Meetings of Assemblies

THERE was not much that transpired at the Assemblies on this occasion that calls for special notice here. The general news of these Courts have been available from the daily press and denominational records.

Pastor Jacob Primmer was absent from the Established Church Assembly, so that the note of witness against Ritualism and Papacy was not heard. We regret to learn that Mr. Primmer’s health is not satisfactory, and that he has resigned the heavier parts of his public work. We trust he may be long spared as a defender of its faith, and that he may make his influence felt by his pen when his voice does not reach the people.

In the United Free Assembly there was no testimony lifted against the Higher Criticism. The Moderator in his opening address spoke some harmless words about the excellency of the Bible, the extensive character of its circulation, and its inevitable permanency to future generations, but Professor George Adam Smith and his followers had no occasion to be disturbed. Their position is secure, and their destructive work goes on apace without let or hindrance, though indeed Professor Smith has been laid aside from his professional work for a considerable time by ill-health. His sympathetic colleagues, however, have been actively engaged in their labours, and his books live to poison the minds of the rising generation of students. Principal Rainy, at the instance of the Law Committee, made an offer of £50,000 to the Free Church minority who refused to go into the Union, in order to stop, if possible, litigation in the House of Lords. The

Principal has come down from the high pedestal on which he sat some time ago, and is prepared to be very charitable to the minority. He finds that many of his own followers have not entered very cordially into the Union, and he has also got a good deal of reason to think that his success in the House of Lords is far from assured. The Free Church minority have wisely refused to accept the offer. One of their number (Mr. W. Rounsfell Brown) had a similar motion of compromise, but seconder there was none.

In the F.C. Assembly a report was given in by the Committee on the Declaratory Act, Hymns and Instrumental Music, etc. Nothing has been finally done on these matters. It would appear that they are waiting for the decision of the House of Lords before they will do anything effective in the way of sweeping their house. This policy appears to us to savour too much of the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God. Evil in any form should be renounced without delay at all costs. And indeed it would seem from Mr. Johnston’s reply on their behalf in the House of Lords that they had found out that their delay in repealing or casting out the Declaratory Act of 1892 was not favourable to their case, and required an explanation. May the Lord rescue them out of all snares, and make them sound and thorough and zealous in the cause of God and truth in their generation.

The War in the East.—The people of the British Isles are living from day to day with little to complain of but the common ills of life, but the homes and hearts of Russia and Japan are shaken and racked with the grievousness of war. If the results of the conflict up to the time we write are any indication of the voice of Justice, it would appear that Russia is the wrongdoer and Japan the authorised executor of righteousness. Certainly the series of defeats and misfortunes by land and sea which have attended the Russian arms, and the financial and social troubles which beset the rulers at home, are loud voices to her princes, priests, and people that they should consider their ways and turn from their wickedness. We incline to think that Russia is the aggressor and the criminal even in respect of the immediate matter of the war; but apart from that particular question, there is such a long tale of oppression of Jews, Finlanders, and nonconformists to the established idolatry to provoke the indignation of Heaven, that there is nothing to wonder at in her present plight of defeat by a nation despised as heathen and pusillanimous. The note of truculence and boasting was often heard before the war commenced, and in this hour of defeat, the trust of the nation is in holy candles and images of Christ and the Virgin, but the heavens will be silent to prayers and vows of that idolatrous kind. “And it shall come to pass that when it is seen that Moab is weary on the high place, that he shall come to his sanctuary to pray, but he shall not prevail” (Isaiah xvi. 12).

A Sermon.

BY THE REV. JOHN R. MACKAY, M.A., INVERNESS.

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”—John iii. 14, 15.

THESE words were spoken by our Lord in the days of His flesh to Nicodemus. In the previous part of His utterances with Nicodemus, He showed the indispensable necessity of sinners of mankind being born of the Spirit, in order to their prizing the salvation of God. He now, in the words of our text, proceeds to set forth that salvation. In illustration of our need of a Saviour, of God’s provision to meet that need, of the way in which perishing sinners become interested in that provision, and of the blessedness of those who become thus interested in it, He makes use of an incident which occurred during the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness—an incident which we may look upon as furnishing one of the Old Testament types.

It is calculated that the Children of Israel were already thirty-eight years in the wilderness when (Numbers xxi. 5) “the people spake against God and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, for there is no bread, neither is there any water: and our soul loatheth this light bread.” On account of this ingratitude, God was much displeased, and sent fiery serpents among the people, so that much people of Israel died. Thereupon the sin of their ingratitude was in some measure brought home to their conscience, and the people pleaded with Moses that he would pray unto the Lord that He would take the serpents from them. This Moses did, and the Lord, because He will have compassion, according to the multitude of His mercies, commanded that a serpent of brass should be made and erected upon a pole with the assurance that every one who had been bitten, and who would look upon—that is, behold—the serpent of brass, would live. And the result was according to that word of promise, for we are told that “Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass he lived.” This incident in the history of Israel is made use of by Christ in order to illustrate the great theme of the salvation of perishing sinners. Let us then meditate for some time on the suitableness of this illustration or type for the purpose for which it was used.

I. In both illustration and thing illustrated, or type and antitype, there are presupposed needs which are somewhat similar. The people of Israel had been literally bitten of serpents whose wound was deadly. We, too, have been bitten of serpents; we have all

of us been bitten of that old serpent which is the devil and Satan. When the prince of devils first invaded this world it was through a literal serpent as an instrument that he approached our first parents, and hence we may suppose it is that he is called the old serpent. He proved our murderer in a spiritual sense, and in order to his being a murderer he was and is first a liar. But his lie would not have proved our ruin if we had not believed it and acted upon it. In believing it we drank in iniquity like water, and that water was poisonous; it was deadly. Sin thus entered into the world, and death by sin.

May we not say (using a slightly different metaphor) that God had placed an high wall between the human race and ruin, for He plainly threatened that in the day in which the forbidden fruit was partaken of we should surely die. But that high wall we overleaped to our ruin when we believed the lie of the murderer, and of the father of lies, rather than the solemn truth of Him in whom we live and move and have our being, and who cannot lie. This was and is still Satan’s method for destroying precious souls. He can be a murderer only through being a liar, and it is through our belief of his lie that he can encompass his purposes of death. Do not our consciences tell us that in one form or another we have sought happiness in transgressing, at the instigation of the murderer, the revealed will of God?

Thus then we have been stung, for this deadly poison goes straight to the heart, and as David said to Saul, “Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked.” The greatest examples of wickedness in the world point to the still more fearful natural depravity of the human heart, for it is deceitful above everything and desperately wicked. This is spiritual death, and if mercy prevent not it must result not merely in the separation of the soul from the body, but in the everlasting separation of the soul and body from God. Such is the woeing condition by nature of every individual of the human race; for there is no difference, inasmuch as all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But not all are conscious of this their true state, and while they remain unconscious of it they are not in the least likely to appreciate deliverance from their misery. They that are whole have no need, that is no conscious need, of the physician. Now, it is for a people in such a state as this—a people ready to perish, who have believed and acted many times upon the murderer’s lie, and have thus been stung in a deadly way, in a way affecting the very life of the soul—that God has been pleased in rich mercy to provide the remedy of which we are about to speak.

II. Proceed we then, in the second place, to meditate upon God’s provision to meet the needs of perishing sinners. As regards the type, we are simply told that God, in answer to Moses’ prayer, commanded that a serpent of brass should be made and erected upon a pole. It is not necessary for our present purpose to dwell long on this event in history, but it occurs to us to remark that

God did not quite answer the people’s prayer in the way in which they looked for it. They wished that, as an act of supreme power, the serpents should be removed. God ordered a serpent of brass to be erected on a pole. And may we not say that the Lord’s people, who are often anxious of being bitten of serpents in a spiritual sense, would similarly wish that those serpents, together with those corruptions of theirs, that gives Satan such advantage against them, be wholly and forever removed; but God does not in their way answer that prayer. They must “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.” It is the antitype or God’s provision to meet the needs of sinners, stung with a sting, the natural effects of which are death manifold, is what, above all, we are called upon to contemplate in our meditations upon this portion of the word of God. That provision, in one word, is the Son of Man, made a curse,

This title, “the Son of Man,” is one of the names of the Messiah promised to Israel as of old. Yet, although certainly a Messianic title (see Ps. viii. 4 and Daniel vii. 13), it was very rarely, if ever, in the mouth of the people as one of the names of the great Deliverer. We do not find that it was once used by the apostles during Christ’s sojourn on this earth. On the other hand, it was the name by which our Lord most frequently spoke of Himself, and it was in keeping with Christ’s manner, who did not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street, that in claiming Messiahship He should not assume the most popular Messianic title, but, on the contrary, the one most obscure, the one least commonly used by the people. It will take eternity to unfold the significance of this title, “the Son of Man,” to Him who thus so constantly used it; but we shall not err if we say that there are at least three fundamental truths contained in this title, which we are called upon to consider.

In the first place this title lays emphasis on the truth and reality of His manhood, that He had a true body and a reasonable soul as surely as they had whom He came to save. It may appear strange, yet is it the fact that the first error concerning the person of Christ that troubled the Church was that of those who denied the reality of our Lord’s manhood. Symptoms of this evil seem to have manifested themselves ere John died, and hence we may suppose it is that, as in the prologue to his Gospel he establishes the truth of the supreme deity of our Lord, so in the prologue to the 1st Epistle he appeals to the testimony of the senses of the apostles as establishing the reality of Christ’s manhood. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard”—the appeal is to their sense of hearing—”which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon”—the appeal is to their sense of sight—”which our hands have handled of the Word of Life”—an appeal to their sense of touch. The senses in this matter were the proper witnesses, and their function in connection with Christianity is not unimportant within their own state. The reality of His

manhood then, that in all things He was made like unto His brethren, sin only excepted, and that it is by Him who was man, true man, that life came are truths taught us by this title, the Son of Man.

But again, for we are seeking to contemplate the object of faith, this title, Son of Man, as used by our Lord, occurs in relations which are fitted to teach us that, while He is truly a man, He is more than a mere man. Let me illustrate this from what we are told took place at the healing of the paralytic who was carried of four and let down through the roof of the house wherein at the time Jesus taught. When Jesus beheld their faith He immediately spoke, not of the healing of the paralysis, but of the forgiveness of the paralytic’s sins. This language some who were present regarded as blasphemous. Jesus takes an instructive method of showing that to forgive sins was a prerogative of the Son of Man even in the days of his flesh, and in showing this proved His own divinity. The error of the fault finders was not at all in saying that none could forgive sin but God only. For to forgive sins is equivalent to justifying, and that certainly is a divine prerogative. What then was the error of those fault finders? It was an error of blindness and unbelief. They did not apprehend that this person calling Himself the Son of Man was very God. But the truth of His divinity our Lord goes about to establish in a very instructive and interesting way. Whether, He asks, is it easier to say thy sins be forgiven thee or to say to the paralytic arise take up thy bed and walk? The obvious answer is that the two are competent only to the Infinite Being. Now the truth of His divinity, and consequently of His right to forgive sins, was one that could not be seen with the natural eye. But that one so disabled with paralysis as that it took four to carry him to the place where Jesus was should at the command of another take up his bed and walk away was something that the natural eye could see, and such a miraculous work was the proper proof to the natural reason of the truth of the claim to divinity of Him who performed it.

And here, by the way, let me observe a difference between the false miracles of Romanism and the true miracles of the gospel. In transubstantiation, for instance, deluded Papists are taught that when the priest blesses the bread, the bread becomes the soul and body and divinity of the Saviour. And yet their senses contradict the truth of this so-called miracle. They must acknowledge that to the sense of sight, of smell, and of touch, the bread appears exactly what it was before consecration. The gospel miracles argue from facts, which the senses may apprehend, to truths above their scope; the Popish miracle of transubstantiation contradicts the testimony of the senses. Now, the senses have their own function in the Christian religion; and for one to act contrary to the simplest truths, which even natural conscience and one’s very senses might instruct one in, is an iniquity which God will judge. Our Lord Himself asks the disciples to make use of their senses

when He says, “Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bone, as ye see me have.” And similarly, as already referred to, the Apostle John establishes the conscience of those to whom he writes concerning the truth of our Lord’s humanity, by appealing to what they heard with their ears, to what they saw with their eyes, and to what the sense of touch also taught them, for their hands handled Him.

Here, then, our Lord demonstrates a truth which, from its very nature, could not fall within the ken of the senses, by a fact which comes naturally within that scope. He says to the paralytic, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk.” It was done in His own name; it was an act of omnipotence. Immediately, the paralytic took up his bed and walked. In this way He showed that He was more than a mere man: He showed that He was Omnipotent: He showed that He was God manifest in the flesh; and having showed this, He thereby showed that He did not irreverently invade prerogatives which belonged to God only, when He said, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” It was a prerogative of the Son of Man even in the days of His flesh to forgive sins, for He did not cease to be God when He became man. It is with similar import that the title Son of Man occurs in the verse preceding our text. “No one,” He says, “hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in heaven.” The Son of Man, then, is not only Omnipotent; He is Omnipresent. He is God with us, with two distinct natures in one divine Person for ever. This title, then, occurs in such relations and circumstances as to show that the second man is the Lord from heaven, the Lord of glory.

In the third place, we are to note that this title “Son of Man” occurs in circumstances that are fitted to teach us that He is the only Mediator between God and man. That Mediatorship involves two states, that of humiliation and that of exaltation, and in relation to both these states this title very frequently occurs. Let me remind you of a few salient passages. “The Son of Man,” He says, “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to give his life a ransom for many.” The Son of Man, then, is a minister—that is, a servant. He is the servant of Jehovah. That service involves suffering—He gives Himself a ransom. It involves deep poverty—”The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.” The Son of Man, as the servant of Jehovah, came to save that which was lost; and, therefore, the Son of Man must be set at nought, must be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, must be condemned and put to death—”As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;” for He was thus signifying what manner of death He should die. This service, however, goes not without its reward. The Son of Man, the servant of Jehovah who suffered so many things, who was betrayed,

must rise again from the dead on the third day, and must be glorified. The Son of Man was to come in the glory of His Father and all His angels, and then would He give to each according as His work should be—”For as the lightning that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of Man be in his day.” (See Luke xvii. 24-end.) The Son of Man, who is true God and real man, is the only Mediator between God and man. This, then, dear friends, is He whose name is as ointment poured forth, the righteous love Him. Is the Son of Man precious to you? This is He who is as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Have you fled to Him for shelter? Surely He is attractive.

But this Son of Man, attractive in His Person and office, is attractive as a sacrifice. He is lifted up. He is the antitype of the serpent of brass. In what way? By the manner of His death. He suffered the death of the cross. He was thus made a curse for us: for it is written, “Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree.” Death by crucifixion was meted out, according to the law of Israel, only for the very worst malefactors. When Christ then was crucified He suffered the penalty of the worst kind of malefactors. Not that He personally deserved it, for personally He was innocent; but officially, and in the sight of God, He was guilty, and that because the sins of others were imputed to Him. He on that account suffered the penalty of the worst transgressions. This in no wise makes the Jews innocent of their crime in the matter. One has truly said that “the soul of His sufferings was the sufferings of His soul,” so we may say that the sufferings of His body, whereby He was made a curse, were but the indicator by which we may faintly read what were the infinite sufferings of His soul—the sufferings flowing from the awakened sword of divine justice. Let their sin-sick souls behold the Son of Man made a curse for them!

Now, these great sufferings, we are told, were necessary. He must be lifted up. Why must He?

(a) From the necessity of the divine decree. This is a matter alluded to by Peter on the day of Pentecost: “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” Many in all ages would like to exclude the prerogative of God to determine every event. We have, on the contrary, from our infancy been taught that “the decrees of God are his eternal purpose whereby, according to the counsel of his will, he hath for his own glory foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” God has a plan embracing everything in heaven, earth, and hell, and we may say that Christ crucified is the heart of hearts in that plan. And if the whole was foreordained even as it shall come to pass, surely that which occupies such a place in the plan as the death of the Son of God was settled from all eternity in the divine purpose. There is

a necessity of His being lifted up which arises from the nature of the divine decree.

(b) Again, there is a necessity arising from the nature of divine love. This necessity, which arises from the nature of divine love, is what is brought out in the verse immediately succeeding our text: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” etc. This love, which saves perishing sinners, could be shown only in a way consistent with the holiness, the justice, the truth of God. But when this love saves sinners through the incarnation, the death, and the resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, sinners are saved in a way which is glorifying to all the divine attributes. Now, it was the good pleasure of His will that the greatness of this love towards the lost should be shown in the sacrifice of the Son of God, that thus grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life. And in view of the unity of purpose which subsists in the Person of the Godhead, it was impossible but that this purpose, which was of the Father, should also be through the Son.

(c) Yet, again, the Son of Man must be lifted up in order that the scriptures should be fulfilled. The scriptures were like cords by which this sacrifice was bound to the altar. Very instructive it is to read the gospels, and especially Matthew, in this connection. We were guilty of contemning the counsel of the Most High, and, in thus slighting His counsel, of destroying ourselves. But He who saves us must be One who, so far from contemning the counsel of the Most High, will honour and glorify it. Thus, His whole wonderful and mysteriously-beautiful life under the law was spent in honouring the divine counsel, in fulfilling the scriptures, in fulfilling the word of God. Was it not in fulfilment of that word that He became incarnate?—”Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and he shall be called the wonderful, the counsellor, the mighty God.” It was not by chance that He was of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David. There was a must needs be in the matter—for

“The Lord in truth to David swear,
He will not turn from it:
I of thy body’s fruit will make
Upon thy throne to sit.”

There was a necessity of His being born in Bethlehem, for thus it is written by the prophet, “And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel.” It was not by chance that He went down into Egypt. Cords stronger than bind heaven and earth in their place bound Him to it. It is written, “Out of Egypt have I called My Son. So in like manner might we instance the necessity of His coming to Nazareth, of His speaking so much in parables, of His giving commandment so frequently concerning His miracles that they should be told to no

man. It was all in order that the Scripture should be fulfilled. For the things concerning Him had an end. And in order that the Scripture should be fulfilled He must be the antitype of the brazen serpent, He must be made a curse, He must be numbered among transgressors; the sword of divine justice must be awakened against Him. Ah! He must be lifted up, in order that the Word of God should be fulfilled. We were wounded through the belief of the lie. Salvation is to be wrought out by One who honours the Word of God in an inexpressibly glorious way. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. And that this was His own view of the necessity of His sufferings is plain from Matt. xxvi. 53, “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray the Father and He shall presently give Me twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled; His body must be broken, but the Scriptures cannot.

In the last place there is a necessity of His being lifted up, of His bearing the penalty, from the nature of divine justice. It was freely that this business of fulfilling the conditions of the covenant of redemption were undertaken by Him from all eternity in the divine counsels. But now we are to regard Him as having undertaken to perfect these conditions; we are to regard Him as having actually put His hand to the plough; we are to regard Him as made under the law, and as one to whom sin is imputed. There is in that case a necessity arising from the nature of divine justice that He suffer the penalty which that sin deserves. And if these things be done in a green tree, what shall be done in the day? If sin when borne by the personally blameless Lamb of God cannot from the nature of divine justice go unpunished, yea cannot go without its adequate punishment, how shall those who bear their own sins, especially how shall such as refuse to submit to this righteousness of God, which is brought near to us in the Gospel, expect anything else than that they should die in their sins, and eternally bear the penalty of their personal sinfulness? This, we repeat, is the antitype of the brazen serpent. This is God’s provision under the Gospel for perishing sinners. Now, what is the reason for crying so much about this object of faith? Because naturally we are prone to look for salvation from some other source than the only name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. And the Holy Spirit may be pleased to make some part of Christ’s glory and excellency irresistibly attractive to perishing sinners, to sin-sick souls, for a glimpse by faith of Him is what is essential to our comfort and salvation.

III. We inquire, in the third place, into the suitableness of this illustration to show forth the manner in which perishing sinners become interested in this provision made by God. In Israel, according to the flesh, there was not only a brazen serpent provided, but proclamation was made throughout the camp of Israel, which probably would have covered a space of ground not less than three miles square, that whosoever was bitten of the fiery

serpents should look to the serpent of brass, with the assurance that when they beheld the serpent of brass they should be healed. To behold—to get at least a glimpse—of the serpent was essential. Not unlike to this is God’s way in the gospel. He sends forth His heralds to the ends of the world, testifying concerning this glorious provision of the blessed God, not only that the Son of Man came to do the will of Him that sent Him, and that this is the will of Him that sent Him, that of all whom the Father hath given Him, He should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day, but also that this is the will of Him that sent Him, that whosoever should see the Son (should behold Him as they beheld the serpent of brass of old), and believe upon Him (or trust in Him) should have eternal life, and that He will raise him up at the last day. In other words, ambassadors of the gospel are to proclaim that, as the beholding, or catching a glimpse, of the serpent of brass was the condition of getting a benefit from the serpent of brass, so faith in the Son of Man made a curse for us, is not the meritorious, but the instrumental condition of sinners getting a saving benefit of this glorious provision of God in the gospel. How ought we to think of this faith? It is a taste, not a natural taste for natural food, but a spiritual taste for the Bread of God. It is an apprehension through the Spirit of the deep things of God. It is a right, not a natural faculty for seeing natural objects, but spiritual right to behold spiritual objects. “We have seen His glory,” said they, “as of the only begotten of the Father.” It is a new sense of spiritual hearing. “Incline your ear,” saith the Lord by Isaiah, “hear, and come unto me, and your soul shall live, and I will make with you an everlasting Covenant.” It is, in one word, “a Spirit-wrought trust in an all sufficient Mediator.” The object of it is the Son of Man. It is the Holy Spirit that works this trust in the heart. The instrument by which it is wrought is the gospel, read or heard. But it is the individual perishing sinner that must exercise this trust. This faith, which is of the operation of God, is yet a trust which the gospel imposes as a duty upon every sinner of mankind that hears it. For is not Christ all-sufficient? Is not each sinner’s warrant to trust in Him unimpeachable? Is not each sinner’s need of being interested in Him so great that he or she might reasonably be expected to agonise to get a glimpse of this glorious object?

IV. In the last place we notice the suitableness of the illustration to teach us the blessed results of a hearty trust in the Redeemer. In the case of the type we are told that it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. But in the case of the type whosoever believeth in the Son of Man, who was made a curse for us, shall not perish, but shall have eternal life. The proper effect of beholding the serpent of brass was but to add a few years to one’s natural life, but to behold the Lamb of God infallibly resulted in our being delivered from an endless hell, and in our being put in

possession of endless felicity, yea of eternal life, of an eternal weight of glory. Who can comprehend all the difference between heaven and hell? Who can comprehend the blessedness of being saved from the latter, of being put in possession of the former. But this is the alternative. If we despise and neglect this great salvation our condition will be immeasurably more intolerable than that of those who never heard of this salvation. “For this is the condemnation that light hath come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” If, on the other hand, through the mercy of God we make choice of the good part, then eternity shall not hear the end of our song of praise to Him who rescued us from so great a misery, and who put us in possession of so great glory.

Have you, my friends, realised your need of Christ, the antitype of the brazen serpent? Has the Son of Man, made sin for us, become the all in all to you? Have you seen rich divine power and graciousness in Christ and Him crucified as that you could not but commit to Him the saving of your soul altogether? It is worth thinking of, that in the case of the remedy of the brazen serpent, it was not the effort it cost one to get a view of the brazen serpent that was of consequence; what was of consequence was that the object lifted up upon the pole should become visible to the person wounded. It would doubtless have caused some persons more exertion than others. Similarly what is of consequence in the great matter of the saving of the sinner is that a spiritual view of Christ crucified, the wisdom of God and the power of God, be obtained, so as that one is sweetly yet irresistibly drawn to put one’s confidence for time and eternity in Him. And let no one seeking to come to God by this way fear that he will not be welcome. For what is it that renders the name hateful but his want of righteousness? Now Christ crucified will be your righteousness if you, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, but submit to and accept of Him. See that ye despise not so great a salvation.