SERM.
VI.

SERMON VI.

Jefus the CHRIST.

JOHN i. 41.

We have found the Meffias; (which is, being interpreted, the Chrift.)

W

E are foon to enter (my good Christian Brethren) upon the Seafon of Advent, a Season appointed by Holy Church to prepare us for a due and religious Celebration of the Nativity or Birth of the Bleffed Jefus ; of JESUS the Foundation of our Confidence and Hope; the Author, Sustainer and Ground of our Faith; the Rock of Salvation in which we truft; our only Security for our Welfare and Happiness both in this World and the

next.

Where fo much Confidence and Truft is repofed, it certainly concerns us to be well affured that it is fafely placed: And to convince you that the Faith of Chriftians is fo, (I have formerly fhewed you) that Jefus on

which we depend is the Saviour, that was foretold by the Holy Scriptures that were given before-hand to distinguish and point him out when he came. I fhewed you at large in five feveral Difcourfes, that all the Prophecies, all the Types, all the Characters, which are recorded in the Old Teftament, as Marks of the Meffias, exactly concurred in our Jefus. His Lineage and Family, the Place of his Nativity, the Time of his Birth, in a Word, every fingle Paffage relating to the Life, Death, Burial, Refurrection, or Ascension of the Meffias were all completed in our Jefus, in Jefus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, ver. 45. as Philip calls him three or four Verses below my Text, which Words I took for my Text at that Time.-How is it poffi→ ble therefore to know the Meffias, if Jefus of Nazareth be not He? It may perhaps have come to pass that fome of these Signs might have concurred in others: But there was never any Perfon yet, excepting Jefus of Na zareth only, in whom they were every one fulfilled. It being then evident to a Demonstration that Jefus is He of whom Mofes in the Law and the Prophets did write; that He is the Meffias whom the Old Teftament foretold; I would now make Ufe of the Return of this Seafon,

VOL. II,

H

SERM. Season, to explain the Nature and Office of VI. the Meffiab, or to fhew who and what he

was to be.

In order to this I have now made Choice of the Words of Andrew, who (having been with Jefus the Day before, and learned by that Means who he was) haftens next Day to his Brother Simon (commonly called Peter) and with Eagerness discovers to him the joyful News. We have found (faith he) the Meffias, that Meffias whom we have fo long wifhed for, and defired to come. And then to explain what the Word Meffias fignifies, the Evangelift adds (for I take these latter Words to be his) that being interpreted, it is the Chrift; which, being interpreted once more into our English Tongue, is the Anointed: For though CHRIST be a Name which is now adopted into ours and other Languages, as the Name of our Lord; yet that Name is originally Greek, and fignifies the fame in the Greek Tongue, as Meffias does in the Syriack, and both in English fignifies the Anointed. So that Jefus Chrift put together, fignifies the Saviour, the Anointed One. For Jesus also is not an English, but an Hebrew Name, and fignifies a Saviour. Jefus therefore being declared in the Text to be the Meffias or

Chrift,

VI.

Chrift, or to fpeak plainly in English, he be- SER M. ing declared to be the Anointed One; in order to explain both the Text itself, and the Character of our Lord, it will be proper to fhew,

I. FIRST, How and in what Sense our Saviour was anointed. And then

II. SECONDLY, What was the Design and the Effect of his Unction.

I. FIRST then I am to fhew, how and in what Senfe our Saviour was anointed. Now how they were anointed under the Law, who were the Types of the Meffias, is plain enough to any one who knows any Thing the Bible: For there we read, that God appointed a special and peculiar Oil to be made, which he appropriated to this Ufe, Exod. XXX. 22—33. And the pouring this Oil upon the Body of any Perfon, was the anointing of him to that Office for which he was defigned, Levit. viii. 12, 30. But now fince the Oil which was appropriated to that Use, had been loft many Hundred Years before the coming of our Saviour *; and confequently fince the Custom of anointing in this Manner had ceased a long Time before our Saviour Pearfon on the Creed, p. 97.

SERM.
VI.

was born; and fince we no where read that Jefus was ever anointed with Oil; it may be pertinently asked, how he was anointed, fo as to be called the Anointed One; by Way of Eminence and Dignity, beyond any that had ever been anointed before him?

In answer to this Question it may not be improper to note in the first Place, that even the Jews have fuch a strong Persuasion and Affurance that the Meffias fhall be anointed when he comes to deliver them; that notwithstanding the Sacred Oil of Unction be loft at present, and has been loft ever fince the Days of Jofiah *, they yet conceive that it fhall be found again when the Meffias appears, and that he and all the Kings and High Priests that shall be in his Days, fhall be anointed with it. But we, who know and believe in a Meffias already come, know also that he ftood in no Need of fuch a material Unction as theirs was, for his Confecration: But that there was as much Difference between the Oil, with which those others had been anointed, and that Oil which was poured upon our Saviour, as there was between the Persons that were confecrated by the material Oil, and our Saviour himself.