Having thus detailed the particulars of the evidence, the apostle closes this part of his argument with these words: "This is the witness of God;" that is, this testimony, made up of six several parts, the witness of three witnesses in heaven, and the witness of three witnesses in earth,this, taken altogether, is "the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son."

The Spirit here, in the eighth verse, as well as in my text, is evidently to be understood of the gifts preternaturally conferred upon believers. But what is the water, and what is the blood, produced as two other terrestrial witnesses? What is their deposition, and what is its effect and amount?

No one who recollects the circumstances of the crucifixion, as they are detailed in St. John's gospel, can, for a moment, entertain a doubt, that the water and the blood mentioned here as witnesses, are the water and the blood which issued from the Redeemer's side, when his body, already dead, was pierced by a soldier with a spear. But how were these witnesses, and what did they attest? First, it is to be observed, that the stream, not of blood alone, but of water with the blood, was something preternatural and miraculous; for St. John dwells upon it with earnest reiterated asservation, as a thing so wonderful that the explicit testimony of an eye-witness was requisite to make it credible, and yet of great importance to be accredited, as a main foundation of faith. "One of the soldiers," the Evangelist saith, "with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe." When a man accompanies the assertion of a fact with this declaration, that he was an eye-witness,-that what he asserts he himself believes to be true,-that he was under no deception at the time, that he not only believes, but knows the fact to be true, from the certain information of his own senses,-that he is anxious, for the sake of others, that it

should be believed,--he certainly speaks of something extraordinary and hard to be believed, and yet, in his judgment, of great importance. The piercing of our Saviour's side with a spear, and the not breaking of his legs, though that piece of cruelty was usually practised among the Romans in the execution of that horrible punishment, which it was our Lord's lot to undergo, had been facts of great importance, though nothing had issued from the wound; because, as the Evangelist observes, they were the completion of two very remarkable prophecies concerning the Messiah's sufferings. But there was nothing in either, in the doing of the one, or the not doing of the other, so much out of the common course as to be difficult of belief. The streaming of the blood from a wound in a body so lately dead, that the blood might well be supposed to be yet fluid, would have been nothing remarkable. The extraordinary circumstance must have been, the flowing of the water with the blood. Some men of learning have imagined, that the water which issued in this instance with the blood, was the fluid with which the heart in its natural situation in the human body is surrounded. This, chemists perhaps may class among the watery fluids; being neither viscous like an oil, nor inflammable like spirits, nor elastic or volatile like an air or ether: it differs, however, remarkably from plain water, as anatomists assert, in the colour and other qualities: and that this fluid should issue with the blood of the heart, when a sharp weapon had divided the membranes which enclose it, as the spear must have done before it reached the heart, had been nothing more extraordinary than that blood by itself should have issued at a wound in any other part. Besides, in the detail of a fact, narrated with so much earnestness to gain belief, the Evangelist must be supposed to speak with the most scrupulous precision, and to call every thing by its name. The water, therefore, which he says he saw streaming from the wound, was as truly water as the blood was blood; the pure element of water,-transparent, co

lourless, insipid, inodorous water. And here is the miracle, that pure water, instead of the fluid of the pericardium in its natural state, should have issued with the blood from a wound in the region of the heart. This pure water and the blood coming forth together, are two of the three terrestrial witnesses, whose testimony is so efficacious, in St. John's judgment, for the confirmation of our faith.

But how do this water and this blood bear witness that the crucified Jesus was the Christ? Water and blood were the indispensable instruments of cleansing and expiation in all the cleansings and expiations of the law. "Almost all things," saith St. Paul, "are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no remission.' But the purgation was not by blood only, but by blood and water; for the same apostle says, "When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and sprinkled both the book and all the people." All the cleansings and expiations of the law, by water and animal blood, were typical of the real cleansing of the conscience by the water of baptism, and of the expiation of real guilt by the blood of Christ shed upon the cross, and virtually taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper. The flowing therefore, of this water and this blood immediately upon our Lord's death, from the wound opened in his side, was a notification to the surrounding multitudes, though at the time understood by few, that the real expiation was now complete, and the cleansing fount set open. O wonderful exhibition of the goodness and severity of God! It is the ninth hour, and Jesus, strong to the last in suffering, commending his spirit to the Father, exclaims with a loud voice, that "It is finished!" bows his anointed head, and renders up the ghost. Nature is convulsed! Earth trembles! The sanctuary, that type of the heaven of heavens, is suddenly and forcibly thrown open! The tombs are burst! Jesus hangs upon the cross a corpse And, lo, the fountain which, according to the prophet, was

!

this day to be set open for sin and for pollution, is seen suddenly springing from his wound?-Who, contemplating only in imagination the mysterious, awful scene, exclaims not with the centurion, "Truly this was the Son of God;" -truly he was the Christ?

Thus I have endeavoured to explain how the water and the blood, together with the spirit, are witnesses upon earth, to establish the faith which overcometh the world. Much remains untouched; but the time forbids me to proceed. One thing only I must add,--that the faith which overcometh the world consists not in the involuntary assent of the mind to historical evidence, nor in its assent, perhaps still more involuntary, to the conclusions of argument from facts proved and admitted. All this knowledge and all this understanding, the devils possess, yet have not faith; and, believing without faith, they tremble. Faith is not merely a speculative, but a practical acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ,-an effort and motion of the mind toward God, when the sinner, convinced of sin, accepts with thankfulness the proffered terms of pardon; and, in humble confidence, applying individually to self the benefit of the general atonement, in the elevated language of a venerable father of the church, drinks of the stream which flows from the Redeemer's wounded side. The effect is, that, in a little, he is filled with that perfect love of God which casteth out fear,-he cleaves to God with the entire affection of the soul. And from this active, lively faith, overcoming the world, subduing carnal self, all these good works do necessarily spring, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

SERMON IX.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,-to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.*-LUKE iv. 18, 19.

It was, as it should seem, upon our Saviour's first appearance in the synagogue at Nazareth, the residence of his family, in the character of a public teacher, that, to the astonishment of that assembly, where he was known only as the carpenter's son, he applied to himself that remarkable passage of Isaiah which the evangelist recites in the words of my text. "This day," said our Lord, " is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." The phrase "this day," is not, I think, to be understood of that particular sabbathday upon which he undertook to expound this prophetic text to the men of Nazareth; nor "your ears," of the ears of the individual congregation assembled at the time within the walls of that particular synagogue. The expressions are to be taken according to the usual latitude of common speech," this day," for the whole time of our Lord's appearance in the flesh, or at least for the whole season of his public ministry; and "your ears," for the ears of all you inhabitants of Judea and Galilee, who now hear my doctrine and see my miracles. Our Lord affirms, that in his works, and in his daily preaching, his countrymen might discern the full completion of this prophetic text, inasmuch as he was the person upon whom the Spirit of Jehovah was-whom Jehovah had anointed "to preach the gospel to the poor"-whom Jehovah had sent" to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the cap

* Preached before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, June 1, 1793.