knowledge, in studies of natural things; but this is nothing to that joy which arises from this divine light shining into the soul. This light gives a view of those things that are immensely the most exquisitely beautiful, and capable of delighting the eye of the understanding. This spiritual light is the dawning of the light of glory in the heart. There is nothing so powerful as this to support persons in affliction, and to give the mind peace and brightness in this stormy and dark world. 3. This light is such as effectually influences the inclination, and changes the nature of the soul. It assimilates the nature to the divine nature, and changes the soul into an im age of the same glory that is beheld. 2 Cor. iii. 18. “But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." This knowledge will wean from the world, and raise the inclination to heavenly things. It will turn the heart to God as the fountain of good, and to choose him for the only portion, This light, and this only, will bring the soul to a saving close with Christ. It conforms the heart to the gospel, mortifies its enmity and opposition against the scheme of salvation therein revealed: It causes the heart to embrace the joyful tidings, and entirely to adhere to, and acquiesce in the revelation of Christ as our Saviour. It causes the whole soul to accord and symphonise with it, admitting it with entire credit and respect, cleaving to it with full inclination and affection; and it effectually disposes the soul to give up itself entirely to Christ. 4. this light, and this only, has its fruit in an universal holiness of life. No merely notional or speculative understanding of the doctrines of religion will ever bring to this. But this light, as it reaches the bottom of the heart, and changes the nature, so it will effectually dispose to an universal obedience. It shows God's worthiness to be obeyed and served. It draws forth the heart in a sincere love to God, which is the only principle of a true, gracious, and universal obedience; and it convinces of the reality of those glorious rewards that God has promised to them that obey him. SERMON XXVIII.* The Church's Marriage to her Sons, and to her God. ISAIAH lxii. 4, 5. THY LAND SHALL BE MARRIED. FOR AS A YOUNG MAN MARRIETH A VIRGIN, SO SHALL THY SONS MARRY IN the midst of many blessed promises that God makes to his church in this and the preceding and following chapters, of advancement to a state of great peace, comfort, honor and joy, after long continued affliction, we have the sum of all contained in these two verses. In the 4th verse God says to his church, "Thou shalt no more be termed, Forsak *Preached at the instalment of the Rev. Mr. Samuel Buel, as pastor of the church and congregation at East Hampton, on Long Island, September 19, 1746. en; neither shall thy land any more be termed, Desolate But thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land, Beulah : For the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married." When it is said, "Thy land shall be married," we are, by thy land, to understand the body of thy people, thy whole race;" the land, by a metonymy very usual in scripture, being put for the people that inhabit the land. The 5th verse explains how this that is promised in the last words of verse 4, should be accomplished in two things, viz. in being married to her sons, and married to her God. But 1. It is promised that she should be married to her sons, or that her sons should marry her: For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee." Or, as the words might have been more literally translated from the original : "As a young man is married to a virgin, so shall thy sons be Some by this understand a promise, that married to thee the posterity of the captivated Jews should return again from Babylon to the land of Canaan, and should be, as it were, married or wedded to their own land; i. e. They should be reunited to their own land, and should have great comfort and joy in it, as a young man in a virgin that he marries. their thus interpreting the words seems to be through inadvertence; not carefully observing the words themselves, how that when it is said, "So shall thy sons marry thee," God does not direct his speech to the land itself, but to the church whose land it was; the pronoun thee being applied to the same mystical person in this former part of the verse, as in the words immediately following in the latter part of the same sentence, "And as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, It is the church, and so shall thy God rejoice over thee." not the hills and valleys of the land of Canaan, that is God's It is also manifest, that when bride, or the Lamb's wife. God says, "So shall thy sons marry thee," he continues to speak to her to whom he had spoken in the three preceding verses; but there it is not the ground or soil of the land of Canaan, but the church, that he speaks to when he says, "The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Thou shalt no more be termed, Forsaken," &c. And to represent the land itself as a bride, and the subject of espousals and marriage, would be a figure of speech very unnatural, and not known in scripture; but for the church of God to be thus represented is very usual throughout the scripture from the beginning to the end of the Bible. And then it is manifest that the return of the Jews to the land of Canaan from the Babylonish captivity, is not the event mainly intended by the prophecy of which these words are a part. The time of that return was not the time when that was fulfilled in the 2d verse of this chapter, " And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name." That was not the time spoken of in the two preceding chapters, with which this chap.er is one continued prophecy. That was not the time spoken of in the last words of the foregoing chapter, when the Lord would cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nadons: Nor was it the time spoken of in the 5th, 6th, and 9th verses of that chapter, when "strangers should stand and feed the flocks of God's people, and the sons of the alien should be their ploughmen, and vine dressers; but they should be named the priests of the Lord, and men should call them the ministers of God; when they should eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory beast themselves, and their seed should be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people; and all that should see them should acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed." Nor was that the time spoken of in the chapter preceding tha:, "when the abundance of the sea should be converted unto the church; when the isles should wait for God, and the ships of Tarshish to bring her sons from far, and their silver and gold with them; when the forces of the Gentiles and their kings should be brought; when the church should suck the milk of the Gentiles, and suck the breast of kings; and when that nation and kingdom that would not serve her should perish and be utterly wasted: And when the sun should be no more her light by day, neither for brightness should the moon give light unto her, but the Lord should be unto her an everlasting light, and her God her glory; and her sun should no more go down, nor her moon withdraw itself, because the Lord should be her everlasting light, and the days of her mourning should be ended." These things manifestly have respect to the Christian church in her most perfect and glorious state on earth in the last ages of the world; when the church should be so far from being confined to the land of Canaan, that she should fill the whole earth, and all lands should be alike holy. So that the children of Israel's being wedded to the land of Canaan, being manifestly not the meaning of these words in the text, "As a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee," as some suppose; I choose rather, with others, to understand the words of the church's union with her faithful pastors, and the great benefits she should receive from them. God's ministers, though they are set to be the instructors, guides, and fathers of God's people, yet are also the sons of the church. Amos ii. 11. “I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites." Such as these, when faithful, are those precious sons of Zion comparable to fine gold spoken of, Lam. iv. 2, spoken of "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they again, verse 7. were whiter than milk." And as he that marries a young virgin becomes the guide of her youth; so these sons of Zion are represented as taking her by the hand as her guide. Isai. li. 18. "There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth: Neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up." That by these sons of the church is meant ministers of the gospel, is confirmed by the next verse to the text, " I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem." |