young

will set it, I will crop off from the top of his twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon an high mountain and eminent. In the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it; and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell. And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken, and have done it." The popular religion, which has appeared so high, green and flourishing, in which the carnal pride of man has so much delighted, is set forth, in the above text, as brought low and dried up; while the true gospel, which, in the eyes of vain professors, has appeared low and dry, even as a root out of dry ground, having no comeliness, is represented as being exalted and flourishing.

Christ and his doctrine, as they appeared to the scribes, pharisees, and doctors of divinity, was low, mean and contemptible. Many were the plausible objections which those self-stiled learned divines. could make to Jesus and his religion. He was not educated in their divinity school; he was not regu larly inducted into Moses' seat as a teacher; he went about as an innovator, preached any where, where he found an audience, sometimes on board of a ship, at another in some desert place, then on some mountain. He was remarkable for being a friend to sinners, and was constantly in their company, which he seemed to prefer to the company of those who supposed that their sanctity and zeal for the true religion would have attracted the

attention of any true prophet of God. He forgave sinners their sins, set them at liberty from Satan's yoke, and adopted them into his family; this was very disgusting to those who prided themselves on their own goodness.

If those sinners, who knew not the law, could be forgiven and admitted into divine favor, they were just as well provided for as those who had studied the law according to the rules of their school, fasted twice in a week, and paid tithes of all which they possessed. This, in their opinions,. must have appeared very irreligious and demoralizing, and of a tendency dangerous to the cause of true religion. The Sabbath day was so much disregarded as to have miracles of mercy performed on it, to the great grief of these godly fathers of the church. And, indeed, as if to render himself odious in their sight, Jesus informed them for certainty, that publicans and harlots should enter the kingdom of heaven before them. What couldthese blinded bigots naturally conclude, but that Jesus was a Samaritan and had a devil? Thus they thought, and thus they treated the Lord of glory with contempt, and his doctrine with scorn Yet this least of all seeds GREW, RUN AND WAS GLORIFIED, until its towering branches over-topped all the religion of the Scribes and Pharisees, putout the light of pagan idolatry, and become very glorious. But Zion in her travels has her nights as well as her days. Since the revival of the doctrine of the old Pharisees, together with many su perstitions of the Gentiles, all which have been established in Christendom, bearing the name of antichrist, Zion has been in the wilderness in a low condition and desolate. But her time is now

come, and the Lord is now fulfilling his promise in returning her captivity, and rendering her the joy of the whole earth. Her doctrine is as much despised by those who stand in the spirit and religion of the old Pharisees, as it was by those Pharisees when her Son preached it in the flesh. However, we have God's promise, and we may safely trust in it, that she shall be established in righteousness, and that she shall be far from oppression. That no weapon that is formed against her shall prosper: and every tongue that shall rise against her in judgment, she shall condemn.

PARABLE XV.

"Another parable spake he unto them, The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman, took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."

MAT. xiii. 33.

By this parable we learn, 1st. The divine efficacy of the gospel on the creature who stands in need of its salvation, by the power of leaven operating in meal.

2d. We are taught that all momentous truth and sublime doctrinal idea of the real nature of man, which absolutely stands in relation to Christ, or his gospel, as meal does to leaven; for, it may be observed, that leaven could have no possible operation in meal, did not the meal, in its own nature, possess a quality that naturally adhered to the leaven.

3d. The final effects of divine grace in the min istry of reconciliation, in which we look for univer sal submission to Christ in his glorious and ever

blessed kingdom, is communicated in that it is said, until the whole was leavened."

ILLUSTRATION.

As leaven has a power to assimulate meal with itself, so as to form but one mass and to constitute a unity of all its parts, it is a remarkably happy representation of the power of divine light, truth and love, in their operation in saving mankind from sin, and bringing them into reconciliation with God. To effect this reconciliation is the great object of the gospel ministry, as may be seen in St. Paul's 2d Epistle to the Corinthians, where he shows the general process of bringing from the system of the flesh into that of the spirit, the do ing away of old things, and of having all things new in conformity to God. See verse 14, &c. "For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,"

The opinion of our doctors, that the very nature of man is so depraved that there is nothing morally

good in it, and that it is totally averse to the nature of God, is doubtless erroneous. St. Paul says, Rom. v. 8. "But God commendeth his love

toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Again he speaks of the GREAT LOVE wherewith God loved us, even when we

were DEAD IN SINS.

Here let us inquire, what it was that God lov ed? He surely could not love that which is totally contrary to his nature; yet he loved us while we were yet sinners. It is believed and taught, that man by sin has lost the image of God in which he was created, but this opinion does not well agree with the teaching of Christ, where he represents the sinner by a lost sheep, a lost piece of silver, and by a son who went away from his father and foolishly spent his interest. In those. parables, the sinner is represented as remaining the same in nature and substance, but changed as to circumstance and disposition. If the prodigal had lost the image which he had when he went from his father, by what did the father know him, while he was yet a great way off? Again, if the sinner have nothing good in him, what does he sin against? Where there is no law, there is no transgression. The apostle says the Gentiles having not the (written) law, are a law unto themselves: which shew the works of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.

The scriptures generally consider mankind to stand in the relation of children to God, though the children are represented as alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance there is in