SERMON XXXVI. Sanctity of the Apostles. T MATTHEW XI. 6. Bleffed is he, that shall not be offended in me. HE general prejudices of the Jewish nation concerning the royal state and condition of the Saviour, who was to come into the world,-was a stone of ftumbling, and a rock of offence, to the greatest part of that unhappy and prepoffeffed people, when the promise was actually fulfilled. Whether it was altogether the traditions of their fathers, -or that their rapturous expreffions of the prophets, which represented the Meffiah's spiritual kingdom in fuch extent of power and dominion, misled them into it-or that their own carnal expectations turned wilful interpreters upon them, inclining them to look for nothing but the wealth and worldly grandeur which were to be acquired under their deliverer:-whether these,-or that the fyftem of temporal bleffings helped to cherish them in this grofs and covetous expectation,-it was one of the great causes for their rejecting him."This fellow, we know not whence he is," was the popular cry of one part; -and they who seemed to know whence he was, fcornfully turned it against him, by the repeated quere,-Is not this the carpenter, the fon of Mary, the brother of James and Jofes, and of Juda and Simon?-and are not his fifters here with us?—And they were offended at him.So that, though it was prepared by GoD to be the glory of his people Ifrael, yet the circumstances of humility, in which he was manifested, were thought a scandal to them.-Strange!-that he who was born their king,-fhould be born of no other virgin than Mary,-the meanest of their people ;-(for he hath regarded the low eftate of his handmaiden)-and of one of the poorest too ;-for fhe had not a lamb to offer, but was purified, as Mofes directed in such a case, by the oblation of a turtle-dove;-that the Saviour of their nation, whom they expected to be ufhered amidst them with all the enfigns and apparatus of royalty, should be brought forth in a stable, and answerable to distress;-fubjected all his life to the loweft conditions of humanity: -that whilft he lived, he should not have a hole to put his head in, nor his corpfe in, when he died;-but his grave too must be the gift of charity.-Thefe were thwarting confiderations to those who waited for the redemption of Ifrael, and looked for it in no other fhape, than the accomplishment of those golden dreams of temporal power and fovereignty, which had filled their imaginations. The ideas were not to be reconciled; and fo infuperable an obstacle was the prejudice on one fide, to their belief on the other, that it literally fell out, as Simeon prophetically declared of the Meffiah, that he was fet forth for VOL. VIII. I the fall, as well as the rifing again, of many in Ifrael. -- This, though it was the cause of their infidelity, was however no excufe for it. For whatever their mistakes were, the miracles which were wrought in contradiction to them, brought conviction enough to leave them without excufe; and befides, it was natural for them to have concluded, had their prepoffeffions given them leave,-that he who fed five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, could not want power to be great;-and therefore needed not to appear in the condition of poverty and meannefs, had it not, on other fcores, been more needful to confront the pride and vanity of the world, and to fhew his followers what the temper of chriftianity was, by the temper of its first inftitutor ;-who, though they were offered, and he could have commanded them,-defpifed the glories of the world;-took upon him the form of a fervant;-and, though equal with GoD,-yet made himself of no reputation,-that he might fettle, and be the example of, so holy and humble a religion, and thereby convince his disciples for ever, that neither his kingdom, nor their happiness, were to be of this world. Thus the Jews might have eafily argued;-but when there was nothing but reason to do it with on one fide, and strong prejudices, backed with intereft, to maintain the difpute, upon the other, we do not find the point is always fo eafily determined.-Although the purity of our Saviour's doctrine, and the mighty works he wrought in its fupport, were demonftratively stronger arguments for his divinity, than the unrespected lowlinefs of his condition could be against it;-yet the prejudice continued ftrong;-they had been acustomed to temporal promises ;-fo bribed to do their duty, they could not endure to think of a religion that would not promife, as much as Mofes did, to fill their basket, and set them high above all nations:-a religion whofe appearance was not great and fplendid,-but looked thin |