1 DISCOURSE XV. ISAIAH, CHAP. liii. Part of VER. 12. "HE HATH POURED OUT HIS SOUL "UNTO DEATH." WE ELL might the noble Ethiopian, upon reading this remarkable chapter of Isaiah, apply to Philip the Evangelift, whom Heaven had directed to meet him on a journey, to explain to him its mysterious import. "I pray "thee," faid he, "of whom speaketh "the Prophet this; of himself, or of " fome other man?" The question fhews him to have been poffeffed of a good natural understanding, though utterly unacquainted U 3 acquainted with the great Truths of Revealed Religion. Certain it is, that the Prophet hath entered fo minutely into the character and conduct of the perfon whom he describes, that the Ethiopian could not but fuppofe him speaking of himself, or at least of a man whom he had actually seen, and was intimately acquainted with. Philip foon refolved his doubts; and his honeft, though untutored heart, was chearfully opened to the falutary communications of Evangelical Truth. Indeed, there is fomething fo lovely and luminous in the appearance of Truth, that nought but the mists of paffion and prejudice can intercept its rays, or obftruct its efficacy on the human mind. Hence it was, that one of the most celebrated wits of the laft century, after a life spent in the most ignoble purfuits, after having prostituted his heart, his tongue, and his pen, to the most profligate |