ingly, to our great and endless comfort, it is declared from the apostolical chair, that "there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."* The way, therefore, is now open for us to proceed to a consideration of the imposition of the name JESUS, at the time of circumcision. For then it was, that Christ laid himself under the obligation to SAVE, and began to answer to that sacred and glorious name. From the very moment in which a sufficient surety appears, and becomes responsible for the debt, "Deliver the man," saith the creditor, "I have found a Ransom." The greatness of the deliverance may be estimated by the value of the ransom; and reciprocally, the value of the ransom by the greatness of the deliverance. The ransom was the dear and only Son of God; the deliverance was a deliverance from all the terrors of angry and avenging Heaven. "The law worketh wrath;" because it condemneth the transgressors thereof, that is, without the intervention of the evangelical covenant of repentance, it condemneth every child of Adam; seeing that, according to the conclusion fairly deduced by the same apostle from undeniable premises, "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."§ But who shall express, or conceive adequate ideas of, that condemnation from which Christ hath delivered us; of that wrath, which the law worketh against every man, who shall have no surety to appear for him, in the day when God shall come to require an account? As far, indeed, as the elements of nature can display to human sense the terrible majesty of their great Creator; as far as his eternal power and Godhead can be manifested to the sons of earth by the things that are made; so far did it once please God to manifest and display them; and that, upon an occasion which evidently pointed out to us his intention in so doing. The occasion I mean, was the giving of the law, the circumstances of which are presumed to be the best and fullest comment upon the apostolical text before cited; "The law worketh wrath." Let imagination, therefore, place us for a few minutes at the foot of Sinai, where every man must place himself, who would form an estimate of the salvation wrought for him by Jesus Christ. We shall find the mountain carefully fenced about, and guarded by this awful prohibition: "Charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.-For if so much as a beast touch the mountain, he shall be stoned, or struck through with a dart. Take heed to yourselves therefore; stand at the nether part of the mount."* There, then, let us take our station, and behold a thick cloud, blackness of darkness, settling upon the mountain, and diffusing itself around; in the midst of this most horrible night, the flame of devouring fire rolling forth in dreadful waves, and burning to the midst of heaven; lightnings every moment issuing from it, and breaking through the surrounding gloom; the air incessantly thundering from every quarter; and, above all, the voice of a trumpet piercing the heavens, sounding long, and waxing louder and louder; the mountain smoking like a furnace, and quaking greatly from its foundations; all the people in the camp trembling and dying for fear: nay, “so terrible was the sight, that even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake." And if Moses, who, as the figure of him that should come, had the honor to be a mediator between an offended God and his offended people—if he exceedingly feared and quaked at this terrible sight, what must be the state of the careless sinner, who having incurred all this heavy displeasure, nor ever employed an hour in meditating his escape, shall be suddenly called upon by death to meet it all, unprepared? And who is there among us, that thinks himself prepared to meet his God, as he appeared upon Mount Sinai? Let the experiment be made only in an ordinary tempest of thunder and lightning. No sooner is that glorious voice of Jehovah heard in the heavens, but the earth trembles and is still. "Hear attentively," said Elihu in Job, "the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning to the ends of the earth. At this my heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place." What sensations then would be produced in the hearts even of the best of men by a manifestation like that at Sinai? And if the righteous scarcely sustain it, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Nor let any man think himself unconcerned in that scene because it is past. The terrors of Mount Sinai are still in force against every one who is not found in Christ Jesus; unless we suppose that the despisers of the Gospel will fare better than the contemners of the Law, and not rather be thought worthy of much sorer punishment. The hour is coming, when our eyes shall see more amazing sights, and our ears shall hear more terrifying sounds, than were seen and heard by the house of Israel in the wilderness. For yet a little while, and the same God who was revealed from heaven in flaming fire to give the law, shall again be revealed from heaven in flaming fire to inquire how it hath been observed, and to take vengeance on those who have not secured unto themselves a sponsor to stand in the gap for them. So that although the things seen and heard at Mount Sinai did not affect us, yet the argument enlarged upon by the apostle, Heb. xii. undoubtedly doth; namely, that if the law was so terrible when enacted, how much more terrible must it be, when required at our hands by God, coming in glorious majesty to judge the world! Then shall there be blackness of darkness, not for a time, but for ever; then shall the lightnings of Sinai be extended over all the earth, and a fire be kindled which shall not be quenched; then shall the heavens pass away with the noise of a great and intolerable thunder; a far louder trumpet shall then not only pierce the ears of the living, but also sound an alarm through all the regions of the grave, and awaken those who shall have slept for ages in the dust; then he whose voice formerly shook the earth shall fulfil his promise, "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven;"✶ both of which shall be removed, and their place no more be found; then shall all the tribes of the earth, as well as those of Israel, tremble, and mourn, and wail; and who, where is he, that thinketh he shall not then find cause to say with Moses, "So terrible is the sight, that I exceedingly fear and quake!" Such, therefore, is the wrath which the law worketh, and such is the condemnation of that "hand writing against us," from which our dear Master and Redeemer, as at this time, the time of his circumcision, engaged to rescue all who should believe in him. Then it was, that he took upon himself the law, and the penalty annexed to the breach of it, "being" as an apostle has expressed it, "made a curse for us, to redeem us from the curse of the law" that is, to deliver us from the black darkness of sin and death; from the thunders and lightnings of the Father's vengeance; from the dread of the trumpet of eternal judgment; the dissolution and destruction of the world; the words of condemnation, and the unextinguishable flame; and having delivered us from all these terrors, to introduce us to a far different scene of things; to the light of righteousness and immortality; to the peace and love of God; to the still small voice of evangelical grace; to the harps of angels, and the music of hallelujahs; to the final sentence of absolution, "Come, ye blessed;" to a kingdom that cannot be moved; to the joys of heaven, and the glories of eternity. "For we are not come unto the mount that might be touched (the palpable, material mount,) that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard, entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more (for they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast touch the mountain it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart: and so terrible was the sight, that even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.) But we are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than that of Abel ;"* the one crying as loud for mercy, as the other did for vengeance. And therefore, when this blood of sprinkling was first shed, "when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel, before he was conceived in the womb," saying, "Thou shalt call his name JESUS, for he shall SAVE his people from their sins."+ The doctrine of the day being thus stated and explicated, nothing remains, but that we reduce it to practice. Something Christ hath left us, in every mystery, to believe and to admire; something also to love and to imitate. The legal ceremony of circumcision, having received its accomplishment in Jesus, became of course null and void; insomuch that the performance of it afterwards was justly deemed a renunciation of Christ, a denial of his advent in the flesh; for so the apostle witnesseth; "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." This is the unhappy case of the Jews, to this day; who, having lost the evangelical faith of their fathers, still continue under the law, with all its judgments in force against them; and this must be their case, until their heart shall turn to the Lord their God, until they shall be led to acknowledge the holy Jesus, as the end of the law, and the Saviour of the world. In the mean time, by us who believe, the doctrine is to be transmitted from the head to the heart, there by the operation of the eternal | fested in our lives and conversations. OtherSpirit to do away what St. James styleth" the wise, the letter of them can only condemn superfluity of maliciousness,"* cleansing us us. For as he is not a Jew, so neither is he from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, that we a Christian, who is one outwardly; but he is may perfect holiness in the fear of God. It a true Jew, and he is a true Christian, who is true, that sin was mystically cut off, and is so inwardly; from whose heart and memestroyed, in the body of Christ; but where-bers the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, fore? that it might live and flourish in us? and the pride of life are cut off; who is dead God forbid. Christ was made sin for us, not and buried to sin, and risen again to rightethat we might continue in sin, but that we ousness. This blessed work sacramentally might become the righteousness of God in him. shown forth and begun in baptism, is to be For if we be dead to sin in Christ our repre- continued through life by the successive resentative, how can we, consistently with our novations of repentance, by daily accessions profession, live any longer therein? How of knowledge, faith, and charity, producing can the circumcision of Christ profit any one, and carrying on a gradual growth in grace, who celebrates the festival as constantly as it until it be perfected. And as the season anreturns, himself still continuing "uncircum- nually returns when it pleaseth God to begin cised in heart and ears?" Or, in other words, again his work, which men so often behold, how can his baptism save him, whose life is of renewing the face of the earth, by comone perpetual renunciation of it? for baptism, manding the sun to re-visit and cheer our which succeeded in the place of circumci- world, where nature, during his absence, hath sion, takes up the mystery, where that left it. drooped and languished away, but is again The one showeth sin cut off, in and with the to be raised from the death and deformity of body of Christ; the other representeth it as winter, to the life and beauty of spring, until, buried in his grave, and the new man, through by a silent progressive operation, the year be the power of his resurrection, risen again crowned with the loving kindness of the without sin unto salvation. And one cannot Lord; are we not hereby directed to look up but admire the manner in which St. Paul hath by faith to the great luminary of the intelinterwoven the spiritual application of these lectual world, who declareth from his glotwo sacraments of the old and new law. "Yerious throne, "Behold I make all things are complete," saith he to his Colossians, " in new;" beseeching him to rise upon us with Christ, who is the head of all principality healing in his wings; to visit us with the and power. In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead: and you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses."+ We are to labor, therefore, after the spirit and power of these two sacraments in our hearts, that they may be mani · Περίσσειαν κακιας—Jam. i. 21. † Col. ii. 10 light of his countenance, and the joy of his salvation, that so old things may pass away, and we may be renewed in the spirit of our minds; to disperse the clouds and darkness of ignorance; to lay the wintry storms and tempests of disordered passions, and introduce into our hearts the calm and gladsome spring of everlasting righteousness and peace; to pour upon the year all the blessings of that glorious festival with which it commenceth; and, in one word, by making it HOLY, to make it HAPPY. * Rev. xxi. 5. DISCOURSE XII. THE EPIPHANY. MATTHEW, 11. 1, 2. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. In this remarkable part of sacred story there | vellers, it is said by the evangelist, they were are two particulars, on which, at the present Mayo; a term then applied, among all the season, we are called upon to employ our nations of the east, in its primary good sense, meditations. And as they will suggest ample to those who gave themselves up to the purmatter for that purpose, I shall crave your suit of wisdom and knowledge, by all the leave to enter upon a discussion of them with- means in their power. They were the great out any farther preface. mathematicians, philosophers, and divines of the ages in which they lived, and had no The particulars are these: First, the persons here mentioned by St. other knowledge but that which by their Matthew. Second, Their journey. First, then, let us contemplate the persons here mentioned by St. Matthew, their country and condition. own study, and the instructions of the ancient of their sect, they had attained unto. But as their credit in the world, on these accounts, was so great, that a learned man and a Magian became equivalent terms, the vulgar, looking on their knowledge to be more than natural, entertained an opinion of them as if they had been actuated and inspired by supernatural powers, in the same manner as has too frequently happened at other times and in other places. In the number of these Magi, or learned men, of old, persons not only of noble but of royal extraction often thought proper to enlist themselves. Many, therefore, have imagined these Magi to have been such; and the supposition, all circumstances considered, is not improbable. With regard to their country, the text gives us no farther information, than that they came from the east. Of the ancient expositors, some mention Chaldea, others Persia; but others, among whom are Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Epiphanius, with more probability, perhaps, assign Arabia Felix, a country less distant from Judea, and lying to the south-east of it; the same country pointed out by the Psalmist, when, predicting the accession of the Gentiles, he saith, "The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts:" the country from whence, attended by a train of camels bearing spices, came the queen of Sheba to the court of the temporary and re-tain, in which we are chiefly interested, and presentative PRINCE OF PEACE; the country particularly specified in the lxth chapter of Isaiah; "All they from Sheba* shall come; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord; country remarkable, by the testimony of historians, for plenty of gold, and of the most precious aromatics: a country, in the neighborhood of which Balaam uttered and left behind him his famous prophecy, concerning the" Star that should arise out of Jacob." But the particular of which we are cer which at this time claims our attention, is that they were Gentiles, aliens by nature, like ourselves, from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise. a In the family of Noah, the true religion was universal or catholic. It continued to be so till the days of Abraham, when the general apostasy of the nations to idolatry made it necessary that a family should be called forth and separated from the pollution that was in the world, to be the happy instruments of preserving faith upon the earth, "till the seed should come to whom the promise was made." By this step in the divine dispensations, it was never intended to As to the condition of these eastern tra Sabea-extrema Arabia Felicis regio, Persico siaui proxima. VITRINGA in loc. "put the candle under a bushel, but to place | tonishing series of miracles wrought by Mosit on a candlestick," and there to keep it es on a stage so public as this-the passage burning, that it might give light to those that through the Red Sea; the destruction of were in the house, and to those who should Pharaoh and his host; the march of the Isenter it. Many, from time to time, did en-raelitish army, with the divine Shechinah, ter into it; and therefore many more might or glory in the midst of it; the awful and have entered in, had it so pleased them. The tremendous appearance on Mount Sinai, at transactions of God with his chosen people the promulgation of the law; their entrance were not carried on in a corner; and there into Canaan; the passage of Jordan; the fall was no period in which he left himself with- of Jericho; the excision of the devoted naout witness among the nations round about tions-could all these things be done, and them. Let us take a cursory view of the the rumor of them not be spread in those divine proceedings in this light only. days among the nations, both those that were near and those that were afar off? Of Abraham's call the inhabitants of the country from which he was called, and, in The fame of this distinguished and extraconsequence of that call, departed for ever, ordinary people must have increased with could not have been ignorant; and as many their conquests, till universal peace was esas were disposed to obey the admonition of tablished in the days of Solomon. To his Heaven, might, doubtless, have had permis- court the princes of the earth resorted; struck sion to attend him. with his glory, charmed with his wisdom, The patriarchal families, in their sojourn- and desirous of being instructed by him. ings, travelled through many of the countries Would you know the exalted sentiments eninhabited in those early ages. By the gov-tertained by them of him, and of the people ernors of those countries we find them treat-over whom he presided? Listen to the queen ed with reverence, and acknowledged to be of Sheba speaking for them all: "It was a prophets, nay, "mighty princes of God." true report that I heard, in mine own land, The story of their divine call and destination of thine acts, and of thy wisdom. Howbeit, must have been the subject of conversation I believed not the words until I came, and wherever they came; nor would they be mine eyes had seen it; and, behold, the half backward to make it so. They would, of was not told me; thy wisdom and prospericourse, communicate to others what Heaven ty exceedeth the fame which I heard. Haphad communicated to them. They would py are thy men, happy are these thy servexhort men, as they went, to save them-ants, which stand continually before thee, selves from that untoward generation. That and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the such conversations and such exhortations were not without fruit, we may conclude from the mention that is made of " the souls which they had gotten in Haran," or the persons they had converted, and adopted into the holy family. The behaviour of Abimelech and his subjects is very observable, and shows there was, even among them, a sense and fear of God, which, it is apprehended, we might now look for in vain in countries calling themselves Christian. The deliverance of Abraham's brother Lot, and the unparalleled overthrow of the cities of the plain by fire from heaven, must have been a very awakening and affecting call to all within hearing. Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel; because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king, to do judgment and justice*.” The mission of the prophet Jonah to preach repentance to the inhabitants of the great city Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, is an event which deserves a place in our considerations on the subject before us. When the Babylonian power was at its height under Nebuchadnezzar, the people of God, for their transgressions, were carried into captivity by him. Reflect upon the very remarkable incidents to which that captivity gave birth; the interpretation In process of time, we find Egypt, then the most powerful and learned of nations, "In Solomon's time there were 153,600 proopening its hospitable arms to receive the fa-selytes in the land "of lerael." 2 Chron. ii. 18. mily of Jacob, having owed its preservation, See FLEURY's History of the Israelites, Part II. in the days of dearth, to one of that family, ordained, in a wonderful manner, to save much people alive. Here the church was settled, increased and flourished for more than three hundred years, bearing testimony to the true religion, in the eye of the world. Let any one consider with himself the as chap. ix. p. 84. This little book contains a contoms, laws, polity and religion of the Israelites. It cise, pleasing, and just account of the manners, cusis an excellent introduction to the reading of the Old Testament, and should be put into the hands of every young person. An elegant English version of it, by bishop of CANTERBURY, was printed in 1756, for Mr. FARNEWORTH, dedicated to the present ArchWHISTON, WHITE, and Baldwin. |