vellers, ready to perish; you beheld them falling into the pit, where the enemy found them, and put them in chains of misery and iron; and how greatly were you moved at the sight of their sickness, when they lay pining away through a total loss of appetite, and were grown so weak and feeble, that death was ready to take them into the prison of the grave, and to shut its gates upon them and what was the worst of all, the soul was never at rest; sin, which brought them into these miseries, made them still more miserable under them. Guilt would not suffer any of the faculties to be composed, and conscience never knew what it was to be in a calm. Indeed the whole man, body and soul, were in such a continual ferment, and so distressed for fear of perishing every moment, that nothing in nature could so perfectly represent their situation, as the distress of mariners at sea in a violent storm. These are the dark scenes, in which the unconverted and unregenerate lay: you have beheld the shady part of their picture, now you are to look upon a more agreeable and pleasing prospect. Under the image which we are to view at present, the holy Spirit has given us a beautiful painting of their deliverance, and we see the same persons, who lay in the most exquisite distress, here placed in the most delightful and happy circumstances. They are brought out of the wilderness, and out of the pit, and are healed of all their infirmities, and their consciences are composed and calmed-they are pardoned freely-made just and holy-admitted into the one true church of Christ-and blessed in it by him with all true spiritual graces. O what an entire and happy change is this! God grant, that every unconverted person here present may experience it! may he turn the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground into water-springs, &c. May the love of our almighty deliverer exert his power this day, and fulfil every word of what is here said of the Gentile church in this whole congregation, while I am and First, Laying before you a comment upon the words, Secondly, Bringing the doctrine contained in them home to your hearts, by way of spiritual application. 66 The holy Spirit begins with a description of the rejecting of the Jewish church, and of the transferring of its privileges and graces to the Gentiles. "He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into "dry ground." This passage is here applied in a spiritual sense. It relates to redemption. And nothing more is necessary to the understanding of it, than to remember, that water is in scripture, the known, and established emblem of the holy Spirit. What the one does in nature, the other does in grace. St. John puts the matter beyond all doubt, in his comment upon Christ's words, who had been speaking of the waters which should flow from believers, but this, says he, he spake of the Spirit. And the other scriptures speak of the Spirit under the same image. A church enriched with the graces of heaven is compared by the Prophets to a well-watered garden, (Isaiah lviii. 11. Jer. xxxi. 12.) to the paradise of God, watered with its four fruitful rivers for as every thing useful and ornamental in the vegetable world is raised up by water, so is every thing in the spiritual world raised up by the holy Spirit. And in the Jewish church he had caused every virtue abundantly to grow; it was nourished with the streams of his divine grace; enriched with the dew of heaven,. and blessed with rivers of comfort, insomuch that it wanted no manner of thing that is good. St. Paul thus, enumerates the blessings of the Israelites" to whom "pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the cove "nants, and the giving of the law, and the service of "God, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of "whom as concerning the flesh Christ came." Rom. ix.. 4. And when he came, this once favourite church would not receive him for the promised Messiah, but rejected and murdered him. For which crime the greatest part of the Jewish nation was cut off, and the : rest according to their own prophecies were dispersed over the face of the earth, and they will continue dispersed, until they receive Jesus of Nazareth for their Saviour and their God. While they justify the horrid rebellion of their forefathers, who crucified the Lord of life, the veil must remain upon their hearts; and it is remarkably upon them at present: for they are the most stupidly infatuated of all people-living without either civil or ecclesiastical polity-without a templewithout a priest-without sacrifices-without an atonement- and indeed they are row without a God; because they have rejected the true God, the blessed Trinity of their fathers, and worship they know not what; they have set up some strange kind of an infi nitely extended metaphysical being, whom they call the one supreme God, and who never had any existence but what the enemies of Christianity have been pleased to give him. Thus they have turned the once fruitful church into a wilderness. And the holy Spirit here describes them in this situation. The church of God, which he had blessed with his promises, and with his prophets, and had enriched with the continual streams of his grace, was now made barren. When it rejected that God and Saviour, on whom its whole oeconomy was founded, then he took away all its privileges and blessings, and it has been ever since a poor, dead, barren wilderness. Deprived of his grace, it was reduced to the same state, which the most fruitful country would soon be in, if it should be deprived of the rain and dew of heaven for then nothing could grow. It would become a barren desert. Apply this to the present state of the Jews, and you see how God turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water springs into dry ground and as it follows in the 34th verse, " he turneth a "fruitful land into barrenness for the wickedness of them that dwell therein." This scripture is now fulfilled literally, as well as spiritually. as well as spiritually. The holy land has been as remarkable for its fruitfulnes, as it is now for its barrenness: for it was once the most fruitful 66 66 country in the world. The sacred writers mention the particular blessings with which it was enriched. Moses speaks of it in these words: "The country which thou "goest to possess is a land which the Lord thy God "careth for, the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year, even unto "the end of the year; and therefore it is a good land, "a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths "that spring out of vallies and hills, a land of wheat "and barley, and vines and fig-trees, and pomegran"ates, a land of olive oil, and honey, a land wherein "thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt "not lack any thing in it." And it fully answered this description. It was once dressed, and cultivated, and flourished like a fruitful vineyard; but at present it lays desolate and waste. The vineyard of the Lord of hosts was the house of Israel, and because after all his cultivation they brought forth no, fruit, therefore he declares, “I will take away the hedge thereof, and it "shall be eaten up, and break down the wall thereof, and "it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste, it "shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come 66 up briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds "that they rain no more upon it." (Isaiah v. 5, 6.) This prophecy is now fulfilled. Judea is one entire wilderness, over-run with briers and thorns, as historians relate, and modern travellers testify. And the fruitful land was turned into barrenness for the wickedness of them who dwelt therein. Wickedness was the cause of its desolation. The prophets had foretold them of their utter extirpation from the promised land, if they should reject the Messiah when he came. he came to his own, but his own received him not; they opposed, blasphemed, and crucified him, and therefore according to his own predictions they were cut off, and dispersed over the face of the earth, and the fruitfulness of their country was taken from it, and given to the Gentiles, as it follows in the 35th verse, "he turneth "the wilderness into a standing water, and dry ground And "into water-springs." The heathen nations gladly received Jesus for their Saviour and their God, and therefore their wilderness was turned into a standing water, and their dry ground into water-springs; and this happened, when the Spirit was poured upon them from on high: for then the wilderness became a fruitful field, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed like the rose, it blossomed abundantly, and rejoiced even with joy and singing. And he enriched the heathens thus abundantly with the streams of divine grace, after he had made them thirsty, and had disposed them to receive the water of life with thankfulness; “for when “the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and "their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear "them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them, I "will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground-I will pour my Spirit upon "thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring, and "they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows "by the water courses. The prophet Isaiah is full of these images; he frequently compares the heathens, before they received the gospel, to a desolate wilderness, but after they embraced it, to a cultivated garden, enriched with beautiful flowers, and useful fruits, covered at first with the most fragrant blossoms, and afterwards abounding with the richest products, and it received all its fruitfulness from the rain and dew of heaven. The grace of the holy Spirit was the cause of their flourishing and bringing forth fruit under the gospel. His gracious operation is as necessary in the spiritual world, as the genial influences of warm showers are in the natural. He does the same in grace, which they do in vegetation. The scripture teaches us to take our ideas of his operation from this image, and it is very familiar and well understood. You all know what are the effects of soft gentle rain: you have seen it cover the earth in a short time with a most agreeable verdure, after it had been parched and burnt up with a long drought. You |