Page:The rock of wisdom.djvu/98

 Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you," To preach the gospel, is to preach it in the purity of life, as a system enforced by divine authority, commanding submission in the name of the Lord Jesus, under the pain of eternal death, and with a promise of eternal life to all who shall hear it. The philosophy of the system, and it has a philosophy, is another affair; every christian must have sometimes been sensible of an insensible majesty and authority in the preacher, who proclaims the gospel solely as the word of God, commanding submission in his name. This, I presume, is what is meant by preaching it, not with the enticing words of men's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the spirit, and that with power. By this we may see the sun at his high meridian, which is the beauty of the day.

Now with the great command to Abraham to offer up his son Isaac, the Paskal lamb, the mercy-seat, the sprinkling of blood and making; atonement for the sins of the people, was the type of the Messiah, who commanded the patriarch and prophet from time to time, foretold he was Jacob-Shiloh unto whom the gathering of the people should be; Job's redeemer, that shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; Moses' prophets, unto whom all should hearken; hosannah O King! the annointed; David's King, set on Zion's hill, who shall have the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession; his Lord who shall sit at the right hand of God until his enemies be mede his footstool; solemn wisdom and chiefest among ten thousand; and the rose of Sharon the lilly of a valley was like unto Isaiah's wonderful counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Jeremiah's righteousnes; Ezekiel's shepard and plant of renown, who should feed his people; Daniel's Messiah, who should be cut off but not tor himself: Micah's Judge of Israel, whose going forth has been from of old and from everlasting. Zephaniah's Lord and God; Hagia's desire of all nations; Zackeriah's King, Just and having salvation, lowly and riding on an ass; Malachi's messenger of the covenant, who was at the appointed time sent into the world, in the reign of Herod, King of Juda. The heretic in those days most impiously inferred that the blessed virgin might have had other children besides Christ, but Jerome shows by divine examples