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of which in this world you will never repent, and for which in the world to come you will never cease to render everlasting songs of praise and joy! Amen.

SERMON III.

ON LOOKING UNTO CHRIST.

ISAIAH XLV. 22.

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.

THESE words evidently refer to the brazen serpent which Moses, at the command of God, lifted up in the wilderness of Sinai. We learn from the book of Numbers, that the people of Israel, by their unbelief and murmurings, had displeased the Lord, and provoked him to visit them with manifestations of his wrath. As a judgment on their sin, he sent among them fiery serpents, which bit the people; and no cure for the bite being found out, great numbers died. Terrified at this judgment, they came to

Moses, confessed their guilt, and besought him to intercede with the Almighty in their behalf. Moses at their request besought the Lord; and the Lord heard his prayer. He did not indeed grant the very thing which was asked, nor give relief in the exact manner that the Israelites had required. Instead of immediately removing the serpents from them, he revealed a way in which those who were bitten might be cured; at the same time that it would put their faith and obedience to the trial.

The Lord commanded Moses to make a serpent of brass, and having set it on a pole, to raise it up in the midst of the camp, that it might be seen by the whole congregation. To this serpent, thus lifted up, the people were directed to look; while it was promised, that every one who was bitten should on beholding it be cured. And thus it came to pass, as many as believed, and obeyed the direction, were instantly healed.

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Now, as the brazen serpent was lifted up for the healing of the Israelites, so was the Son of Man lifted up for the healing of the nations. It is in this interesting point of view, as lifted up

for the redemption of mankind, that the prophet Isaiah in our text contemplates and describes the Messiah promised to the fathers. This prophet always abounds with the most sublime views of the gospel. and kingdom of Christ. But the scene which he here exhibits appears to be the noblest and most affecting that can be conceived by the mind of man.

While the whole world was groaning under the heavy pressure of the fall, afflicted by sin, that most direful and most fatal disease; while it was thereby subjected, not only to temporal, but to eternal death; the Saviour is lifted up on Mount Calvary; immediately the sun withheld his light; the earth was darkened, and the rocks were rent; the light of his Father's countenance was withdrawn, and divine wrath was poured out in all its fury upon his head. Omnipotence alone could sustain the dreadful shock. In the midst of this awful conflict, the soul of Jesus seemed to rise above its own agony, and to feel for men. Forgetful of the malice of his enemies, at the very time he was enduring its most direful effects,

he prays his Father to forgive them, and viewing with pity a perishing world, he exclaimed, in the words of the prophet, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the "ends of the earth."

Such, my brethren, is the noble and affecting view in which the prophet represents Jesus in the passage before us. And from this view the two following observations naturally arise.

First, The words of the text are addressed to persons in a distressed and dangerous condition. They are persons who stand in need of a Saviour; and they are required to look to Christ for salvation. As it was the painful feeling of the bite of the fiery serpents, which alone could induce the Israelites to look to the brazen serpent for a cure; so before men can be persuaded to look to Christ, they must be sensible of their lost and diseased condition. They must be convinced that they are sinners, both by nature and practice, and stand exposed to the just wrath of God, both in time and through eternity. Christ came, not "to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance;" he came "to seek and

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