SERMON XV.

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MATTHEW XI.

Art thou be that should come, or do we look for another ?

T is univerfally known and acknow- SERM.

ledged, that at the time of our blessed Saviour's appearance upon earth, the Jews were in daily and continual expectation of a Meffiah; a circumstance which we should naturally have fuppofed would in the most effectual manner have prepared their minds for the reception of our bleffed Redeemer, who left the bofom of his Father, to fave mankind from eternal misery and destruction. With the utmost surprise and aftonishment, therefore,

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SERM. therefore, do we find them rejecting that bleffing which they had fo long wished for, and doubting the divinity, of that Meffiah whom they had been in fuch conftant expectation of.

When John had heard in prifon, says St. Matthew, the works of Chrift, he fent two of his difciples to fay unto him, Art thou be that should come, or do we look for another?

or, in other words, Art thou indeed the great Meffiah, who has been foretold by our prophets, who haft been fo long and fo impatiently wished for by us all? Art thou he? or muft we ftill want, and ftill look for another?

In the confideration of these words, it may not be amifs previoufly to obferve, that John fent this meffage to Jefus, not to satisfy himself, but his difciples, with whom he had already ufed every argu

ment

ment in favour of Chrift. He could not SERM.

himself in the leaft doubt the divinity' of our Saviour, whom he had baptized, on whom he had feen the Spirit defcend in form of a dove, and heard the voice from heaven, faying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. John, therefore, we may reft affured, was thoroughly fatisfied; but his difciples were not: they were ftill incredulous. John therefore fent them to Jefus himself, who he hoped would foon convert and convince them.

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I propofe, therefore, in the following discourse, to confider,

Firft, The reafon which induced the Jews to doubt the divinity of the true Meffiah, and to look for another; and,

Secondly, To lay before you the more weighty and convincing arguments, which

Should

E RM. fhould have perfuaded them not to look for

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another, but to be thankful for the appearance of the great Redeemer, Jesus Christ the righteous.

And Firft, then, One of the reafons, and perhaps the principal, why they looked for another Meffiah, was, their mistaking and mifapprehending their own prophecies, as delivered in holy writ. The kingdom of the Meffiah is in feveral parts of holy writ stiled an everlasting kingdom, a kingdom that fhould never pafs away; from whence the Jews abfurdly concluded, that when the Meffiah came, he was not to die, but to abide with them for ever.

They did not confider that the everlafting kingdom was not to be poffeffed by him on earth, but reserved for him as his reward in heaven and as he appeared not only as a mere mortal, but as one of

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the most miferable and afflicted alfo, they SERM. paid but little regard to his future immortality.

But a Second reafon why the Jews looked for another Meffiah was, That Chrift preached falvation to the Gentiles. So long had this haughty nation been accustomed to confider themselves as the chofen people of God, the darling favourites of the Almighty, that they could not bear the thought of dividing that love which they were used to engross, and sharing that patrimony which they looked upon themselves alone as entitled to their ideas were too felfish, too narrow and contracted to form any notion of a Redeemer who was to live and die for all mankind. When they found, therefore, that the first work which Jefus employed himself in, was to pull down the partition wall between Jew and GenVOL. I. U

tile,