let it be seen by my readers. I took the former part of his advice twelve years ago, and now I think the time is come when I may take the latter; imploring the Divine blessing on what I now commit to the press; that, as we see more intimately into the ways of God, we may daily love him more, and serve him better. Amen..

A

DISCOURSE, &c,

MANY good Christians, who read the word of God with a desire to profit by it, and have been taught, that whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning (Rom. xv. 4.), have their doubts concerning the use of many things they find in the Scripture; not being able to see how they can answer that general design of adding to our learning, and thereby leading us to more patience and comfort. The apostle takes a passage from the psalms of David, and understands Jesus Christ to be the speaker of it; and lest we should wonder or be offended at this use of the Scripture, he tells us the rule is general, that the things written aforetime are to be thus applied to Jesus Christ; without

which they are nothing to us as Christians, neither shall we find in them the comfort they were intended to give. In the way I shall take of illustrating this doctrine, I shall bring strange things to the ears of some people, and such as they will never be able to receive; yet others, who will receive them, and be edified by them, as primitive Christians were, ought to have a sight of them.

I once met with a person, a clergyman of no mean learning, who, not having observed how things are related to one another in the great plan of redemption, objected to the use of the Magnificat, in the service of the church, as a form that could have no relation to us. The virgin Mary, he said, being the mother of Christ, might very properly use the words of that hymn; but that they could not belong to ús, nor be used by us, with any propriety. To this it was answered, that as Jesus Christ did not come into the world for the purpose of making the virgin Mary a mother, but to save mankind, every Christian soul has reason to rejoice with her. Christ, who was formed in the blessed virgin, is also formed in us *; and the mother of Christ, like Sarah, the mother of

the promised seed, in her spiritual capacity, is a figure

T4

Gal. iv. 19.

a figure of the church, that blessed Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all: so that the words, which were spoken by her, may be used by all Christians, with the utmost truth and propriety. Each of us may truly, My soul doth magnify the Lord, for he, who regarded the virgin, did regard her for my salvation; that Christ might be formed in me, as he was in her. He that sent away the rich, and accepted a lowly maiden, hath cast off and sent empty away the proud Jews, and condescended to regard and magnify us poor, Gentiles. When the promise,

made to the church of Israel in our father Abraham, was fulfilled to the blessed virgin, it was fulfilled to us, that is, to the seed of Abraham for ever, which seed are we at this day. Thus is the magnificat brought

home to us, and the use of it in the church, to the end of the world, is justified.

may

This example sheweth us, how it be true, that no Scripture is of any private interpretation; that a fact, when recorded in the Scripture, does not end in the private parties of whom it is told, but belongs to us and to our children *, and is to be applied to something beyond itself. When the goodness of God is acting for the benefit of some of his saints,

* Deut. xxix. 29.

† 2 Pet.i. 20.

saints, and (as inexperience might suppose) for the benefit of them only, his foreknowlege is acting for us all, and a record of the matter becomes prophetical. Many passages, therefore," of the Scripture, when properly understood, and discreetly applied according to the rule of the apostle, will turn out to be highly significant, even though they may seem at first sight to have no relation to us; and, in some cases, even to contradict the laws of divine wisdom and justice.

I shall now produce some examples: and, that this may be done in an orderly manner, I shall begin with the case of our father Abraham. We read that he had a son by an Egyptian bond-maid, whose name was Hagar; which thing, though contrary to the moral or social law of God, is yet perfectly agreeable to the laws of his providence and the sense of his promises. The apostle has, therefore, treated of this case without any censure; instructing us that the whole is an allegory, a prophetical transaction: that in the two persons of Sarah and Hagar we are to see the two characters of the spiritual and the temporal Jerusalem and from the conditions and characters of their two children Isaac and Ishmael, we are to learn how it was to be with the natural and

spiritual