them by Force VIII. with a Word of his Mouth; and healed the SERM. Difeafes of those who but touched the Hem of his Garment: He caft out Devils by a fingle Command; brought to confefs and adore him. many Thousands together, it mattered not how fcanty the Provifion was; for the Fragments, that remained after all were filled, exceeded the Quantity that was at firft provided: Water, at his Word, immediately became Wine; or, when he had a Mind to walk on it, it bore him: No Storms could withstand his powerful Voice; but even the Winds and the Seas obeyed him: He raised even the Dead again to Life; the Dead that had been four Days laid in the Grave: Yea, even himself (being flain on the Cross) he raised again by his own victorious, almighty Power; and at laft afcended, in the Prefence of his Difciples, vifibly into Heaven. And thefe, furely, being Miracles beyond the Contrivance of any Art, or even the Power of Nature, to perform; they must demonftrate (as Nicodemus could not do otherwise than own; though Jefus, at that Time, had wrought but a few of them) that he must neceffarily be a Teacher come from God, fince no Man could do thofe Miracles which he did, except God were with him : VIII. SER M. John iii. 2. And therefore well might Peter pronounce him, after he had worked them all, a Man approved of God, by Miracles, and Wonders, and Signs, which God did by him, Acts ii. 22. If then he was a Prophet; a Prophet from God; and a Prophet that spake nothing but the Mind of God; as the Miracles, which he could work only by the Power of God, did evidently fhew; we then furely may admit his own Teftimony of himself at last, viz. that he was that one fupreme, anointed Prophet, the Meffias or Chrift, whom all the Prophets as well as Mofes had formerly foretold. This Character therefore he affumed to himself, when, entering into one of the Synagogues at Nazareth, where the Book of the Prophet Ifaias was delivered to him, he opened the Book, and found the Place where it was thus written: Luke iv. i6-21. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the Poor; he has fent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach Deliverance to the Captives, and recovering of Sight to the Blind, to fet at Liberty them that are bruifed, and to preach the acceptable Year of the Lord.-For, as foon as Jefus had read these Words, and took 1 VIII. took them for his Text, (and that to the SER M. firft Sermon he ever preached ;) he closed the Book, and gave it again to the Minister, and fat down: And when the Eyes of all that were in the Synagogue were fastened on him, he began to say unto them ;-This Day is this Scripture fulfilled in your Ears. By which he gave his Auditors to understand, that he did not undertake the Office he was performing merely of himself; but that he was anointed and affigned to it by the Holy Ghost: He being that Prophet, whom Ifaias, in the Words he had read to them, foretold ; and confequently that he was the expected Meffiab or Chrift. We confeís that, notwithstanding all his Doctrine and Miracles, the Jews, to whom they were principally applied, received him not: They would neither hear the one, nor be convinced by the other, but rejected both; haraffing and perfecuting him as long as he lived; and at laft hurrying him to an ignominious Death. But what is it that can be inferred from hence? Did that invalidate, or confirm his Authority?-CONFIRM it furely. For hear me read the latter Part of the Text again :-It shall come to pass that every Soul, that will not hear that Prophet, fhall be deStroyed VOL. II. L SERM. ftroyed from among the People. And pray VIII. what are become of that obftinate People who refused to hear him? Where are now the Jews, who rejected and flew him?-All fcattered and difperfed in every Country abroad, and scarce a fingle Man of them to be found in their own. Indeed had their City and Temple been still standing; and the Jews continued to dwell and worship there as before; we might have had Reason to doubt, whether He, whom they had fo cruelly used, (and they yet unpunished) could have been that Prophet, the Rejection of whom, according to Mofes's Prediction, was to be followed by fo fevere a Cutting off and Destrution. But fince their Temple and City both were, within a few Years after the Death of Jefus, utterly deftroyed, and not fo much as one Stone left upon another; (the Romans rooting up the very Foundations with a Plough;) and fince alfo the whole Body of the People were either destroyed or carried away Captive, and fold like Slaves in the Markets of all Nations, to the Amount of above 1,100,000 in all; both which Miffortunes Jefus himself had foretold them should come upon them, for not receiving him; fince these Things, I fay, were the VIII. Confequences that enfued; it is another good SER M. Proof, not only that Jefus was a true Prophet; but also that he was the very Prophet foretold by Mofes, the Refufal and Rejection of whom should be fo revenged. Accordingly St. Peter, when he preached to them the Sermon, out of which I have taken my Text, being fenfible that that Judgment was coming upon them, called upon them, if they could, to repent and avert it. Repent you therefore (faith he) and be converted, that your Sins be blotted out: ver. 19. may For Mofes truly faid unto the Fathers, &c. Which Prophecy being now clearly proved to have been perfectly compleated in the Perfon of Jesus; I fhall now In the Close, and by way of Application, take Notice of the Memento and Call, which both Mofes and Peter give unto all Men to hear and attend to him, and the Judgment which they denounce against those that hear him not. Him fhall ye hear, &c.—As these are Words of great Concernment to all to whom this Prophet is known; I shall endeavour to fix and fettle them in their Minds, by confidering them orderly, Line by Line, and by making my Obfervations as I go along. L 2 Mofes |