SERMON VI.

SALVATION PUBLISHED FROM THE MOUNTAINS.

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountains: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!-Isaiah xl. 9.

man. The women are therefore called upon to proclaim his approach, on the tops of the hills and mountains, from whence they may be seen and heard to the greatest advantage, for the spreading of the tidings throughout the whole country. Zion is as a besieged city, but let her know that relief is at hand; say unto her, "Behold your God!" The Lord God will come with a strong hand, or against the strong one, and his people shall know him as their shepherd, full of care, kindness, and power.

welcome news is to be dispersed from Jerusalem to Samaria, from Jew to Gentile, from one kingdom to another people, till all the nations and ends of the earth shall see the salvation of God, Psalm xcviii. 3.

The cause of this exultation arises from the character of Messiah, compared with the design of his appearance, and this is answerable to the condition in which he finds mankind.

The deplorable state of fallen man by nature is largely described both in the Old Testament and in the New. It may suffice to take notice of three principal features which characterise our whole species, and apply to every individual of the race of Adam, until the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, affords relief. These are guilt, alienation of heart, and misery.

Ir would be improper to propose an alteration, though a slight one, in the reading of a The promise of Immanuel, God with us, is text, without bearing my testimony to the now to be spread like the morning from the great value of our English version, which I tops of the mountains. The day is breaking, believe, in point of simplicity, strength, and and this passage prepares for the following, fidelity is not likely to be excelled by a new" Arise, shine, for thy light is come!" The translation of the whole scriptures. But there are undoubtedly particular passages where a small change in the expression might render the sense clearer, and be equally answerable to the original Hebrew or Greek. The address of this verse as it stands in the Messiah is, "O thou that tellest good tidings," &c. as the Bishop of London has lately translated it. Zion and Jerusalem are considered by the prophet, not as bringing, but as receiving good tidings; and the publisher of these good tidings is written with a feminine construction. The sense may be thus expressed, "Let her that bringeth good tidings to Jerusalem and Zion, get up into the high mountains and lift up her voice." But the apostrophe is more animated. That it was the custom in Israel for the women to publish and celebrate good news with songs and instruments is well known. We have an early instance in the book of Exodus. When the Lord had delivered them from the power of Pharaoh, and they saw their enemies, who had so lately threatened them, dead upon the sea shore, Miriam, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances; and Miriam answered them, "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea," Exod. xv. 20, 21. So afterwards, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, the women came out to meet him and Saul, with tabrets and in-law of our creation. We have violated the struments of music; and they answered one another as they played, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands," 1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7. Thus likewise Deborah, in her sublime song, represents the mother of Sisera (Judges v. 28, 29) and her women singing alternately, from a confident, though vain expectation, that Sisera would return a conqueror. In my text, the prophet, in prospect of Messiah's appearance, speaks of it as an event suited to excite a general joy. The gospel (as. the word imports) is good news, glad tidings indeed! the best news that ever reached the ears, or cheered, the heart of

1. Guilt.-All have sinned. We are the ereatures of God. He made us, and he preserves us. Our life, faculties, and comforts are all from him. He is therefore our great Lord, our supreme benefactor. Of course we belong to him. His we are, and not our own. It follows, that dependence, gratitude, submission, and obedience are incumbent on us,. as they must be upon all intelligent creatures, from the very nature of things. The relation which subsists between an infinitely wise and good Creator and his creatures, if capable of knowing him, necessarily implies this subjection; and the obligation is indis-soluble. But we have evidently broken this

order of God's government. We have implicitly, if not formally, renounced our allegiance, disowned his right over us, and set up for ourselves. A dependent creature affecting independence; a worm presuming upon its own power, making itself its own end; a rebel against the divine government, boasting of morality and goodness, and trusting to his own conduct to recommend him to the favour of his Maker; a being formed for immortality, proposing his whole happiness in things which he feels to be unsatisfying, knows to be uncertain, and from which he is conscious he must, in a few years at most, be

finally removed: these are solecisms which | strength, while we live, and make us happy strongly prove the depravity, degeneracy, in another world, when we can live in this and demerit of man. It is possible that, had we been wholly left to ourselves, we should never have been aware, while in this world, of the just and inevitable consequences of our rebellion. Having lost all right thoughts of God, and conceiving of him, as if he were altogether like ourselves, we might have felt neither fear nor remorse. But there is a revelation, by which we are informed of his determined purpose to avenge disobedience, and to vindicate the honour of his government; and we are assured that he is not an indifferent spectator of our opposition to his established order. His justice and truth are engaged to punish transgressors, and our obnoxiousness to punishment is what we mean by guilt. If the scripture be true there is no way of escape, unless he himself be pleased to appoint one. This he has done, and the declaration of this appointment is a part of the good tidings contained in my text. Proclaim it from the tops of the mountains that there is forgiveness with him. Say unto Jerusalem, Behold Messiah! Behold your God! He comes to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, Heb. ix. 26. He can do it, for he is God; and he will do it, for he has taken on him our nature for this very purpose, 2 Cor. v. 21. Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!

2. Alienation of mind.-Not only is it true that we have sinned against the Lord, but a principle of aversion from him is deeply rooted in our hearts. Therefore one part of our natural character is, haters of God, Rom. i. 30. This is thought a hard saying. Many who will admit that their conduct is blameable, and that they are not altogether what they ought to be, .will by no means plead guilty to this charge. If they fall short of their duty, and in some instances transgress his commandments, they say it is their infirmity, they are sorry, and hope to do better some time or other. However, they are willing to think that their hearts are tolerably good, they mean well, and are shocked at the idea of hating God. They rather presume that they love him, though they are not so careful to please him as they should be. I do not assert that we hate God under that character which our vain imaginations form of him. If we can persuade ourselves, in direct contradiction to the testimony of scripture, that he is not strict to mark what is amiss; that he will dispense with the strictness of his law; that he will surely have mercy upon us, because we are not openly abandoned and profligate in our conduct; that he will accept of lip-worship, in which the heart has no concern, reward us for actions in which we had no intention of pleasing him, permit us to love and serve the world with all our mind, and soul, and

no longer. If we form such an image of God, it is too much like our own to provoke our enmity, for it is destitute of holiness, justice, and truth. But the carnal mind is and must be enmity against God, (Rom. viii. 7,) according to the character he has given of himself in his word. We have an inbred dislike to all his moral attributes, to the rule of his government, and to the methods of his grace. We cannot, that is, we will not propose either his glory as our chief end, or his favour as our chief good. The proof is plain. The ends which we actually pursue and the supposed good which we deliberately prefer, are utterly inconsistent with the plan which he has prescribed for us. His ways, though truly pleasant in themselves, appear unpleasing to us, and we think we can plan better for ourselves. We do not like to retain God in our thoughts, (Rom. i. 28,) which is a sure sign of enmity. Nay, this enmity is so strong in us naturally that we cannot bear others should think more highly of God than we do, or be more attached to him than we are. This was the ground of the first murder. Abel loved God, and God was pleased to testify his approbation of Abel, and therefore Cain killed him, 1 John iii. 12. This has been the great cause of the opposition and ill-treatment which the servants of God have met with from the men of the world in all succeeding ages; a cause which still subsists, and will continue to operate upon posterity yet unborn. Can we show a stronger mark of dislike to a person than by hating all who profess a regard to him, and when that is the only cause of our resentment? Such is the prevailing enmity against God. For how often do we see, that, when his grace enables a sinner to forsake the spirit and practice of the world, his former friends are immediately offended, and perhaps those of his own household become his inveterate enemies?

But, O thou that bringest good tidings lift up thy voice! Say to poor sinners, Behold your God! He comes to take this enmity away! The cross of Christ subdues it, when every other expedient has been found ineffectual. The heart, too hard to be softened by a profusion of temporal benefits, and too stout to be subdued by afflictions, is melted by the dying love of a Saviour, and by that discovery of the divine perfections which is exhibited in redemption. We have a striking instance of this effect, in the case of Saul of Tarsus, Acts ix. 1-20. His misguided conscience, under the influence of prejudice, persuaded him, that he ought to do many things against Jesus of Nazareth. Instigated with rage, and not satisfied with the injuries he had offered to his disciples at Jerusalem, but still. breathing out threatenings and slaughter, he journeyed towards Damascus,, designing to

have been exposed to such calamities. When God at the beginning, surveyed every thing that he had made, “behold it was very good," Gen. i. 31. All was beauty and harmony, till sin introduced disorder and a curse. But far worse than what we suffer immediately from the providence of God, are the evils which we bring upon ourselves and upon each other. The dreadful consequences of war, rapine, discord, hatred, ambition, avarice, and intemperance, furnish part of every page in the mournful history of human life, and are felt in every nation, city, village, and family. Want, cares, and diseases, prey upon individuals. Disappointment, dissatisfaction, vanity, and vexation of spirit, are experienced by persons of every rank, and in every

harass and persecute them wherever he found them. In this temper of mind, he was suddenly arrested on his way, by a light, and a voice from heaven. He fell to the ground. But Jesus, whom he had ignorantly persecuted, instructed him in the knowledge of his person and love, pardoned his sin, and commissioned him to preach the faith he had laboured to destroy. How sudden, how evident, how abiding was the change which then took place in his heart and in his conduct! From that moment he accounted "all | things loss and dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord," Phil. iii. 8. Unwearied by labour and hardship, undismayed by opposition and danger, he spent the remainder of his life in the cause of his Master; and like Cæsar, account-stage of human life. How much more desiring nothing done while any thing remained to do, his active and intrepid spirit was continually meditating new services, Acts xix. 21. And, though he knew that bonds and afflictions awaited him in every place, he was always upon the wing to publish to his fellow-sinners the grace and glory of him whom he had so long opposed, only because he knew him not. And although the circumstances attending the apostle's case were extraordinary, the case itself, as to the substance, is not singular. I trust many persons in this assembly have been the subjects of a like change. The doctrine which Paul preached, has enlightened your understandings, has inspired you with hopes and desires to which you were once strangers, and given a new direction to the conduct and aims of your life. You were once afar off from God, but you are now brought nigh by the blood of Christ. You once lived to yourselves, but now you feel that you are no longer your own, and have devoted yourselves to him who died to save you from the present evil world, and from the wrath to come.

3. Misery. If we are guilty in the sight of God, and alienated from him in our hearts, we must be miserable. Guilt entails a burden, and a foreboding of evil upon the conscience. And our alienation from the fountain of living waters, (Jer. ii. 13,) compels us (for we are insufficient to our own happiness) to seek our resources from broken cisterns, and pits which will hold no water. Farther, sin has filled the world with woe. The whole creation travails and groans; and natural evil is inseparable from moral, as the shadow from the body. Though the earth be filled with tokens of the goodness, patience, and forbearance of God, it likewise abounds with marks of his displeasure. I think we have sufficient reason to attribute earthquakes, hurricanes, famine, and pestilence, to sin as their original and proper cause. We can hardly conceive, that if mankind had continued in that happy state of love and obedience to God, in which our first parents were created, they would

able would it be, were it not for the hope of the gospel, to share with the brute creation, than to bear the name of man in his fallen state! The brutes have few wants; their propensities and the means of gratifying them, are suited to their natures, adapted to their powers, and conducive to the preservation of the species. They neither regret the past, nor tremble under apprehensions of the future. It is far otherwise with man. His boasted pleasures end with a sting, and often he cannot bear his own reflections on them. He suffers almost as much from imaginary fears, as from real afflictions. The more he possesses, the more are the sources of his anxieties multiplied and enlarged. And after having been long wearied with a train of mortifications, pains, and inquietudes, he must at last, however unwilling, yield to that stroke of death, the thought of which, when strongly realized to his mind, was always sufficient to embitter the happiest hours of his life.

But publish the glad tidings from the mountains, and let the joyful sound diffuse over the plain. Your God cometh! Messiah establishes a new, a spiritual kingdom upon the earth, and his happy subjects are freed from the misery in which they were involved. They commit all their concerns to him, and he manages for them. Their fears are removed, their irregular desires corrected, and all that is really good for them, is secured to them by his love, promise, and care. Afflictions still await them, but they are sanctified. To them the nature of affliction is changed. They are appointinents graciously designed for their advantage. Their crosses, no less than their comforts, are tokens of God's favour; (Heb. xii. 6, 7 ;) they have them only because their present situation requires discipline, and they could not be so well without them. They are assured of support under them, (2 Cor. xii. 9,) and a final deliverance out of them all: for there is a happy hour approaching, when all their troubles shall cease, and they shall enter

upon a state of eternal, uninterrupted, incon- | is the Jupiter of Homer, compared with the ceivable joy, Isa. lx. 20; Rev. xxi. 4.

God of Israel, as he is represented to us by his servants the prophets? And if the heathen philosophers, in some detached passages, have sentiments not altogether unworthy of him, history honestly tells us how they obtained them. They travelled, and they are generally said to have travelled into Phoenicia or Egypt, to the confines of that people who alone thought rightly of God, because to them only he had made himself known by a revelation. If such a description as we have in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, from the twelfth verse to the end, had been known only of late years, recovered, we will suppose, out

For these purposes the Son of God was revealed. The prophets saw his day afar off, and proclaimed his approach.-Thy God cometh! Though truly a man, he is truly God. Neither man nor angel could remove our guilt, communicate to us a spiritual life, relieve us from misery, and give us stable peace in a changing world, hope and triumph in death, and eternal life beyond it. But his wisdom and power are infinite, and his purpose unchangeable. He would not have invited the weary and heavy laden to come to him, if he was not able and determined to give them rest. None that seek him are dis-of the ruins of Herculaneum, there is little appointed, or sent empty away: a sufficient doubt but it would have engaged the attenproof that his compassion, his bounty, his tion and admiration of the learned world. fulness are properly divine. Therefore the For the most admired writings of antiquity, apostle, speaking of the riches of his grace, upon a candid comparison, are unspeakably uses the epithet, "unsearchable," Ephes. iii. inferior to it. The inimitable sublimity of the 8. His treasury of life and salvation is inex-prophets is natural, just, and unforced, and haustible, like a boundless, shoreless, bot-flows from the grandeur of their subjects, betomless ocean; like the sun, which having cause they were influenced by him who alone cheered the successive generations of man- can speak worthily of himself. kind with his beams, still shines with undiminished lustre, is still the fountain of light, and has always a sufficiency to fill innumerable millions of eyes in the same instant.

Does the language of my text cause joy to spring up in your hearts? or is it nothing to you! If you heard the Messiah, you were, perhaps, affected by the music of the passage; how much are you to be pitied, if you were hitherto unaffected by the sentiment! Yet once more, hear,-Thy God cometh! He did come in the fulness of time, according to the prophecy, and the word of prophecy assures us that he will come again. 66 Behold he cometh in the clouds: and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him," Rev. i. 7.-Prepare to meet thy God, Amos iv. 12.

SERMON VII.

THE MORNING LIGHT.

Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee: and the Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising.-Isaiah lx. 1—3.

ONE strong internal proof that the Bible is a divine revelation, may be drawn from the subject-matter, and particularly that it is the book, and the only book, which teaches us to think highly and honourably of God. I say, the only book, for there is no right knowledge of God where the Bible is not known. What

A song so vast, a theme so high,

Calls for the voice that tuned the sky. With them, the whole compass of the creation is but as dust upon the balance, in respect of the great Creator. His purpose is fate, his voice is power. He speaks and it is done. Thus he called the universe into being; and thus, as the great Lord and proprietor of all, he still maintains and governs it, directing the frame of nature, and every particular event and contingence, to the promoting of his own glory, the last and highest end of all his works.

The principal of these is, the exhibition of his perfections in the person of his Son. The prophecies we have already considered announce this event, with a gradual increase of clearness and precision, as the period of accomplishment is supposed to draw nigh. We lately heard the command to proclaim his approach from the hills and the tops of the mountains. Here the prophet begins to contemplate the effects of his actual appearance. The earth is considered as involved in a state of gross darkness, but the sun, the Sun of righteousness is about to arise, and to fill it by his beams, with light, life, and glory. These effects, indeed, will not extend to all, for many will love darkness rather than light. But he will not shine in vain. There will be a people prepared to receive him, and to rejoice in his light. They shall arise as from sleep, as from the grave, and his light reflected upon them shall cause them to shine likewise. Darkness shall still cover those who reject him; yea, their darkness will be increased. But the glory of the Lord shall be seen upon all who believe, and their numbers, from age to age, shall be enlarged. Nations shall come to him, and kings shall

be subservient to the spreading of his king- | greater than John his forerunner-and yet dom. Such is the scope of the passage before us. I shall briefly consider a few of the leading particulars contained in it.

he added, "the least in the kingdom of heaven," that is, in the New Testament or gospel-church, "is greater than he," Matth. xi. 11. The apostles were happy in the peculiar privilege of attending on his person, yet he told them, "it is expedient for you that I go away," John xvi. 7. There were still greater privileges depending upon the influence of the promised Comforter, who was to abide with the church for ever. By the power of his Holy Spirit, the Lord is now present with all his ministers and people in every place, whether retired in secret from the view of men, or assembled together in his name; (Matth. vi. 6, xviii. 20, xxviii. 20;) and though the great events upon which their hopes are founded, his life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension took place long ago, he so realizes the declaration of them in his word to their hearts, that they are no less assured of what they read than the apostles, who saw him with their own eyes. Thus the

II. The subjects of Messiah's kingdom, the living members of his church, are so irradiated by him that they shine likewise, as the moon shines, but with a borrowed light derived from the sun. Beholding, in this glass, the glory of the Lord, they are changed into the same image from glory to glory, (2 Cor. iii. 18,) according to the measure and growth of their faith. Two points may be observed under this head.

I. As the sun is the source of light to the natural world, so is Messiah to the moral and spiritual world. Light, and its opposite, darkness, are figuratively used in scripture. The latter is applied to a state of ignorance, sin, and misery, as in the following texts. "He that walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth," John xii. 35. "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth," 1 John i. 6. "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," Matth. xxv. 30. The former, therefore, signifies true knowledge, holiness, and happiness. "Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of the light," Eph. v. 8. "When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me," Micah vii. 8. "Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the up-gospel-state is a dispensation of light. The right in heart," Psalm xcvii. 11. I select but Sun is risen with life and healing in his one instance of each kind; an attentive reader beams, and they who have the eyes of their of the scriptures will meet with many ex- understanding opened, enjoy a bright and pressions of a like import. But there is like-marvellous day. They see, admire, adore, wise an intermediate state; light advancing rejoice, and love. from the early dawn to the perfect day. This twilight, no less than day-light is from the sun. Such was the state of the Old Testament church. Messiah was the source of their knowledge, hope, and joy; but he was (if I may so speak) below the horizon as to them. Though believers under that dispensation were a people saved of the Lord, they were trained up under types and shadows, were influenced by a spirit of comparative bondage and distance, like children under age, and rather longed for than actually possessed the gracious liberty which the children of God enjoy under the gospel. But the sun arose, and the shadows vanished, when the Son of God incarnate dwelt and conversed with men, honoured his temple with his personal presence, and superseded all the Levitical sacrifices, by the one offering of himself upon the cross. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." But more especially we date the beginning of his visible kingdom from the day of Pentecost, which followed his ascension. Then he signally bestowed the gifts which, as mediator, he had received for men, and, by the power of his Holy Spirit, authorized and qualified his servants to go forth and preach salvation in his name. Then the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile was taken away, and his righteousness was openly shown in the sight of the Heathen. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and other servants of God, had been highly favoured and highly honoured; but we are assured by our Lord himself, that none born of woman had been

1. The fact that they do thus shine. Though they were once darkness, they are now light, Eph. v. 8. A dark, ignorant, wicked, selfish. christian is a contradiction in terms. There may be such, there are too many such, amongst those who make a profession of the name of Christ; but they who truly know him walk in the light, as he is in the light. They have knowledge, a good understanding, Psalm exi. 10. Perhaps the greater part of real christians have little acquaintance with the literature and science of the world: their moral capacities may be weak, and not improved by education; they may be in the esteem of men, as they are in their own, but babes; yet they know more than the wisest philosophers who are destitute of the grace of God. They know themselves, they know the Lord, they know the evil of sin, and the way of salvation; what their proper happiness consists in, and how it is to be obtained. They have learned to endure affliction, to forgive injuries, and to overcome evil with good. They have attained a just sense of the vanity of the world and the importance of eternity. They are instructed to be contented and use