another paffage in the xxxvth of the fame prophet, ver. 4, 5, 6. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and fave you. Then the eyes of the blind fhall be opened, and the ears of the deaf fhall be unftopped: Then fhall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb fhall Ling.

86

It is very probable that the Baptist himfelf might have an eye to this paffage, when he fent his doubting difciples with this question to our Saviour, "Art thou he that should come ?" Since we find there a promise, within the compafs of a few words, twice repeated, that God "would come, would come" to fave his people; and therefore our Saviour, very appofitely, fent them back again to the fame prophet in his reply, and taught them by that means to understand the true drift and meaning of their master's question. It is as if he had faid, You believe not the Baptift's teftimony, that I am He who fhould come;" yet furely faiah, upon whofe authority ye have received the Baptift himself, will find credit with you; and he hath thus prophefied of me

Every way, we fee the answer of our bleffed Redeemer was fo wifely and gracioutly contrived, as to meet with all the prejudices and difpel all the doubts of thefe e quirers, and to lead them into an acknowledgement that they had found the Meffiah whom they fought, "Him who was to come,' " and were no longer to look for another."

3. Nay, thefe words carry in them (as I in the third place obferved) an argument of more general ufe and influence, and propofe to us all the

chief marks and characters of fuch m'racles, as are fufficient to confirm the authority of any perfon pretending to be sent by God; and all of which concurred in the miracles done by our Meffiah; as any unprejudiced person, who compares them together, may eafily perceive. I fhall but juft mention them as they are hinted to us in the words of our Saviour's reply, and leave the further confideration of them to your private meditations. Now the

1. Mark and character of fuch a miracle, as can be the proper evidence of a divine miffion, is, that it be above the known powers of all natural causes: And fuch were all the inftantaneous cures here mentioned; and particularly the raifing men from the dead.

2. A fecond character is, that they be done publickly and in the face of the world, that there may be no room to fufpect artifice and collufion. And fuch were the wonders to which our Lord appealed." Go tell John again," fays he, "those things which ye do hear and fee;" which are done hear before your eyes, and in the midst of a great multitude.

3. A third thing requifite is that the doctrine which they are brought to vouch be every way worthy of God, and fit thus to be fealed and attested by him. The gofpel is preached, fays our Lord; the moft perfect fcheme of morality that ever mankind was acquainted with.

4. It is yet a further recomendation of fuch miracles, If they carry in them marks not only of an astonishing power, but of good will also, and beneficence to men; as the healing of the blind,

the

the lepers, and the lame, here in the text, manifeftly did.

pros

5. If the very doing of them was foretold, and the time and perfon declared by the spirit of phecy) for to I have fhewn that our Saviour, in his account of the mighty works here done, referred himself to the predictions of Isaiah,

6. If there be no appearances of felf-intereft and design in the worker of fuch miracles; and this objection our Lord also, removes, where he fays, that the "poor had the gospel preached unto them;" the poor to whom no man would apply, who proposed to himself temporal views and aims, which they (alas!) could no ways forward.

Thus have I endeavoured to open to you, verý largely, the fignificancy of each word in this im portant paffage; and particularly the wonder ful addrefs of our Lord, in applying himself to those who reforted to him for inftruction, and in reafoning them into conviction by arguments and fuggeftions peculiarly accommodated to the notions and apprehenfions they were un der. Our chief bufinefs indeed, from fuch places as thefe, is, to inculcate into the minds of Chriftians the practical leffons of piety contained in the gofpel; to convince them of the reasonablenefs, beauty, and usefulness of those precepts; and to inflame them with ardent defires of excelling therein. However, fuch fpeculative enquiries as these have alfo their use, and may fometimes deferve a place in your minds; as contributing to raise your attention in perufing the feveral parts of Holy Writ, and to improve and quicken you in your manner of meditating upon them; and

as

as affifting you towards a difcovery of thofe ineftimable treasures of divine Wifdom, which are hidden in that facred volume. We generally, I fear, confult the Scriptures too negligently, andreflect on them too fuperficially, with no greater degree of attention and care, than we employ in perufing mere human compofures (and I would to God we employed always as much in the one cafe as in the other!) We do not fufficiently confider, who it is that speaks to us there, nor what it is that he fays: What weight, what fulness of sense, what excellent variety of matter, and wonderful depth of thought, there muft needs be in words dic tated by, or at least spoken under, the over-ruling influence of Infinite wifdom. And therefore, though the Scriptures are read every day in our churches (and fometimes perhaps confulted in our clofets) yet we make but flow proficiency towards a true taste, and a clear difcernment, of thofe high truths which are contained in them. We dwell on the letter only, on what offers itself to us at the first view; but we do not make ourselves acquainted with the life and fpirit of them. And yet for this reafon, among others, thefe Holy writings were left us by God, that we might, as good David fpeaks, exercise ourselves in them day and night, have perpetual matter for our enquries into, and improvements in, the knowledge of things divine, and drink always of these waters of life, without either allaying our thirst, or exhaufting the Spring from whence they flow.

The difference between the Holy Scriptures and other writings, is much the fame as that between, the works of art and nature. The works VOL. III.

E

of

of art appear to moft advantage at firft; but will not bear a nice and repeated examination: The more curiously we pry into them, the lefs we shall admire them. But the works of nature will bear a thousand views and reviews, and yet still be inftructive and still wonderful. In like manner the writings of mere men, though never fo excellent in their kind, yet strike and fur prize us most upon our first perufal of them; and then flatten upon our taste by degrees, as our familiarity with them increases. Whereas the word of revelation is, like its Author, of an endlefs and unfearchable perfection; and the more we look into it, and revolve it in our minds, the more reason ftill fhall we find to admire and adore the Wifdom of the Great Revealer of it.

I have therefore hinted to you fome thoughts concerning the drift of our Saviour's reasoning, and the peculiar appofitenefs of it in relation to the perfons who made the enquiry in the text; that I might excite you from thence to meditate in like manner on the other parts of the Book of God which are equally profitable for doctrine, and able to make us wife unto falvation, through faith which is in Chrift Jefus, 2 Tim. iii. 15.

Wherefore, fearch the Scriptures for as in them ye have eternal life, fo have ye room alfo for an eternal growth and improvement in that knowledge, which leads to it; in that knowledge, which we can here attain unto a part only, but fhall hereafter, when the veil of this fleth is done away, more perfectly comprehend; and the more earneftly we afpire after it, and labour for it in this ftate of imperfection, the more exalted a degree

of