fins in his own blood, and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever? Amen c!"

< Rev. i. 5, 6.

SERMON III.

ISAIAH lxi. 1, 2.

(LUKE iv. 18, 19.)

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord bath anointed me. He bath fent me to publish good tidings to the meek; to bind up the broken-hearted; to proclaim deliverance to the captives; and the opening of the prifon to the bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of

the Lord.

IN these animating words the Prophet Isaiah

announces the most valuable benefits, which a gracious Providence can confer on man. They must therefore be particularly welcome to all thofe, who have an intereft in the tidings they communicate. A mighty Year of grace, deliverance, and happiness is proclaimed; which the Prophet reprefents by an allufion to the periodical obfervance of every fiftieth year, as ordained by the Law of Mofes, when the trumpet of Jubilee founded through the land, and liberty was proclaimed to all its inhabitants, and they returned every man to his own poffeffion, and every man to his

own

own family; in other words, when every debt was cancelled, every flave was freed, and every inheritance reverted to its original

house.

Before we examine thefe words in that point of view, wherein they more immediately intereft ourselves, it may be convenient to inquire, how they were understood by the people to whom they were originally given. From that preeminence of character, which Ifaiah bore in Ifrael, the cotemporary Jews might at first imagine, that he spoke immediately of himself. They could not be strangers to those high notices, with which he had been privileged above his Brethren, in seeing the Lord in his temple, and being touched by the Seraph with the hallowed fire. They might therefore be prepared to suppose, that as the Spirit of the Lord was upon him in this embaffy of grace, fo he was himself the person thus especially anointed by the Lord, for the purpose not only of proclaiming, but also of administering every valuable gift. But this acceptation they must have relinquished, if they confidered the tenor of the prophecy with a reference to the complexion of the time when it was given. The bleffings which

a Lev. xxv. 8, &c.

b Ifa. vi. I, &c.

it enumerates imply a deliverance from fome very great and general calamities, of which they had no experience in the days of Ifaiah; for the age in which he flourished, except for fome few tranfient clouds, was a feason to the Jews of eminent profperity. It must therefore of neceffity be referred to fome future period, when the Prophet's ministry was clofed.

It was no uncommon ufage in the prophetic ftyle for the Prophet to affume the character of the Agent, when he was no other than the Harbinger, of heavenly counfels and difpenfations. And thus unquestionably muft we understand Isaiah in this place. He prefages bleffings, not to be administered immediately by himself, but to be accomplifhed afterwards by fome other Minifter of the divine will. He could not but foresee a formidable train of evils, which by the righteous judgment of God were to involve his people, when the measure of their fins was full. But this mournful theme was more congenial to the plaintive Jeremiah, than to the elevated spirit of the Son of Amos. Taking moft complacence in images of public peace and happiness, he paffes his eye with a rapid glance over the calamities of his country, that he may fix it on those years of brighter

fortune,