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SERMON IX.

LUKE iv. 18, 19.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,-to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."*

IT

was, as it should seem, upon our Saviour's first appearance in the synagogue at Nazareth, the residence of his family, in the character of a public teacher, that to the astonishment of that assembly, where he was known only as the carpenter's son, he applied to himself that remarkable passage of Isaiah which the evangelist recites in the words of my text. This day," said our Lord," is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." The phrase "this day," is not, I think, to be understood of that particular Sabbath-day upon which he undertook to expound this prophetic text to the men of Nazareth; nor your ears," of the ears of the individual congregation assembled at the time within the walls of that particular synagogue. The expressions are to be taken according to the usual latitude of common speech,—

this day," for the whole time of our Lord's appearance in the flesh, or at least for the whole season of his

Preached before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, June 1, 1793.

public ministry; and " your ears," for the ears of all you inhabitants of Judea and Galilee, who now hear my doctrine and see my miracles. Our Lord affirms that in his works, and in his daily preaching, his countrymen might discern the full completion of this prophetic text, inasmuch as he was the person upon whom the Spirit of Jehovah was-whom Jehovah had anointed " to preach the gospel to the poor"-whom Jehovah had sent to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,—to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."

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None but an inattentive reader of the Bible can suppose that these words were spoken by the prophet Isaiah of himself. Isaiah had a portion, without doubt, but a portion only, of the Divine Spirit. In any sense in which the Spirit of Jehovah was upon the prophet, it was more eminently upon him who received it not by measure. The prophet Isaiah restored not, that we know, any blind man to his sight, he delivered no captive from his chain. He predicted indeed the restoration of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity,—their final restoration from their present dispersion, and the restoration of man from the worse captivity of sin: but he never took upon him to proclaim the actual commencement of the season of liberation, which is the thing properly implied in the phrase of "preaching deliverance to the captives," To the broken-hearted he administered no other balm than the distant hope of one who in future times should bear their sorrows; nor were the poor of his own time particularly interested in his preaching. The characters, therefore, which the speaker seems to assume in this prophetic text, are of two kinds, -such as are in no sense answered by any known circumstance in the life and character of Isaiah, or of any other personage of the ancient Jewish history, but in

every sense, literal and figurative, of which the terms are capable, apply to Christ; and such as might in some degree be answered in the prophet's character, but not otherwise than as his office bore a subordinate relation to Christ's office, and his predictions to Christ's preaching. It is a thing well known to all who have been conversant in Isaiah's writings, that many of his prophecies are conceived in the form of dramatic dialogues, in which the usual persons of the sacred piece are God the Father, the Messiah, the prophet himself, and a chorus of the faithful: but it is left to the reader to discover, by the matter spoken, how many of these speakers are introduced, and to which speaker each part of the discourse belongs. It had been reasonable therefore to suppose, that this, like many other passages, is delivered in the person of the Messiah, had our Lord's authority been wanting for the application of the prophecy to himself. Following the express authority of our Lord, in the application of this prophecy to him, we might have spared the use of any other argument, were it not that a new form of infidelity of late hath reared its hideous head, which, carrying on an impious opposition to the genuine faith, under the pretence of reformation, in its affected zeal to purge the Christian doctrine of I know not what corruptions, and to restore our creed to what it holds forth as the primitive standard, -under that infatuation, which by the just judgment of God ever clings to self-sufficient folly, pretends to have discovered inaccuracies in our Lord's own doctrine, and scruples not to pronounce him, not merely a man, but a man peccable and fallible in that degree as to have misquoted and misapplied the prophecies of the Old Testament. In this instance our great Lord and master defies the profane censures of the doctors of that impious school. This text, referred to its original place in the book of Isaiah, is evidently the opening of a prophetic

dialogue; and in the particulars of the character de, scribed in it, it carries its own internal evidence of its necessary reference to our Lord, and justifies his application of it to himself, as will farther appear from a more particular exposition.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” or “over me.” The expression implies a superiority and control of the Divine Spirit,--the Spirit's government and guidance of the man, and the man's entire submission, in the prosecution of the work he had in hand, to the Spirit's direction.

“ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me.” Under the law, the three great offices of prophet, priest, and king, were conferred by the ceremony of anointing the person. The unction of our Lord was the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him at his baptism. This was analogous to the ceremony of anointing, as it was a mark publicly exhibited, “ that God had anointed him,” to use St. Peter's expression, “ with the Holy Ghost and with power.”

It will seem nothing strange that Jesus, who was him. self God, should derive authority from the unction of that Spirit which upon other occasions he is said to give, and that he should be under the Spirit's direction, if it be remembered that our Lord was as truly man as he was truly God,—that neither of the two natures was absorbed in the other, but both remained in themselves perfect, notwithstanding the union of the two in one person. The Divine Word, to which the humanity was united, was not, as some ancient heretics imagined, instead of a soul to inform the body of the man; for this could not have been without a diminution of the divi. nity, which, upon this supposition, must have become obnoxious to all the perturbations of the human soul, to the passions of grief, fear, anger, pity, joy, hope, and disappointment,-to all which our Lord, without sin,

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was liable. The human nature in our Lord was complete in both its parts, consisting of a body and a rational soul. The rational soul of our Lord's human nature was a distinct thing from the principle of divinity to which it was united; and being so distinct, like the souls of other men, it owed the right use of its faculties, in the exercise of them upon religious subjects, and its uncorrupted rectitude of will, to the influence of the Holy Spirit of God. Jesus indeed “ was anointed with this holy oil above his fellows,” inasmuch as the intercourse was uninterrupted, the illumination by infinite degrees more full, and the consent and submission, on the part of the man, more perfect than in any of the sons of Adam; insomuch, that he alone, of all the human race, by the strength and light imparted from above, was exempt from sin, and rendered superior to temptation. To him the Spirit was given not by measure. The unmeasured infusion of the Spirit into the Re. deemer's soul, was not the means, but the effect, of its union to the second person of the Godhead. An union of which this had been the means, had differed only in degree from that which is in some degree the privilege of every true believer,—which in an eminent degree was the privilege of the apostles, who, by the visible descent of the Holy Ghost upon them on the day of Pentecost, were in some sort, like their Lord, anointed with the unction from on high. But in him the natures were united, and the uninterrupted perfect commerce of his human soul with the Divine Spirit, was the effect and the privilege of that mysterious conjunction.

“ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel.” To preach the gospel.The original word, which is expressed in our En-, glish Bibles by the word “gospel,” signifies good news, a joyful message, or glad tidings: and our English word

gospel,” traced to its original in the Teutonic language,

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