years of age, [see below] when he appeared unfolding the righteous law of that dispensation. (Sermon IV, Green Street, p. 68.) He began the work of righteousness in his childhood; for we read that he grew in stature, and in favour, with God and man And the grace of God was upon him. And it was this grace that led him to submit to his Father's will-He showed by his walk that he did his Father's will, in all things. (Sermon V, Germantown, p. 118.) lished among the people; yet though He spake as never man spake; with respect to that wisdom and power in which He did speak, few there were who understood Him; so that they were still short, at that time, of the true and full end of his appearance; for He was to be made manifest, not only to the Jews, but universally unto all nations, (in a nearer and more divine and excellent way than his outward appearance was, though that was indeed glorious,) but by degrees, from one dispensation to another, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, the evangelical Prophet, where he speaketh of the Son of God, as man, in the state of a Servant of God, and even in a manner, as such (a servant) in the sight of men, and in which He did indeed first appear in the flesh, that is to say: "Behold my Servant whom I uphold, mine ELECT, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon Him; He shall bring forth judgment to "the Gentiles."*"I the Lord have called thee in "righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will 'keep thee, and give thee for a Covenant of the 66 66 66 peo "ple, for a Light of the Gentiles, to open the blind "eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and "them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house." This prophecy was uttered and recorded several hundreds of years* before the Lord Christ came to that people. We may see plainly by this, there was a fore-promise of Him to all nations, as a Light to enlighten them. (k) The Most High is invisible, he dwelleth in divine eternal Light inaccessible. No creature can behold Him as He is; there is therefore a medium and qualification needful to us, whereby we may * Isa. xviii, 1. Ib. verses 6, 7. + About 712 years before Christ. (k) "I am the way, the truth, and the life," Jesus declared when he was outwardly present, as a teacher and Messiah to Israel. They did not look any higher. He was their director, their Saviour. He it was that saved them from their outward sicknesses. He was only an outward Saviour, that healed their outward diseases, and gave them strength of body to enjoy that outward good land. This was a figure of the great Comforter, which he would pray the Father to send them. An inward one, that would heal all the diseases of their souls, and cleanse them from all their inward pollutions. That thing of God. That thing of eternal life. It was the soul that wanted salvation. This no outward Saviour could do; no external Saviour could have any hand in it. (Sermon III, Western Meeting, p. 51.) approach him, come unto Him, and be saved with an everlasting and glorious salvation; and therefore he hath sent forth his word, clothed with a reasonable human mind and human body, to declare Him, according to that saying: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not "desire, mine ears hast thou opened: burnt-offering "and sin-offering hast Thou not required: then said I, "lo! I come: in the volume of the Book it is written "of me; I delight to do thy will, O God! yea, thy law "is within my heart."** This Son of the Highest, thus clothed with humanity, is the Mediator between God and all other men, by whose holy Spirit and power the mind of man is washed, sanctified, and qualified, so as, through this veil, to behold the inaccessible glory of the Father, and live. Now the word Himself is the glory of the Father thus veiled, and is Light in men, variously proportioned in point of manifestation, and proposed as the object of the faith of all men, as He is Divine Light; the "true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh "into the world." And it is said, "The Gentiles shall come to this Light, and kings to the brightness of his "arising.† And in his name shall the Gentiles trust." The Father hath sent his Son Christ, that all mankind may believe in Him, and look unto the Father in and by Him; and there is not another way. Mankind were in darkness, in ignorance, they had lost the knowledge of God; and we likewise by nature are all ignorant of God, and can never come to the knowledge of Him, and look to Him so as to be saved by Him, till we look unto Him in his own Light.(l) *Psalm xl, 6, 7. Isaiah i, 11, lxvi, 3, Heb. x, 5. † Isaiah, lx, 2, 3. |