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pleafing him, and would esteem it their greatest happiness to obtain his approbation and to live in his favour.

"And they shall no more teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, faying, Know the Lord; for they all fhall know me from the leaft unto the greatest." They fhall not depend on merely human inftruction and inftitution for knowledge and edification in religious truth. For God himself will impart to all his faithful subjects, without refpect of station, order, or profesfion, the animating graces of his holy Spirit. To all, whofe hearts and affections are difpofed to receive our heavenly King in his mediatorial character, he is ever ready to prefent himself. He will guide them into all truth effential for them to know; he will fhew the Father to them in all his attributes of grace and goodness; and he will teach them all things that are neceffary for the attainment of falvation and happiness.

"For I will forgive their unrighteousness, and their fins and iniquities I will remember no more." Under the Law God appeared as a God of strict and inflexible justice. Having prescribed a sentence, he exacted a punishment for every tranfgreffion. The foul, that finned in any capital offence, was doomed

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to die without mitigation or reprieve. Under the new Dispensation he appears as a God of mercy. The Covenant which he now proposes is a Covenant of grace. On the merit of that atonement, which our great High Prieft has made, he is pleased on our repentance to blot out our tranfgreffions, and to receive us again into favour as if we never had offended.

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In all these refpects we cannot but look upon it as a far fuperior Covenant to that of Mofes, we cannot but regard it as a far more valuable Kingdom than that of Ifrael or any temporal ftate.-But its great and principal excellence must be referred to the fulnefs of its bleffings in another life. And therefore the Apostle fays, in comment on this prophecy when applied to Christ; " But now hath he obtained a more excellent miniftry, by how much alfo he is the Mediator of a better Covenant, established upon better promises ?." Thefe better promises, though they certainly comprehend the benefits of the prefent life, as youchfafed to the Jews under the difpenfation of Mofes, have a principal regard to the bleffings, which our heavenly King has by unquestionable figns affured to

4 Heb. viii. 6.

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all his faithful fubjects in the realms of heavenly bliss. To all who comply with the terms of this Covenant, to all who are faithful in their allegiance to his perfon and government, he is disposed to give, not only of the fulness of his grace and truth in this life, but also of his glory and happiness in the life to come. He admits them to that kingdom which cannot be moved, a kingdom of transcendent light and everlasting reft; where being purified from all the frailties and corruptions of this mortal nature, they fhall be affociated with the companies of Angels and the spirits of just men made perfect, and fhall be blest above all other bleffings in feeing God the fource of every good, in receiving with Christ, the peculiar Son and Heir of God, the inheritance of Children, and in partaking with him a crown of glory that fadeth not away

The subject of this discourse has been previously discussed, upon a larger scale, and with some shades of difference both in matter and in method, under the title of The King of Ifrael, by the fame Author in his two concluding Sermons on the Parables.

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SERMON VIII.

MARK i. 15.

-The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at band: Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.

Our Saviour's Miffion comprehended these two purposes; to propofe a new Covenant on the part of God, and to state the conditions on the part of man for acceptance and continuance therein. The former of thefe purposes is expreffed in the former claufe, The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand: That was the subject of my last discourse. The latter of these purposes is expreffed in the latter clause, Repent ye, and believe the Gospel: This remains for our prefent confideration.

To repent of their fins, and to believe in the word of God, were duties which he frequently proposed to his people, as terms of acceptance under the Covenant of the Law. They are continually afferted under the Covenant of the Gofpel, as indifpenfable condi

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