for his mother.") Which passages and the like, how patly and punctually they do square to respective passages in the gospels, I need not to show; we do all, I suppose, well enough remember that both most doleful and comfortable history, to be able ourselves to make the application.

But there are not only such oblique intimations, shrouded under the coverture of other persons and names, but direct and immediate predictions concerning the Messias's being to suffer most clearly expressed. That whole famous chapter in Isaiah (the 53rd chapter) doth most evidently and fully declare it, wherein the kind, manuer, causes, ends, and consequences of his sufferings, together with his behavior under them, are graphically represented. His appearing meanness; (He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him')- The disgrace, contempt, repulses, and rejection he underwent; (He is despised and rejected of men-we hid our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not')-His afflicted state; (He is a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted')-The bitter and painful manner of his affliction; (He was stricken; bore stripes, was wounded, was bruised')-His being accused, adjudged, and condemned as a malefactor; (He was taken from prison and from judgment-he was numbered among the transgressors')-His consequent death; (He poured out his soul unto death; He was cut out of the land of the living')— The design and end of his sufferings; they were appointed and inflicted by Divine Providence for our sake, and in our stead; for the expiation of our sins, and our salvation; (It pleased the Lord to bruise him: he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin : He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was on him; and with his stripes we are healed:''Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:''For the transgression of my people he was smitten :'"The Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all') — His sustaining all this with a willing patience and meekness; (‹ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a

sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth') -His charitable praying for his persecutors; so that may be understood, (He made intercession for the transgressors')The consequence and success of his sufferings; ('He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowlege shall my righteous servant justify many;' and, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.') Which passages as they most exactly suit to Jesus, and might in a manner constitute an historical narration of what he did endure, together with the opinions taught in the gospel concerning the intent and effect of his sufferings; so that they did (according to the intention of the Divine Spirit) relate to the Messias, may from several considerations be apparent; the context and coherence of all this passage with the preceding and subsequent passage, which plainly respect the Messias, and his times: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!' and, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently,' &c. are passages immediately going before, of which this 53rd chapter is but a continuation; and immediately after it followeth, Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear,' &c. being a very elegant and perspicuous description of the church augmented by accession of the Gentiles, which was to be brought to pass by the Messias. The general scope of this whole prophecy argues the same; and the incongruity of this particular prediction to any other person imaginable beside the Messias doth farther evince it; so high are the things which are attributed to the suffering person; as that he should bear the sins' of all God's people, and heal them; that he should by his knowlege justify many;' that 'the pleasure of the Lord should in his hand;' that God would divide him a portion prosper with the great,' and that he should divide the spoil with the strong;' the magnificency and importance of which things do well agree to the Messias, but not to any other person: whence if the ancient Jews had reason to believe a Messias, they had as much reason to apply this place to him as any other, and to acknowlege he was to be a great sufferer; and indeed divers

of the ancient Targumists and most learned Rabbins did expound this place of the one Messias that was to come, as the Pugio Fidei and other learned writers do by several testimonies show. This place also discovers the vanity of that figment devised by some later Jews, who, to evade and oppose Jesus, affirmed there was to be a double Messias, (one who should be much afflicted, the other who should greatly prosper,) since we may observe that here both great afflictions and glorious performances are ascribed to the same person.

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The same things are also by parts clearly predicted in other places of this prophet, and in other Scriptures: by Isaiah again in the chapter immediately foregoing; Behold,' saith he,' my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high,' (there is God's servant (he that is in way of excellency such, that is, in this prophet's style, the Messias) in his real glorious capacity; it follows concerning his external appearance,) his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men' and again, in the 49th chapter, Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One; To him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship.' What can be more express and clear, than that the Messias, who should subject the world, with its sovereign powers, to the acknowlegement and adoration of himself, was to be despised by men, to be detested by the Jews, and to appear in a servile and base condition? The same prophet again brings him in speaking thus: I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair! I hid not my face from shame and spitting.' His offending the Jews and aggravating their sins is also expressed by this same prophet; And,' saith he, he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.' The opposition also he should receive is signified in the second Psalm; The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed.' The prophet Zechariah doth also in several places very roundly express his sufferings: his low condition in those words; Behold, thy King cometh unto thee

lowly, (pauper,) and riding on an ass :' his manner of death in those; Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts; smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered:' and again; I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look on me, whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn,' &c. The prophet Daniel also in that place, from which probably the name Messias was taken, and which most expressly mentions him, saith, that after threescore and two weeks the Messias shall be cut off, but not for himself.' Now from these passages of Scripture we may well say with our Lord; "Ore ourw γέγραπται, καὶ οὕτως ἔδει παθεῖν τὸν Χριστόν· That thus it was written,' and thus, according to the prophet's foretelling, it was to happen, that the Messias should suffer;' suffer in a life of penury and contempt, in a death of shame and sorrow.

That it was to be thus might also be inferred by reasons grounded on the qualities of the Messias's person, and the nature of his performances, such as they are described in the Scripture. He was to be really and to appear plainly a person of most admirable virtue and good worth; but never was there or can be any such, (as even Pagan philosophers, Plato, Seneca, and others, have observed) without undergoing the trial of great affliction.

He was to be an universal pattern to men of all sorts, (especially to the greatest part, that is, to the poor,) of all righteousness; to exemplify particularly the most difficult pieces of duty, (humility, patience, meekness, charity, self-denial, intire resignation to God's will;) this he should not have opportunity or advantage of doing, if his condition had been high, wealthy, splendid, and prosperous. He was to exercise pity and sympathy towards all mankind; the which to do it was requisite he should feel the inconveniences and miseries incident to mankind. He was to advance the repute of spiritual and eternal goods; and to depress the value of those corporeal and temporal things which men vainly admire; the most ready and compendious way of doing this was by an exemplary neglecting and refusing worldly enjoyments, (the honors, profits, and pleasures here.) He was by gentle and peaceable

means to erect a spiritual kingdom, to subdue the hearts and consciences of men to the love and obedience of God, to raise in men the hopes of future rewards and blessings in heaven; to the accomplishment of which purposes temporal glory had been rather prejudicial than conducible. He was to manage his great designs by means supernatural and divine, the which would be more conspicuous by the visible meanness and impotency of his state. He was to merit most highly from God for himself and for all men; this he could not do so well as in enduring for God's sake and ours the hardest things. He was to save men, and consequently to appease God's wrath and satisfy his justice by the expiation of our sins; this required that he should suffer what we had deserved. But reasons of this kind I partly before touched, and shall hereafter have occasion to prosecute more fully in treating on the article of our Saviour's passion.

Now that Jesus (our Lord) did most thoroughly correspond to whatever is in this kind declared concerning the Messias, we need not by relating minutely the known history of his life and death make out farther; since the whole matter is palpably notorious, and no adversary will deny it. I conclude this point with St. Peter's words, (for the illustration and proof of which this discourse hath been made;) But those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.'