Page images
PDF
EPUB

forth at once in an impetuous and irre- SECT. II. fiftible torrent of thanksgiving;

"BLESSED be the Lord God of
Ifrael, for he hath vifited and
redeemed his people."

IT was no new thing for "the God "of Ifrael" to "vifit and redeem his

66

people." He had often done it, when they were in affliction and captivity. But fo to visit and redeem, was not all that he intended to do for his chofen. Through things temporal he was defirous that they should look at things eternal, and carry on their views from a bodily to a fpiritual redemption, in which all his counfels terminated; a redemption to be effected by his vifiting mankind, dwelling among them in a tabernacle of flesh, and in that tabernacle offering up the true propitiatory facrifice; a redemption, that should extend to Gentiles as well as Jews, and of both make one people, a new Ifrael, of which he should be the Lord God, for evermore. How gracious this vifitation! How astonishing this rea Luke i. 68, &c.

demption !

SECT. II. demption! "Bleffed be the Lord God

.

"of Ifrael, for he hath vifited and re

"deemed his people,

2. “And hath raised up an horn of "falvation for us, in the house "of his fervant David.”

IN the Old Teftament, we read continually of Saviours and Deliverers "raised up" by God, to rescue his people, from time to time, out of the hands of their oppreffors. But of them we may fay, as the Apostle does of the Levitical priests, "They were not fuf"fered to continue, by reafon of death"." And therefore, we may argue in one cafe, as he doth in the other, that none of them could be the true Saviour of Ifrael, the fubject of the promises. Neither Mofes, who brought them out of Egypt, nor Joshua who fettled them in Canaan, was "He that should come," but they were still to "look for ano"ther." And fo on, through the whole calendar of temporal faviours, who,

like the legal minifters, "ferved only,"

Heb. vii. 23.

by

"to the SECT. II.

by their wars and victories,
** example and fhadow of heavenly
"things." The body, or substance, in
either inftance, "was of Chrift." For
he who arose "a Priest for ever," arose
alfo "a King immortal;" a mighty
born, or power of falvation; a Mofes, to
deliver us from this present evil world;
a Joshua, to put us in poffeffion of the
heavenly Canaan; in short, every thing,
to fill up every prefigurative character.
This mighty Saviour, this omnipotent
king of Ifrael God raised up" in the
houfe of his fervant David," as he
had promised, "that of the fruit of his

body according to the flesh, he would "raise up Chrift to fit on his throne.” And to this agree the words of the angel, at the annuntiation, "The Lord "God fhall give unto him the throne " of his father David, and he shall

reign for ever and ever over the house "of Jacob, and of his kingdom there "fhall be no end "."

* Pfalm cxxxii. 11. Acts ii. 30.

⚫ Luke i. 32.

3.

"As

SECT. II.

3. "As he promised by the mouth "of his holy prophets, which "have been fince the world

[ocr errors][merged small]

IN a matter of fo great confequence as man's redemption, God left not the world without information, from the beginning: fo that wherever we find ignorance, it must be charged to the account of man, as having rejected, and not to that of his Maker, as having denied the neceffary means of inftruction. We see the chriftian church now fupported, in her belief of Meffiah's second advent, on which all her hopes are fixed, by the difcourfes of the Apostles, as the antient church was fupported in her belief of his first advent, by the discourses of the prophets. There is no more difficulty in one case than in the other. The ancients lived in faith, and fo do we. They died in faith, "not having received the promises," and fo must we: for though fome promifes are fulfilled, yet others are not, nor can be, in this world. Our know

lege

1

lege is not the lefs certain, nor our faith, SECT. II. built upon it, the lefs firm, because we have not exact and adequate notions of the manner of Chrift's coming, the circumstances of the laft judgment, and the glory that is to follow. The facts are fufficiently predicted; for an idea of the mode we must be contented to wait, till faith fhall give place to fight. And let the fame obfervation be applied to the patriarchs and Ifraelites.

4.

1

That we should be faved

"from our enemies, and from
"the hand of all that hate us."

THE enemies and the falvation, here intended by Zacharias, are, without doubt, fpiritual. Such a falvation therefore, from fuch enemies, God "promised by the mouth of his holy

[ocr errors]

prophets which have been fince the "world began." When he faved his people of old from their enemies, and from the hand of all that hated them, his mercy fo difplayed was a figure for the time then prefent, a pledge and earnest of eternal redemption; as if he

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »