'a body hast thou prepared me,' when indeed they had rendered the words, Mine ears hast thou bored?' How could St. Paul employ a fraud so gross to establish one of the most venerable mysteries of Christianity, I mean the doctrine of the incarnation? Had not his own conscience restrained him, a foresight of the reproaches, to which he must necessarily have exposed himself by such conduct, must needs have prevented it. need not mention now. Hence I infer, that in the period of which I am speaking, few people knew the custom of boring the ears of those slaves, who refused to accept the privileges of the sabbatical year. I say in this period, not after; for we find in the writings of those pagans, who lived in aftertimes, and particularly in the satires of Petronius and Juvenal, allusions to this cus tom. I observe, thirdly, that it was a general custom among the pagans to make marks on the bodies of those persons, in whom they claimed a property. They were made on soldiers, and slaves, so that if they deserted, they might be easily reclaimed. Sometimes they imposed marks on them who served an apprenticeship to a master, as well as on them who put themselves under the protection of a god. These marks were called stigmas; the word has passed into other languages, and St. Paul, probably, alludes to this custom in his Epistle to the Galatians, where he says, 'from henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,' chap. vi. 17. You may see several such allusions in the ninth of Ezekiel, and in the seventh of Revelations, where they, who had put themselves under the protection of God, and had devoted themselves to his service, are represented as markcd in the forehead with a certain mark respected by the messengers of his avenging justice. This first solution not appearing defensible to most learned men, they have had recourse to the following. The seventy translators, say they, or the authors of this version, that bears their name, whoever they were, knew the mystery of the incarnation: they were convinced, that this mystery was foretold in the fortieth psalm; and as Jesus Christ could not perform the functions of a servant, without uniting himself to a mortal body, they chose rather to give the meaning of the prophecy than to render the bare terms of it. Some have even gone so far as to affirm, that the Seventy did this by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. This solution has one great advantage, it favours the theological system of those who admit it, and every solution of this kind, will always have, independently on the accuracy and justness of it, the suffrages of great numbers. This opinion, however, is not free from difficulty. Do not the mistakes of which this version is full, and which the apostles have often corrected in their quotations of it, form insuperable objections against the imaginary doc- On these different observations I ground trine of their inspiration? But if the au- this opinion. The Seventy, or the authors thors of this version had not been inspired, of the version that bears their name, whowould it have been possible for them to have ever they were, thought, if they translated spoken of the mystery of the incarnation in the prophecy under consideration literally, it a manner more clear than any of the pro- would be intelligible to the pagans and to the phets? This difficulty appears to me the dispersed Jews, who, being ignorant of the greater, because I cannot find any Rabbi (I custom to which the text refers, would not except none) who ever understood the pro- be able to comprehend the meaning of the phecy in the fortieth psalm of the Messiah. words, 'mine ears hast thou bored.' It is St. Paul alone who gives us the true prevent this inconvenience, they translated sense of it. the passage in that way which was most proper to convey its meaning to the readers. It is well known that the pagans marked the bodies of their soldiers, and slaves, and disciples. Our authors alluded to this custom, and translated the words in general, thou hast marked my body, or thou hast disposed my body,' that is to say, 'thou hast disposed it in a way which is most agreeable to the functions in which I am engaging.' Now as this translation was well adapted to convey the meaning of the prophet to the pagans, St. Paul had a right to retain it. The conjectures that I have mentioned, appear to me very uncertain; I therefore hazard my own private opinion on the subject, and that proof which I think is the most proper to make it eligible, I mean the great simplicity of it, will be perhaps (considering the great love that almost all men have for the marvellous), the chief reason for rejecting it. However, I will propose it. I remark first, that the word used by the pretended Seventy, and by St. Paul, and rendered in our language prepared, is one of the most vague terms in the Greek tongue, and signifies indifferently, to dispose, to mark, to note, to render capable, and so on. This remark is so well grounded, that they, who think the Septuagint reading used the word cars instead of body, retain, however, the term in question, so that according to them, it may signify bore, cut, &c. To Thus we have endeavoured to explain the greatest difficulty in the terms of the text. The following words, ' In the volume of the book it is written of me,' refer to the manner in which the ancients disposed their books. They wrote on parchments, fastened one to another, and made rolls of them. The Hebrew term which St. Paul, and the pretended Seventy, render book, signifies a roll; and some think, the Greek term, which we render beginning, and which proper I observe, secondly, that before the Septuagint version of the Mosaic rites were very little known among the heathens, perhaps also among the dispersed Jews; it was a very common thing with the Rabbins to endeavour to conceal them from all, except the is written of me in the beginning of the book. inhabitants of Judea, for reasons which I *Il est cerit de moi au commencement du livre. It Fr. It is written of me in the volume of the book. Eng. ly signifies a head, alludes to the form of these rolls: but these remarks ought not to detain us. Jesus Christ, we are very certain, is in troduced in this place as accomplishing what the prophets had foretold, that is, that the sacrifice of the Messiah should be substituted in the place of the Levitical victims. On this account, as we said before, our text contains one of the most essential doctrines of the religion of Jesus Christ, and the establishment of this is our next article. In order to comprehend the sense in which the Messiah says to God, Sacrifice and of fering thou wouldst not,' we must distinguish two sorts of volition in God, a willing of a mean, and a willing of an end. God may be said to will a mean, when he appoints a ceremony or establishes a rite, which has no intrinsic excellence in itself; but which prepares them, on whom it is enjoined, for some great events, on which their felicity depends. By willing an end, I mean a production of such events. If the word will, be taken in the first sense, it cannot be truly said, that God did not will or appoint 'sacrifices and burnt-of ferings. Every one knows he instituted them, and regulated the whole ceremonial of them, even the most minute articles. On this account, St. Paul observes, when God had given Moses directions concerning the construction of the tabernacle, he said to him, 'See that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount,' Heb. viii. 5. But if we take the word will in the second sense, and by the will of God, understand his willing an end, it is strictly true, that God did not will or appoint sacrifices and burntofferings; because they were only instituted to prefigure the Messiah, and consequently as soon as the Messiah, the substance, appeared, all the ceremonies of the law were intended to vanish. Now, as we said in the beginning of this discourse, the Hebrews, who were contemporary with St. Paul, those, I mean, who made a profession of Christianity, had great occasion for this doctrine. If their attachment to the Levitical ritual did not operate so far as to hinder their embracing the profession of Christianity, it must be allowed, it was one of the principal obstacles to their entering into the true spirit of it. The apostles discovered, for a long time, a great deal of indulgence to those who were misled by their prejudice. St. Paul, a perfect model of that Christian indulgence and toleration, which the consciences of erroneous brethren require, became to the Jews a Jew;' and far from affecting to degrade the ceremonies of the law, observed them with a scrupulous exactness himself. But when it was perceived, as it soon was, that the attachment of the Jews to the ceremonies of the law, and particularly to sacrifices, was injurious to the sacrifice of the cross, the apostles thought it their duty vigorously to oppose such dangerous prejudices, and this is the design of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which St. Paul establishes his thesis, I mean the inutility of sacrifices, on four decisive arguments. The first is ta ken from the nature of the sacrifices. The second is derived from the declarations of the prophets. The third is inferred from types. And the last arises from the excellence of the gospel-victim. 'It is not possible,' says the apostle, immediately before my text, that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin,' Heb. x. 4, this is as much as to say, the blood of irrational victims is not of value sufficient to satisfy the justice of God, righteously expressing his displeasure against the sins of intelligent creatures. This is an argument, taken from the nature of sacrifices 'Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt,' chap. viii. 8, 9. This is an argument, taken from the decisions of the prophets. Jesus Christ is a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.' For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also, king of Salem, which is king of peace; without father, with out mother, with descent, having neither be ginning of days nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually. The law was a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, chap. vii. 17. 1, &c. and x. I. This is an argument taken from types. The argument taken from the excellence of the victim runs through this whole epistle, and has as many parts as there are characters of dignity in the person of Jesus Christ, and in his priesthood. 6 The first character of dignity is this. Je sus Christ is neither a mere man, nor an an gel, he is the Son of God, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person. He upholds all things by the word of his power,' chap. i. 3, and of him when he came into the world, it was said, Let all the angels of God worship him,' ver. 6. He, in a word, has the perfections of a supreme God, and to him the Psalmist rendered the homage of adoration, when he said, Thy throne, O God! is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou, Lord! in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish: but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old, as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail,' ver. 8, &c. The solemnity of the instituting of Jesus Christ is a second character of dignity. Christ glorified not himself to be made a hight priest: but it was God, who said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee,' chap. v. 5. The sacred oath that accompanies the promises, which Jesus Christ alone fulfils, is a third character of dignity. When God made H 6 promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely, blessing, I will bless thee, chap. vi. 14, The priests,' under the law, were made without an oath: but this with an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec, chap. vii. 21. The unity of the priest and the sacrifice is a fourth character of dignity. They truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death: but this man because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood,' ver. 23, 24. The fifth character of dignity is the magnificence of that tabernacle into which Jesus Christ entered, and the merit of that blood, which obtained his access into it. The first covenant had a worldly sanctuary,' chap. ix. 1, into the first room of which the priests went always, accomplishing the service of God; and 'into the second,the high priest alone went once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people. But Christ, being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, neither by the blood of bulls and calves, but by his own blood, entered not into holy places made with hands, which were figures of the true: but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us,' chap. x. 6, 7. 11, 12. 24. To what purpose are Levitical sacrifices, of what use are Jewish priests, what occasion have we for hecatombs, and offerings, after the sacrifice of a victim so excellent? My text contains one of the most essential doctrines of Christianity, that Jesus Christ of fered himself for us to the justice of his Father. This is a doctrine, the evidences of which we all receive with joy; a doctrine, the enemies of which we consider with horror; a doctrine of which we have the highest reason to be holily jealous, because it is the foundation of that confidence, with which we come boldly to the throne of grace, throughout life, and in the article of death: but a doctrine, however, that will be entirely useless to us, unless, while we take Jesus Christ for our Redeemer, we take him also for our example. The text is not only the language of Jesus Christ, who substitutes himself in the place of old testament sacrifices: but it is the voice of David, and of every believer, who, full of this just sentiment, that a personal dedication to the service of God is the most acceptable sacrifice, that men can offer to the Deity, devote themselves entirely to him. How foreign soever this second sense may appear from the first, there is nothing in it that ought to surprise you. This is not the only passage of holy Scripture, which contains a mystical as well as a literal signification, nor is this the first time in which the dispositions of inspired men have been emblems of those of the Messiah. Let us justify this second sense of our text. Come, my brethren, adopt the words, say with the prophet, and thus prepare your selves for the celebration of the festival of the nativity, which is just at hand, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not; but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou had no pleasure: then said I, Lo! I come, as it is written in the volume of the book, to do thy will, O God!' This is the second part, or rather the application of this discourse. II God willeth not sacrifices.' The meaning of these words is easily understood, I presume. They signify, that the only of fering, which God requires of us, is that of our persons. Recollect a distinction, which we made a little while ago, to justify the first sense of the text, and which is equally proper to explain the second. There is in God a two-fold will, a willing of means, and a willing of an end. If the word will be taken in the first sense, it cannot be said,' God willeth,' or desires, not sacrifices. lie appointed them as means to conduct us to that end, which he intended, that is, to the offering of our persons. I have been delighted to find this idea developed in the writings of those very Jews, who of all men have the strongest inclination to exceed in respect for the ceremonies of religion. I have my eye on a work of a Rabbi, the most respectable, and the most respected, of all, who are so called, I mean Moses Maimonides. The book is entitled, 'A guide to doubting souls. Under how many faces does he present this distinction? On what solid foundations does he take care to establish it? I should weaken the argu ments of this learned Jew, by abridging them, and I refer all, who are capable of reading it, to the book itself. You understand then in what sense God demands only the sacrifice of your persons. It is what he wills as the end; and he will accept neither offerings, nor sacrifices, nor all the ceremonies of religion, unless they contribute to the holiness of the person who offers them. Let us not rest in these vague ideas: but let us briefly close this discourse by observing, 1. The nature of this offering. 2. The necessity ofit. 3. The difficulties. 4. The delights that accompany it; and lastly, its reward. 1. Observe the nature of this sacrifice. This offering includes our whole persons, and every thing that Providence has put in our power. Two sorts of things may be distinguished in the victim, which God requires the sacrifice; the one bad, the other good. We are engaged in vicious habits, we are carried away with irregular propensities, we are slaves to criminal passions; all these are our bad things. We are capable of knowledge, meditation, and love; we possess riches, reputation, employments, and so on; these are our good things. God demands the sacrifice of both these. Say to God in both senses, Lo! I come to do thy will, O God! Whatever you have of the bad, sacrifice to God, and consume it in spiritual burnt-offering. Sacrifice to him the infernal pleasure of slander. Sacrifice to him the brutal passions that enslave your senses. Sacrifice to him that avarice which gnaws and devours you. Sacrifice to him that pride, and presumption, which swell a mortal into imaginary consequence, disguise him from himself, make him forget his original dust, and hide from his eyes his future putrefaction. More Nevochim. But also sacrifice your good things to God. You have genius. Dedicate it to God. Employ it in meditating on his oracles, in rectifying your own ideas, and in diffusing through the world by your conversation and writing the knowledge of this adorable Being. You have the art of insinuating your opinions into the minds of men. Devote it to God, use it to undeceive your acquaintances, to open their eyes, and to inspire them with inclinations more worthy of immortal souls, than those which usually govern them. You have credit. Dedicate it to God, strive against your own indolence, surmount the obstacles that surround you, open your doors to widows and orphans, who wish for your protection. You have a fortune. Devote it to God, use it for the succour of indigent families, employ it for the relief of the sick, who languish friendless on beds of infirmity, let it help forward the lawful desires of them, who, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, wander in the deserts of Hermon, and pour out these complaints on the hill Mizar,As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God! My soul thirsteth for God,' Ps. xliii. 1, 2, &c. My flesh crieth out for thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my king, and my God,' Ps. lxxxiv. 2, 3. 6 Having observed the nature of that offering which God requires of you, consider next the necessity of it. I will not load this article with a multitude of proofs. I will not repeat the numerous declarations that the inspired writers have made on this subject. I will neither insist on this of Samuel, To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams,' 1 Sam. xv. 22. Nor on this of the Psalmist,Unto the wicked, God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction?" Ps. 1. 16, 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,' Ps. li. 17 Nor on this of Isaiah, 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; put away the evil of your doings from beforo mine eyes, chap. i. 11. 16. Nor on this of Jeremiah. Put your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. But I commanded not your fathers, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings, or sacrifices: but this thing commanded I them saying, Obey my voice, and trust not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. Behold ye trust in lying words. Do not steal, Do no murder, Do not commit adultery,' chap. vii. 21-23. 4. 9. Nor will I insist on many other declarations of this kind, with which Scripture abounds: I have no need of any other testimony than that of your own consciences. To what purpose do you attend public worship in a church consecrated to the service of Almighty God, if you refuse to make your bodies temples to the Holy Ghost, and persist in devoting them to impurity? To what purpose do you hear sermons, if, as soon as the preacher has finished, you forget all the duties he has recommended? To what pur pose do you spread your miseries in prayer before God, while you neglect all the means, by which he has promised to relieve them? To what purpose do you approach the table of the Lord, if, a few days after you have partaken of the sacred elements, you violate all your vows, break all your promises, and forget the solemn adjurations which you made there? To what purpose do you send for ministers, when death seems to be approachiug, if as soon as you recover from sickness, you return to the same kind of life, the remembrance of which caused you so much hor ror when you were sick, and afraid of death? The sacrifice required of us is difficult, do you say? I grant it, my brethren, accordingly, far from pretending to conceal it, I make one article of the difficulties and pains that accompany it. How extremely difficult, when our reputation and honour are attacked, when our fidelity, our morals, our conversation, our very intentions, are misinterpreted, and slandered; how extremely difficult, when we are persecuted and oppressed by cruel and unjnst enemies; how hard is it to practice the laws of religion, which require us to pardon injuries, and to exercise patience and mercy to our enemies! How difficult is it to imitate the example of Jesus Christ, who, when he hung on the cross, prayed for them who nailed him there; how hard is it thus to sacrifice to God our resentment and vengeance? How difficult is it to sacrifice unjust gains to God, by restoring them to their owners; how hard to retrench expenses, which we cannot honestly support, to reform a table, that gratifies the senses, to diminish the number of our attendants, which does us honour, to lay aside equipages, that surround us with pomp, and to reduce our expenses to our incomes! How difficult is it, when all our wishes are united in the gratification of a favourite passion, O! how hard is it to free one's self from its dominion! How difficult is it to eradicate an old criminal habit, to reform, and to renew one's self, to form, as it were, a different constitution, to create other eyes, other ears, another body? How hard is it, when death approaches, to bid the world farewell for ever, to part from friends, parents and children! In general, how difficult is it to surmount that world of obstacles, which oppose us in our path to eternal happiness, to devote one's self entirely to God in a world, where all the objects of our senses seem to conspire to detach us from him! But, is this sacrifice the less necessary, because it is difficult? Do the disagreeables and difficulties, which accompany it, invalidate the necessity of it? Let us add something of the comforts that belong to it, they will soften the yoke that religion puts upon us, and encourage us in our arduous pursuit of immortal joy. Look, reckon, multiply as long as you will, the hardships and pains of this sacrifice, they can never equal its pleasures and rewards. What delight, after we have laboured bard at the reduction of our passions, and the reformation of our hearts: what delight, after we have striven, or, to use the language of Jesus Christ, after we have been in an agony,' in endeavouring to resist the torrent, and to survive, if possible, the dreadful storm, | us! What shall I say to you, my brethren, on that involves the Christian in his passage; what delight to find, that Heaven crowns our wishes with success! What delight when on examining conscience preparatory to the Lord's Supper, a man is able to say to himself, 'Once I was a sordid, selfish wretch; now my happiness is to assist my neighbour. Formerly, my thoughts were dissipated in prayer, my devotions were interrupted by worldly objects, of which the whole capacity of my soul was full; now, I am enabled to collect my thoughts in my closet, and to fix them on that God, in communion with whom I pass the happiest hours of my life. Once, I relished nothing but the world and its pleasures; now, my soul breathes only piety and religion.' What high satisfaction, when old age arrives, when our days are passing swifter than a weaver's shuttle, to be able to give a good account of our conduct, and, while the last moments fly, to fill them with the remembrance of a life well spent! When our sins present themselves before us in all their enormity; when we find ourselves in the situation mentioned by the Psalmist, My sin is ever before me,' Ps. li. 3, the image of bloody Uriah haunts me every where, then how happy to be enabled to say, 'I have wept for these sins, in the bitterness of penitence I have lost the remembrance of pleasure in sin; and I trust, by the grace of God, I am guarded against future attacks from them.' Such are the pleasures of this sacrifice: but what are its rewards! Let us only try to form an idea of the manner in which God gives himself to a soul, that devotes itself wholly to him. Ah! if we love him,' is it not because he first loved us? Alas! to what degree soever we elevate our love to him, it is nothing in comparison of his love to the love of God to us? What shall I say of the blessings, which he pours on these states, and on the individuals who compose them, of the restoration of peace, the confirmation of your liberties, the preservation of your lives, the long-suffering that he exercises towards your souls Above all, what shall I say concerning that great mystery, the anniversary of which the church invites you to celebrate next Lord's day? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,' John iii. 16. A God who has loved us in this manner, when we were enemies to him, how will he not love us, now we are become his friends, now we dedicate to him ourselves, and all besides that we possess? What bounds can be set to his love?' He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?' Rom. viii. 32. Here I sink under the weight of my subject. O my God! how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee! Ps. xxxi. 19. My God! what will not the felicity of that creature be, who gives himself wholly to thee, as thou givest thyself to him! Thus, my dear brethren, religion is nothing but gratitude, sensibility and love. God grant we may know it in this manner! May the knowledge of it fill the heart and mouth of each of us during this festival, and from this moment to the hour of death, with the language of my text, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt-offerings for sin, thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo! I come. I come, as it is written in the volume of the book, to do thy will, O God! May God condescend to confirm our resolutions by his grace. Amen. SERMON XXXIV. THE EFFICACY OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 2 CORINTHIANS V. 14, 15. The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him, which died for them, and rose again. MY BRETHREN, WE have great designs to-day on you, and we have great means of executing them. Sometimes we require the most difficult duties of morality of you. At other times we preach the mortification of the senses to you, and with St. Paul, we tell you, they that are Christ's, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts,' Gal. v. 24. Sometimes we attack your attchment to riches, and after the example of our great Master, we exhort you to lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where theives do not break through, nor steal,' Matt. vi. 20. At other times we endeavour to prepare you for some violent operation, some severe exercises, with which it may please God to try you, and we repeat the words of the apostle to the Hebrews, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin: wherefore lift up |