66 mises," and so must we: for though some promises are fulfilled, yet others are not, nor can be, in this world. Our knowledge is not the less certain, nor our faith, built upon it, the less firm, because we have not exact and adequate notions of the manner of Christ's coming, the circumstances of the last judgement, and the glory that is to follow. The facts are sufficiently predicted; for an idea of the mode we must be contented to wait till faith shall give place to sight. And let the same observation be applied to the patriarchs and Israelites.

4.-That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.

The enemies and the salvation, here intended by Zacharias, are, without doubt, spiritual. Such a salvation, therefore, from such enemies, God " pro

mised by the mouth of his holy prophets, which "have been since the world began." When he saved his people of old from their enemies, and from the hand of all that hated them, his mercy so displayed was a figure for the time then present, a pledge and earnest of eternal redemption; as if he had said, "Ye shall see greater things than these." And the psalms formerly composed to celebrate the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian and Babylonian captivities, are now used, by the church Christian, to praise God for salvation from sin, death, and Satan: they are sung NEW in the kingdom of Messiah. "Old things are passed away, behold all things are "become new:" legal figures are vanished, and the

terms employed to describe them are transferred to evangelical truths. When the prophets composed

psalms on occasion of temporal deliverances, they looked forward to a future spiritual salvation; as Zacharias, in his hymn, the subject of which is a spiritual salvation, looks back, and has a reference to past temporal deliverances.

5. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant—

The " mercy promised to our fathers" was, therefore, a spiritual mercy; and the "covenant" made with them was a Gospel covenant; for otherwise, God could not be said, by raising up Christ, to have performed that mercy," and "remembered that "covenant." Accordingly, we are elsewhere told, "the Gospel was preached to Abraham";" and the covenant made with him is styled, "the covenant of "God in Christ"." The Gospel, then, was prior to the law, and was the patrimony of all the children of Abraham. "The law, which was four hundred "and thirty years after," whatever might be its intention, could not dispossess them of this their inheritance; it could not "disannul the covenant, and "make the promise of none effect." But if, on the contrary, it was designed to keep up, and further the knowledge of them; if it was a standing prophecy; if it was "a schoolmaster" by its elements training up and conducting its scholars "to Christ;" then

certainly nothing was wanting on the part of God. The Jews minded earthly things; but to infer from thence, that they were never taught the knowledge of things heavenly, would be a method of arguing too hazardous to be ventured upon: since, from the behaviour of many who profess the Christian religion, it might as fairly be concluded, that their Master promised nothing but "loaves and fishes." Israelites might set their hearts too much on "fields and "vineyards," forgetting or neglecting better things, as men are apt to do who are blessed with prosperity in this present world. But when they did so, they did wrong prophets were sent to reprove the error, and judgements to convince them, that Canaan was not the end of the "covenant," nor a plentiful harvest "the mercy promised."

6. The oath which he sware to our forefather Abraham

The amazing condescension of God, in vouchsafing, for man's satisfaction and assurance, to confirm his promise by an oath, is finely touched upon in the Epistle to the Hebrews. "When God made

"promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely, blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will "multiply thee-For men verily swear by a greater, "and an oath for confirmation is to them an end "of all strife. Wherein God, willing to show to the

heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, "confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable

"things, in which it was impossible for God to lie,

we might have a strong consolation, who have fled "for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before "usa." O the goodness of God, who hath given his creatures the assurance of an oath! O the infidelity of his creatures, who distrust that assurance"!

7. That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,

8. In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.

The promise, made with an oath to Abraham, was made, after the intentional sacrifice of Isaac, in the following terms: "By myself have I sworn"that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiply

ing I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, "and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and "in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be "blessed"." The objects of the blessing here promised are the faithful children of Abraham, whether Jews or Gentiles; the "seed," in whom they are blessed, is Christ; the manner in which he obtains the blessing, is by "possessing the gate of his ene"mies," that is, by subduing them, and seizing their

a Heb. vi. 13.

O beatos nos, quorum causa Deus jurat! O miserrimos, si nec juranti Domino credimus! Tertull.

Gen. xxii. 16.

strong holds; the blessing itself consisteth in a redemption from bondage under those enemies, and an admission into the service of God. Such is the substance and intention of the promise made with an oath to Abraham, as explained by Zacharias and fulfilled under the Gospel. In the mean time, between the promise and its accomplishment it pleased God to interpose a dispensation, which exhibited a visible representation of this great and important transaction in the case of the children of Israel, or the posterity of Abraham according to the flesh, who, after having been long detained in cruel bondage by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, were "delivered "out of the hands of their enemies;" and delivered for this purpose, that they might serve God with a prefigurative service, calculated to last "till the seed "should come to whom the promise was made." For thus Jehovah saith to Moses, "When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, they shall serve God upon this mountain "." So that when, at the transfiguration of our Lord upon mount Tabor, Moses discoursed with him on the subject of "his "decease," or, as it is in the original, his EXODUS, "which he should accomplish at Jerusalem," may we not imagine to ourselves the deliverer of Israel addressing the world's Redeemer in some such words as these By my hand the Lord God of Israel did once vouchsafe to bring forth his people from the afflicting bondage of Egypt; but thou shalt turn the multitude of the Gentiles from the power of Satan

d Exod. iii. 12.