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promised source of salvation," Luke i. 28, 29. And subsequent to these mysterious predictions concerning the supposed child of a carpenter, came forth a prophet, contemporary in birth with Jesus Christ, appointed to be his immediate forerunner, to prepare the way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight, and he declared of him that "he that cometh from above, is above all;" and that "he that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life," John iii. 31, 36.

Thus, from the first obfcure hint of salvation to our original parents, do the prophecies gradually approximate to an explanation of the great glory which should in the end be revealed; but by no means have they become so explicit yet, as to render a revelation unnecessary; nay, there is yet to proceed a new species of previous intimation to mankind of "the salvation of God which all flesh shall see," Luke iii. 6; and accordingly now came forth the great subject of all that had been testified, but not yet to be declared, nor yet indeed the full subject of the prophecy, nor of the subsequent teftimony of the spirit, having before him that mighty work to do, toward which the hopes of the prophets looked as the fource of deliverance, in vain searching into what the manner of it was to be; a work by which we have received the atonement, and obtained reconciliation, the word and ministry of which was afterwards to be committed by God to those who were to be appointed witnesses of our Lord: and this ministry of reconciliation is that which alone can be, according to the fcriptures, ponounced the manifestation of Jesus Chrift; and therefore I confider himself, even the Lord of glory, who was crucified, who arose from the grave, and afcended into heaven, as only bearing, by his miracles, a practical testimony during his stay on earth, to that which should be revealed of him when his work should be finished. This, indeed, I admit mit to be a much closer evidence of the Godhead than any given before; and that, perhaps, by which the minds of men should be led to look upon the expected King of the Jews in a much more exalted light than the former prophecies had instructed them to do. It is such an evidence as, when referred to, might well provide credit when it should come to pass, for that which before it came to pass it had foreshewn. Our Saviour himself, for the most part, declines bearing witness to himself, but refers both to the scriptures which had now begun to be fulfilled, and which he defires to have diligently fought into as about to receive their full completion, and to the teftimony of the Holy Ghost, hereafter to be given for the purpose of manifesting him; and whenever he does bear record, it is rather such as he would have fecond to that which should follow the finishing of his work here, thence to derive its explanation, than such he would have principal in the line of evidence.

Had our blessed Lord and Saviour borne any ultimate testimony to the Jews that he was God, they had not then thro' ignorance killed the Prince of Life, Acts iii, 15, for they would have known this hidden mystery; and, "had they known it," says St. Paul, " they would not have crucified the Lord of glory," I Cor. ii. 8; and so the very end of his coming in the flesh would have been defeated; mankind must still have remained due to the justice of God, without the atonement which we have received by the death of Christ. The blood of our gracious Redeemer was to be the price of our falvation, and would it have been consistent with wisdom to take measures to prevent the shedding of it? It was enough that his miracles should testify of him to those who were afterwards to preach him, and offer them to mankind as marks of a life consistent with what they should relate concerning his death, refurrection, and ascension,

which were the great perfuafives to believe in his Godhead, and in that mighty work which he came in the flesh to accomplish for our fake.

Our Saviour, I say, did not frequently bear record to himself; but continuing the train of prophecy of that by which we also have become the children of Abraham, the Israel of God, even of that which all the prophets had in view, the redemption of mankind, he very frequently foretells his own fufferings; that "the Son of man shall be lifted up as Moses lifted up the ferpent in the wilderness;" that "he will raise the temple in three days, and this he spake of his body;" and " that he will go before us into heaven." That this great event, attended by such mighty consequences to us, consolatory in every woe of Ifrael, and making all men heirs of falvation, should be the object of prophecy, and of the subsequent teftimony of the Holy Ghost, no man surely can doubt, when, in order to enable us to become partakers of the benefits thence derived to mankind, it is necessary that we believe in Christ, " who gave himself a ransom for all, to be teftified in due time," 1 Tim. ii. 6. "How beautiful then upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring good tidings of good!" A preacher, even the Holy Spirit, has instructed us in the salvation which is of God, and "faid unto Zion, thy God reigneth."

This then is the line of teftimony; this the object of revelation, namely, that " Christ, by being made perfect, has become the author of eternal falvation unto all them that obey him;" that he hath been the Redeemer of mankind by the full accomplishment of all that he came to do for us; and not, according to Mr. Lindsey, that he has merely come into the world as a teacher, the truth of whose doctrines were to be witnefsed by his death. And let not this be confidered as an unsupported

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unsupported suggestion of my own, it is authorised by St. Luke in the first chapter of the Acts; where, speaking of that hiftory which he had before set sorth of the life of our Saviour, he is so far from confidering it as the manifestation of Christ, that he says, "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which he was taken up :" and also by St. Mark, who has entitled his hiftory of our Redeemer "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Chrift," Mark i. 1; so that all the life of our Lord in the flesh was but a commencement of that which was afterwards to be revealed. In the moment of his afcent too, the same apostle presents Christ telling his disciples that "ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghoft is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerufalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utermost part of the earth," Acts i. 8. Of what were they to be witnesses unto him? of that which he had already died to testify? Was his death then fo defective a testimony to those who had seen it in Jerufalem, and who had also seen his refurrection? If these were intended but as a mere teftimony that he had lived, wrought miracles, and taught among them, we must declare that they have come very short of answering the purpose, if there still remained a neceffity of appointing farther witnesses to concur in proving their object. Was it ever before heard of, that the breathless corpse of a man is a better evidence of his having been born into the world than his living and active body, that our Saviour's death should be confidered only as a proof of his life? Did a continued series of miracles, performed before the eyes of the multitude, stand in need of one more, to prove to those who had feen them, that they had been performed? or are those moral doctrines, which our blessed Redeemer delivered to mankind, of such a dubious nature, that any man should entertain a doubt of

their justice, requiring so strong an engine as the death and refurrection of the preacher, in order to remove it? No, but on the contrary, so obvious is their rectitude, so far from requiring any teftimony whatsoever to their indisputable truth, that many who never became Christians allowed their value; and even Trajan, who persecuted those "who called upon Christ as God," adopted from his fermons that charitable doctrine of returning good for evil. But of what were they to be witnesses unto him? of his death and refurrection? What? to Jerufalem, and all Judea, and to Samaria? did Chrift hang invisible on a cross at Jerufalem, that a witness shall be wanting to testify it? or was his death and refurrection a transaction carried on in secret? On the contrary, at the very time when he was dragged " from judgment to pour out his foul unto death; when he was numbered with the tranfgreffors, and made interceffion for the tranfgreffors," Ifaiah liii. all Judea were eye-witnesses of the fact; for it was at the time of the passover, when all Judea had come up to Jerufalem, the scene of the transaction, to celebrate that feast: nay, farther, where all Judea, as if to fill up the measure of her rebellions, and justify her approaching defolation, had, with one voice, cried out, "crucify him, crucify him." Of this then they were not to be witnesses unto him; but of that which the prophets had not made manifest, of that which the life and lefsons of our Saviour himself had not made manifeft, without a farther explanation. They were to be witnesses unto him that he was the expected Christ, and that the Christ was the " mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace;" that the Godhead of him, whom their own eyes had feen, so far from being a great king, that he was actually in "the form of a servant," and an ignominious sufferer, was the royalty which

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