SERMON S.

SERMON I.

THE WILL OF GOD DONE BY HIS BLESSED SON.

HEB. X. 7.

Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.

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THE will of God, as it respected the salvation of man, was done completely in every particular by his only begotten Son, who declared to his disciples, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. This was the errand upon which the Messiah came into the world; an errand of amazing mercy and of love divine. The work was of that immense nature that as nothing less than infinite

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wisdom could devise it, so nothing but infinite power could accomplish it. It was necessary that the nature which had sinned should suffer for sin: the second Person in the Godhead assumed that nature, united it to the divine nature, was perfect God and perfect man, and thus made a full and sufficient sacrifice for our sins. In the whole of this wonderful, mysterious, but clearly revealed transaction, the love of God was manifested.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is designed to lead the Jew and the Christian from the works of the law, to the complete satisfaction revealed in the gospel. From the ceremonial law, from the figure and the type, it conducts the Israelite to the thing signified by those ceremonies. In the opening of this tenth chapter, the apostle states the case of the law very clearly: he says, "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once

purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God." The very same sentiment, in nearly the same words, is expressed in the 40th Psalm,*when David, speaking in the person of the Messiah, says, "Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required: then said I, Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." I observed that David was speaking in the person of the Messiah; but surely the Messiah himself is present here. The words convey an exact description of his character and employment.†

*Psalm xl. 7, 8.

+ It is worthy of observation that both Isaiah (i. 11) and

1st. We may observe that all the sacrifices under the law, nay, before the law, pointed to Christ: Abel, to whom the Lord had respect: Noah, when the Lord smelled a sweet savour: the sacrifice of Isaac upon Mount Moriah: the Paschal Lamb, when Israel came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from among the strange people: then the passover was instituted. Without shedding of blood there was no remission. They were preserved by this ceremony in token of that great deliverance which should be effected, when Christ our passover was to be sacrificed for us. But, secondly, not only was the coming of Christ typified by sacrifices under the law, but it was clearly spoken of throughout the whole of the Old Testament. "In the volume of the book it is written of me." And where do we not read of our blessed Saviour in the Old Testament? in Genesis, the first promise

Jeremiah (vi. 20,) speak of sacrifice as not in itself sufficient to remove sin. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams," &c. Jer. vi. 20. «"To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me."