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firft. The fpirit and the things of it, are congenial to our depraved inclinations; and efpecially in early life, our unexperienced hearts form high expectations from it, and we rather hope to find it a paradise, than a wilderness. But when the convincing power

of the Holy Spirit, opens the eyes of the understanding, we awake as from a dream; the enchantment by which we were deluded is broken, and we then begin to judge rightly of the world; that it is a wearifome wilderness indeed, and that our only important concern with it, is to get happily out of it. In a fpiritual view a wilderness is a fignificant emblem of the state of mankind, both Jews and Heathens, at that period which the apostle calls the fulness of time, when God fent forth hisSon*.

Ifrael, once the beloved people of God, was at that time fo extremely degenerated, that, a few individuals excepted, the vineyard of the Lord, fo highly cultivated, fo fignally protected, yielded only wild grapes. Though they were not addicted to imitate the idolatry of the Heathens, as their forefathers had been, they were no lefs alienated from the true God; and their wickednefs was the more

* Gal. iv. 4.

+ Ifai. v. 4.

aggravated, for being practised under a profelfed attachment to the forms of his law. They drew nigh to God with their lips, but their hearts were far from him*. Their very worfhip profaned the temple in which they gloried, and the holy house of prayer, through their abominations, was become a den of thieves. They owned the divine authority of the Scriptures, and read them with feeming attention, but rendered them of none effect, through the greater attention they paid to the corrupt traditions of their elders. They boasted in their relation to Abraham as their father, but proved themselves to be indeed the children of thofe, who had persecuted and murdered the prophets +. The Scribes and Pharifees, who fat in the chair of Mofes, and were the public teachers of the people, under an exterior garb of fanctity, of prayer and fafting, were guilty of oppreffion, fraud and uncleannefs: and while they trusted in themfelves that they were righteous, and defpifed others, their real character was a combination of pride and hypocrify. Therefore he who knew their hearts and faw through all their difguifes, compared them + Matt. xxiii. 30, 31.

1 *Mark vii. 6.

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to painted fepulchres, fair to outward appearance, but within full of filth and impurity *. From the spirit of these blind guides we may judge of the spirit of the blind people, who held them in admiration, and were willingly directed and led by them. Thus was the faithful city become a harlot, it was once full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers +. Such a wilderness was Judea when MESSIAH condescended to vifit it.

Among the heathens, ignorance, idolatry, fenfuality and cruelty univerfally prevailed. Their pretended wife men had, indeed, talked of wisdom and morality from age to age. But their speculations were no more than fwelling words of vanity, cold, trifling, uncertain, and without any valuable influence, either upon themselves or upon others. They had philofophers, poets, orators, musicians and artists, eminent in their way; but the nations reputed the toft civilized, were overwhelmed with abominable wickedness equally with the reft. The fhocking effect of their idolatry upon their moral principles and conduct, notwithstanding their attainments in arts and

* Matt. xxiii. 27.

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† Ifai. i. 21.

science,

science, is described by the apoftle in the close of the first chapter of his epiftle to the Romans. With great propriety therefore the ftate of the world, both Jew and Gentile, confidered in a moral view, is compared by the prophet to a wilderness-a barren and dreary wafte. The pursuits and practices of the world were diametrically oppofite to the fpirit and defign of that kingdom which MESSIAH was about to fet up; and therefore, as the event proved, directly disposed to withftand his progrefs. But

II. Before his appearance a way was prepared for him in the wilderness.

The providence of God, by a gradual train of dispensations, disposed the political state of mankind in a fubferviency to this great event. All the commotions and revolutions which take place in the kingdoms of the earth, are fo many detached parts of a complicated but wifely determined plan, of which the eftabliflument of MESSIAH's kingdom is the final caufe. The kings and politicians of the world are not aware of this. God is not in their thoughts. But while they pursue their own ends, and make havock of the peace of mankind, to gratify their own interests and

ambition, and look no higher, they are ignorantly and without intention, acting as inftruments of the will of God. The wrath of man is overruled to his praise and his purpofe *, and fucceeds fo far as it is inftrumental to the accomplishment of his designs, and no farther. While they move in this line, their schemes, however injudiciously laid, and whatever difproportion there may seem between the means they are poffeffed of and the vaft objects they aim at, profper beyond their own expectations, but the remainder of their wrath he will restrain. Their best projected and best supported enterprizes iffue in shame and disappointment, if they are not necessary parts of that chain of causes and events which the Lord of all has appointed. Thus Sennacherib, when fent by the God whom he knew not, to execute his difpleafure against the kingdom of Judah, had, for a time, a rapid and uninterrupted series of conquests † : but his attempt upon Jerufalem was beyond the limits of his commission and therefore failed. Among the principal inftruments who were appointed to prepare a way in the wilderness for MESSIAH, and to facilitate the future * Pfal. lxxvi. 10. + Ifai. xxxvii, 26—29.

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