Page images
PDF
EPUB

PART I.

OBSERVATIONS

ON OUR LORD'S CONDUCT AS A

DIVINE INSTRUCTOR.

CHAPTER 1.

ON THE MATTER OF OUR LORD'S INSTRUCTIONS.

SECTION I.

WHAT OUR LORD TEACHES OF GOD THE FATHER.

с

a

OUR Lord represents the Deity as adorable and amiable in the highest degree. He is the most High, and Lord of heaven and earth; heaven is his throne, and earth his footstool; he is the one Jehod vah, and the only true God; he is a spirit, whom no man hath seen at any time; he hath h life in himself; he i seeth in secret; he * knoweth the heart; and with him all things are 'possible.

e

f

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

He arrayeth the herb of the field in more than regal glory; he "feedeth the fowls of the air; and without him not a sparrow falleth to the ground. Much more does his providence extend to man:" yea, the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and, when He vouchsafes protection, there shall not * one perish.

8

[ocr errors]

There is none good but God; who "so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He is also "righteous, "holy, * kind to the unthankful and evil, perfect in mercy, forgiving to the merciful, and a inexorable to those who withhold pardon and compassion from others.

с

y

He loveth those who observe our Lord's precepts he adopteth the peace makers for his sons: he abhorreth the lofty and ostentatious appearance which men admire he avengeth his faithful servants on their persecutors: it is not his will that any should perish: the pure in heart shall hereafter see him : and of him shall the good be eternally blessed, and the wicked eternally punished.

in Matt. vi. 29.

a ib. 26.

• Matt. x. 29. Tura cadere

solet; according to a known force of the Hebrew future.

26, 30. x. 31. Luke xxi. 18. pressed, see Acts xxvii. 34. xvii. 25. Luke vi. 36. b. John xiv. 23. f Matt. xviii. 14.

9 Matt. x. 30.

P Matt. vi. Luke'xii. 7.

Luke xii. 7.
That complete deliverance is thus proverbially ex-
1 Sam. xiv. 45. 2 Sam. xiv. 11. 1 Kings i. 52
"John iii. 16.

w ib. 11.

• Mark x. 18.

u

John

y Comp. Matt. v. 48. Matt. vi. 15. xviii. 35. ib. xviii. 6.

* Luke vi. 35.

z Matt. v. 7. vi. 14.

Matt. v. 9.
g Matt. v. 8.

d Luke xvi. 15.

h Matt. xxv. 34, 46.

h

But the image which perpetually occurs throughout the gospels, and under which our Lord delights to mention God, is that of our heavenly Father; who "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust," and is "kind to the unthankful and to the evil :" who' compassionates and embraces the returning sinner with the bowels of a most affectionate father; nay, who is actuated by a stronger principle than natural affection for "if we, being m evil, know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more shall our Father, who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him ?”

[ocr errors]

Such is the God whom we should " fear, because he is able to destroy both soul and body in hell; whom we should obey after the manner of the angels in heaven; from whom we should seek our Preward; to whose will we should wholly resign ourselves; and who is the sole object of our worship, service and prayer, and the highest and best object of our imitation and " love.

Matt. vi. 14, 26, 32, &c. Luke xv. 20.

i ib. v. 45.

* Luke vi. 35. Matt. vii: 11. Not absolutely evil; for God has implanted many good principles in the human mind: but comparatively so; subject to infirmities, passions, and the power of bad habits.

[blocks in formation]

• ib. vi. 10.
John iv. 23.
Matt. xxii. 37.

? Matt. vi. 1.
* John xvi. 23.

4 Matt. xxvi. Matt. v.

SECTION II.

WHAT HE TEACHES OF HIS OWN NATURE AND OFFICE.

d

b

с

glory with the

h

spake what he

man had seen

OUR Lord sometimes calls himself the Son of man; and sometimes eminently the Son, in contradistinction to the Father, or to the Father and the Holy Spirit; and with one or both of these he frequently joins himself in the passages where this appellation occurs: he likewise styles himself the Son of God, and his only begotten Son. Of himself he further asserts, that God loved him before the foundation of the world; that he had a Father before the world was; that he had seen with his Father, whom no & but himself alone; that he came down from heaven to do the will of Him that sent him; that he came forth from the Father and came into the world, and was to leave the world and go to the Father; that he should be seen ascending up where he was before and, because the Jews cavilled when he observed that Abraham saw his day with joy, he adds, m Before Abraham was, I am. It is true that he calls himself a man; but this no more excludes his divine nature, than the application of that term to angels excludes their angelic nature. He affirms

[ocr errors]

n

[blocks in formation]

which, by a metonymy of the effect, ó translate

[blocks in formation]

k

[blocks in formation]

John iii. 16, 18.
yaris.
hib. vi. 46.

© John Hebr.

John

iib.

[blocks in formation]

8 ib. viii. 38.

« PreviousContinue »