shall be revealed from heaven, to his enemies a flaming and consuming fire, to his faithful people a mild and gracious light; and "all flesh shall see it together." Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him. The mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it, and therefore it will be done.

And thou, O Lord Jesus Christ! who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee, grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; that at thy second coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be ascribed, as is most due, all blessing and honour and glory and power, now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON III.

ISAIAH, C. i. v. 11.

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, of lambs, or of he-goats.

THE book of the prophet Isaiah describes so emphatically the essentials of pure and undefiled religion, and represents in so circumstantial a manner the great work of our redemption, that he has been considered as deserving the name of an evangelist rather than of a prophet. We find accordingly throughout the New Testament, citations from his prophecies more frequent than from any other of the prophets. The very name of Isaiah, as a learned commentator on his writings has remarked, is in some measure descriptive of his character, since it signifies "the salvation of Jehovah." So exactly and so divinely indeed does he describe the Messiah, and characterise

his kingdom: so highly favoured is he with an intimate view of the gospel plan, from the very birth of our Saviour, to be conceived of a virgin, to that glorious and triumphant period when all the gentile nations should come to worship before him, that his energetic and realizing descriptions resemble more a narrative of past or passing events, than a prediction of those which are to

come.

By the sole help of his illumination, the expositors of the gospel are enabled to understand Isaiah, and the interpreters of Isaiah to understand the gospel. His anticipations of the principal incidents in the evangelical history, the preaching of our Lord, his miracles, his peculiar qualities and virtues, his rejection, and sufferings as an atonement for our sins, his death, burial, and victory over death, his ascension, and his coming to judgment at the last day, are not so much recited in words as pourtrayed and embodied by the strength of his images and the glow of his expressions. He speaks, indeed, of himself as enlightened by vision; and the internal evidence of his writings authenticates his claim to inspiration he utters his enraptured strains with an elevation and majesty which unhallowed lips could never have attained. He is full, not

only of the prophetic, but of the apostolic spirit; and we might with an authorised boldness call his prophecies, "the Gospel according to Isaiah."

It is therefore with the utmost propriety that this portion of scripture is, by ancient and immemorial usage, appointed to be read in our churches at this season of the year, as being the best preparative for the Advent of our Lord, the foundation of the evangelists and apostles, the sublime portraiture of the nature, person, and offices of the Messiah, and of the stupendous things which he has done and suffered for the salvation of mankind. The grand exordium in the first chapter of his prophecy, inculcates the momentous truth, that national sins will bring down national judgments. The prophet, in a lofty tone of holy indignation, calls upon all created beings, celestial and terrestrial, to attend and bear witness to the justice of his plea against his degenerate countrymen. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken; I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." He upbraids them, as degraded by their gross insensibility and base ingratitude, below those

animals labouring in their service, which, though irrational and mute, yet acknowledge the master who fed and sheltered them, by significant marks of grateful attachment. He charges them with so incorrigible a spirit of revolt from the God of their fathers, as, instead of being reformed, only grew more presumptuous and insolent, from his repeated corrections. He brands them with the foul name of rulers of Sodom and people of Gomorrah; and well does their moral history justify the opprobrious appellation. He tells

them, their hands were full of blood, and their multiplied acts of cruelty, oppression, and murder, substantiated the charge. Yet, amidst all this gross and scandalous depravity of the people and their rulers, it appears that there subsisted an ostensible and specious regard for the ritual observances of the national religion, arising out of the senseless and profligate imagination that their observance of the ritual law would cover their violations of the law of righteousness and mercy, and that, by the multitude of their sacrifices and oblations, they might compound with the Almighty for the multitude and the magnitude of their sins. This "refuge of lies," the prophet "sweeps away" with his bold invective in the words of the text, "To what purpose is