SERMON II.

THE ADVENT OF OUR LORD.

"Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not : behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recom pense; he will come and save you.”—ISAIAH, Xxxv. 4.

THE predictions of the prophet Isaiah relative to the Advent of our Lord, are so striking and remarkable, that were there not indisputable proof to the contrary, they might almost appear the vivid narrative of past events, rather than stirring indications of the future. Isaiah was, indeed, the sublime herald of those "glad tidings" which were afterwards to make the desert to rejoice, and blossom as the rose; which should, in the beautifully expressive language of prophecy, occasion the "lame man to leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing."

Accordingly, when our Saviour appeared in his high mediatorial capacity, and attested, by the most surpassing miracles, his power and his love; crowds of troubled spirits flocked around him, and exulted in the experience of those important services, which their necessity required.

The

lame man leapt in new and boundless transport; the speechless-burst into the triumphal song of praise. The eyes which had been sealed from their natal hour, now opened in ecstacy to the light of day, and fixed their grateful gaze upon the benevolent aspect of their redeeming Friend. The deaf heard: and the poor-those who, if sound of limb-and in the full possession of all their natural faculties, were sadly deficient in spiritual gifts-the poor, and they who ate the bread of affliction, and drank the waters of bitterness, had the Gospel preached unto them, in words of heavenly mildness-and with the force of heavenly truth. Well then might the prophet say, "Be strong, fear not: behold your God;" and the people of Israel, as they subsequently followed him into Jerusalem, exclaimed, "Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

But strong and vehement as the popular voice was on many occasions-ardent and zealous as the feelings of some undeniably were proved,— yet out of the multitudes who frequently attended His course, too many were there who, like the Pharisees, would have rebuked the acclamations of His disciples, and have silenced the testimony of His advocates and friends. They were "strong" only in prejudices, and "fearful" only of the triumph of true religion-of the final establishment of Christ's transcendent power.

Although His miraculous works, and not less wonderful doctrines; His gentleness, his patience, his forbearance, attracted them in despite of themselves though they followed Him from place to place, they yet leagued to betray Him; they objected, and they maligned. They were afraid of His being the Messiah, and tormented Him by a continual snare of captious inquiries. When all had failed, this adulterous generation sought after a "sign," as if every action of His glorious existence, every word of His inspired tongue was not an indisputable sign of His celestial mission! They were "strong and feared not;" but it was in an unworthy cause. They would not "behold their God," for, though they had eyes, they were unwilling to acknowledge the evidence of their

senses.

John the Baptist, the immediate forerunner of our Lord, came preaching repentance to the Pharisees and Sadducees; the most corrupt and the most hypocritical of all the religious sects that then, or perhaps that ever flourished. He plainly and expressly announced the appearance of one far mightier than himself; and on the arrival of that illustrious Person, bore testimony to the truth of His miraculous endowments. They heard the Baptist's warning voice, and they followed him into the wilderness of Judea. But when our Saviour Himself asked whether the mission of this His precursor were " from heaven, or of men,"

these sects, alone swayed by their rebellious passions and unhappy prejudices, answered the question by asserting that they "could not tell," though all beside them held him as a prophet. "Generation of vipers," said John in the early part of his ministry, when he observed how they flocked to be baptised in the river Jordan, "Generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" "If ye cannot tell whether I am from heaven or of men,”—he might also have said "if ye do not acknowledge me as a prophet-as the messenger of one whose shoes I am not worthy to bear, what brings ye here? why do ye require to be baptised by me?" "I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance; but He that cometh after me shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

The Pharisees and Sadducees were on every occasion the most vehement opponents of our Lord; and they pursued Him throughout his arduous ministry with the most pertinacious and desperate malignity. Unable to disprove His mighty works; with that common resource of little minds and malicious hearts, they attributed them to the power of Evil, although, in every instance, His efforts had been directed to overthrow that power. They were proud, rapacious, and extortionate; they were ostentatious in their religious observances, and, with great pretence of devotion, flagrant violators of divine and

human laws; they were, as Christ declared, "fools, and blind" to that which was the most obvious and the most important; exact in trifles only, and loading others with burdens, which, in every particular, they uniformly shrunk from themselves.

Such was the numerous class of men, whom Christ, in the very commencement of His toils, had perpetually to cope with; and it was therefore natural that they should despise the humility which they never practised, and hate the tenets which so much rebuked their own. Christ, in all His demeanour, as well as in the tones of tender encouragement, said to those that were of a fearful heart, "Be strong, fear not; behold your God!" But the Pharisees, on the contrary, crushed them beneath the weight of their unmerciful opinions. They filled all with terror who stood in the circle of their influence; for they were perverse and cruel, "hateful, and hating one another." The lowly Jesus, notwithstanding, full of divine compassion for these and all the lost sheep of the house of Israel, struggled, with vain but persevering love, to bring them back into the paternal fold. He delivered Himself to all mortal afflictions, and supplied in every situation a high example of all that was most glorious and impressive in the character of man. He comforted the distressed, and stimulated the fearful and desponding to new encounters and to bolder