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SERMON II.

The Prediction of the MESSIAH.

[Preached on Christmas-Day.]

ISAIAH ix. 6.

Unto Us a Child is born, unto Us a Son is given, and the government fhall be upon his fhoulder; and his Name fhall be called wonderful, Counfellour, The mighty God, the everlafting Father, the Prince of Peace.

OD, the Supreme Governour S ER M. and Lord of the Universe; II. G who worketh all things after

the Counsel of his Will; having appointed, in the unfearchable Wisdom

II.

SER M. of his Government that the Method by which finful men fhould be brought unto Salvation, fhould be by his Son's appearing and fuffering in the Flesh; thought fit, from the Beginning of the World, to give men at first obscure Notices, and afterwards by degrees clearer and clearer predictions, of a Saviour who fhould come in the fulness of Time, to be their Redeemer, Mediator, Interceffor and Judge. In which whole Difpenfation, as in all other Matters, when we affirm that God difpofes things after the Counsel of his own Will, we must always take care so to understand this, and other the like Expreffions of Scripture, that it may fignify, not what vain and prefumptuous men are apt to mean, when They talk of acting according to their own Will and Pleafure, that is, arbitrarily and without reafon; but the meaning of this fort of expreffions, when applied to God, who can never pleafe to do any thing but what is beft, is This only; that his mere Will and Pleasure ought abundantly to fatisfy us, that tho' we do not perhaps know in particular what all the reafons are, yet

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II.

in reality there always are in the things S ER M• themselves the greatest and strongest reasons, upon account of which every thing that He does, is in itself the beft and fittest to be done. Having therefore in perfect Wisdom, as Supreme Governor and Lord of all, determined to bring finful Man to Salvation by this particular Method; he opened his divine Intention at first obfcurely to Adam, by promifing that the Seed of the Woman should bruife the Serpent's Head: And afterwards · a little further to Abraham, by showing him that in His feed fhould all the Nations of the Earth be bleffed: Then, with ftill more diftinct circumstances, to Mofes; under the numerous types and fhadows of the Law. And laftly, more and more plainly and explicitly, as the Time drew nearer, by full and clear Predictions of many fucceffive Prophets. Under all which feveral Difpenfations, they who obeyed the word of God, according to the manner in which it was Then respectively revealed to them, were each of them entitled to the Benefit of the whole Salvation; and, notwithstanding their different

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SER M. different degrees of Knowledge, are all of II.

them finally to be gathered together into One in Chrift; fo that He, to whom much is revealed, shall have nothing over; and He, to whom was revealed but little, fhall have no lack; when, at the confummation of all things, they shall all meet in one great and general Affembly of the first-born which are written in Heaven; Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles; and whosoever have in all Ages, after the pattern of these great Examples, obeyed the Commandments of God as made known to them, whether by the Light of Nature, or by the Law of Mofes, or by the Gospel of Christ.

Of all the Prophecies in the Old Teftament, concerning this Method which the divine Wisdom has appointed, of bringing men to Salvation; there is none that contains a clearer and more diftinct, a fuller and more particular prediction, than the words now read unto you for the Subject of our present Meditations: Unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given, and the Government shall be upon his shoulder; and his Name fhall be called Wonderful,

Counsellor,

Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlast- S E R M. ing Father, The Prince of Peace. In II. difcourfing upon which words at This Time, the Method fhall be, to confider and explain diftinctly the feveral particulars, whereof the Text confifts, in the Order they lie; and from each particular fo explained, to infer in its place, as we go along, what may be usefully and practically deduced therefrom.

Unto Us a Child is born: These words, as they found in the English, may seem at first fight to exprefs nothing more, than the natural Birth of fome eminent perfon. But in the strict sense of the original, and according to the intention of the whole Prophecy, 'tis plain they must be so understood, as if they had been thus rendred; Unto us is born The Child, abfolutely and by way of eminence; That Child, whom all the Prophecies from the beginning of the World, in their final intention pointed at; whom this Prophecy of Ifaiah, thro' every part of it, describes under different Characters; and whom the Text may reasonably be fuppofed to refer to as particularly before-mentioned, ch. vii. 14.

The

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