SERMON III.

THE POWER AND LOVE OF CHRIST.

ISAIAH lxiii. 5.

Therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me.

WHEN a numerous host of angels declared the appearance of our Redeemer, their song was "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men." But what songs are those which we send forth upon the remembrance of that glorious manifestation? What suitable rejoicing do we show at this season. * Is the voice heard among us of those who rejoice for hell shut and heaven opened, for peace and glory promulged to a lost world? The days now before us were separated by the piety of our ancestors for holy joy; were separated that, with humble thankful hearts, we might give ourselves up to mutual congratulation, to speak one to another of the great things which the Redeemer hath done. But to think, how the approaching holy-days will be spent in this land; how the body of this people,

* The substance of this Sermon was preached the Sunday before Christmas-day.

as it were set loose and casting off all restraint, are going with a determined resoluteness into all manner of debauchery and riot, as if a license to sin upon this occasion had been issued from heaven; how doth it pierce every faithful heart with sorrow, and cover the loyal countenance with sadness! My brethren, what little spot will be undefiled? What corner of the land where God will not be peculiarly dishonoured, Christ trampled upon with a more than double portion of insolence, and vice wallow in mad lawlessness? Horrid expectation! But shall not we escape? Shall I not hope, that this seasonable word will check the sallies of intemperate mirth among you; and direct your joy into a better channel than that of drunken carousals and abused feasts? Your hearts must be hard and savage, if what you have heard already, and what is now to be advanced, do not gain so much as this with you, to be sober and considerate a few days. But to come nearer to the subject: If I have thus far prevailed; if conscience pronounces you guilty; and, from a deliberate attention to the consequences of sin, vengeance dismays you as a dishonourer of God's universal government, and as defiled and unfit for his presence, having found that no other way remains on your part to glorify God, than by the eternal suffering of his just indignation; and also that your rebellious spirit hath taken to it such dark and malignant dispositions, when filled to the full measure, (which they would necessarily grow up to, for any inclination or power you have to restrain them,) would leave only a meet companion for the accursed outcasts of

as,

you

heaven: if, with a fair inquiry, being just to your eternal interests, you have weighed what hath been before said, and are wondering at the immensity of ruin which sin hath introduced, surprised too with the conviction of your own helplessness; my doctrine shall drop upon you as the rain on a parched ground, "my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass, when I publish the name of the Lord" the rock of salvation, whose work is perfect. Upon a supposed conviction, now wrought in you, of your sinfulness, of the consequences of sin, and of your utter inability to remove them, I proceed to the

Third general proposition :

Christ is able to succour you, having taken away all those fearful circumstances, which were seen to be the result of sin: and, withal, he is willing to do

so.

First, He is able to succour you: for he hath fully vindicated and restored God's injured glory. Secondly, He hath obtained power to renew the hearts of men to their original purity.

Thirdly, He hath satisfied the demands of divine justice; and all this by his obedience, even unto death.

say, Who is he that Who is the person

First, but you are ready to is sufficient for these things? so dignified, as by his single might to set out the glory of God upon earth in its native grandeur and splendour; by his own meritorious doings, to bring all that honour to the divine government, which it

would have received from the universal obedience, loyalty, and submission of the whole race of mankind? What is his rank, that he should have power to prevail with God to return, and creating anew the souls of men, again to communicate himself to them? Who is that wondrous one, that could undergo the vengeance and the punishment which the sins of men deserved, and amply satisfy the strict demands of justice? Who is he, thus mighty to save? Suffer me, ye highest angels and archangels, ye cherubim and seraphim; ye can only be his attendants. Your kindest endeavours had left us without hope. You presume only to stand at a distance, and adore the counsels of divine wisdom; while admiration overspreads you, and your spirits cry with solemn sentiment, "How deep thy knowledge and wisdom, O God! How unsearchable thy judgments! How past finding out thy ways!"

"The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil;" that is, to restore that original state which sin had overturned, to effect a reconciliation between the Creator and the creature, wherein the majesty and justice of God should remain unhurt, and man, brought to obedience and submission, should live. "God was manifest in the flesh," upon this important reconciliation. The word, which was in the beginning with God, and was God, by whom "all things were made, and without whom was not any thing made that was made, was made flesh, and dwelt among us." In that flesh which he had assumed, now God and man mysteriously united, he was amply qualified to restore that

glory to God upon earth, of which sin had spoiled him; to quicken the souls of men sunk under the dominion of sin, and to bear the utmost inflictions of justice. And to these ends, in that flesh, he suffered death upon the cross.

Consider him not now, as a man merely of your own nature, but as a man of the same nature with you, united to the Deity. The man thus dignified, free from all spot of sin, gave himself a willing victim to the divine glory, was made a spectacle to angels and men, was lifted up to shame, and resigned his breath upon a tree; and this, with every circumstance of reproach which could possibly make sin appear infamous, and put it to shame. And what infamy or shame could sin be brought to in the face of the world, equal with the sacrificing of the only innocent man that was ever born, and this man also avowed to be the Son of God, wherever his name should be heard, and that by a death most vile and slave-like? Surely herein sin suffered disgrace indeed; and "the glory of God's government was fully vindicated."

As in human constitutions, when shaken by the insolence of rebellion, the execution of some capital rebel recovers the majesty and firmness of government, and makes rebellion shrink in the utmost corners of the land; so much more, in the offering up of Christ upon the cross, the honour of God's government is re-established, and, by reason of the innocence and dignity of the sacrifice, all the disgrace which man's sin and rebellion had brought upon it is wiped away. Possibly the evidence of this may not be so striking, but to enlightened and