LECT. and every action of his life tended either

X.

to effect this, or to give us a right under-
ftanding of it: therefore, when we see
him working miraculous cures upon men's
bodies, we are ftill to confider him as the
Saviour of men's fouls; and that he cured
their bodies, as
a pledge to affure us

thereof.

As this is a matter of infinite importance toward the advancement of a Chriftian in the true knowledge and spirit of the gospel, and not fo obvious to common understandings, I have reserved it to my laft expofitory lecture, that you may take advantage of all that has gone before and when you fee into the figurative intention of the miracles of Chrift, you will want no more of my inftructions concerning the language of the fcripture.

The wonders which Jefus Chrift wrought upon earth in the course of his ministry were all of a particular fort, becaufe more ends than one were to be anfwered by them. The world was not only

to

X.

to believe the fact of his heavenly miffion, LECT. but to understand the defign and object of it. Any fupernatuaal act would have shewn, that he was invefted with fupernatural power; but as the object of his com miffion was to fave mankind from their fins, all his miracles were figns of falvation towards the bodies of men; all explanatory of his great work in redeeming their fouls from the fatal effects of fin. He went about doing good; and according to the present ftate of things under the fall, to do good, is to remove evil; to fave mankind is to undo and destroy the works of the devil. The worst of these take place upon the foul; but we cannot apprehend them without fome help, because the foul is invisible. When we speak of the faculties of the foul, we are obliged to borrow our words from the faculties of the body; fo the evils and distempers of the foul must be fignified to us by the evils and diftempers of the body: and both of these proceed from the fame caufe; for had there been no fin in the foul, there would have been no death in the

body.

X.

LECT. body. The bodies of men fell into infirmities along with their fouls: and it was of God's mercy that it fo happened, for we, who take all our notions of the foul and its operations from those of the body, could not otherwise have understood the diftempers of the mind: whence it too frequently happens, that they who never were fick, are apt to be ignorant of the weakness of the inward man, and fo become confident and felf-fufficient-thou fayeft, I am rich, and have need of nothing, and knoweft not that thou art wretched, and miferable, and poor, and blind, and naked.*

When man was firft placed in paradise, his body was in health, and his foul had all its faculties in perfection: and if we would know what a perfect foul is, we must confider what a perfect body is. When the body of man is in a state of perfection, its fenfes are all perfect. Its fight is quick and ftrong; its hearing is uninterrupted; its limbs are vigorous and * Revelations iii, 17.

active;

X.

active; it diftinguishes all taftes and all LECT. odours without error, and in its feelings it d is fenfible of all the impreffions of the elements. So when the foul is in equal health, it fees and understands things fpiritual; it fees God and his truth as plainly as the eye fees the light of the day; it hears and attends to all important and useful information: it walks with God in the way of his commandments, and even runs with pleasure to do his will, as the angels fly through the heaven for the fame purpose: it distinguishes good and evil without error; and, apprehending their different effects and confequences, it relishes the one and abhors the other: its fpeech is employed in the praifes of God, and will be telling of his wonders from day to day, for it knows no end thereof; it therefore preferves its relation to God, as his child, his fcholar, his subject, in affection, attention, and obedience. O bleffed ftate! who can furvey this condition of humanity without bewailing its lofs, and aspiring to its restoration? For loft it was; and under that lofs we are now fuffering; and as

fuch

LECT. fuch fufferers we were vifited by Jefus X. Chrift. When fin entered, man fell from

this perfect state of mind, into ignorance and blindness of heart; inattention to divine knowledge and instruction; averfion to spiritual things; error of judgment; infenfibility of the confequences of good and evil; and inability, as well as indifpofition, to do the will of God. His foul is as a body maimed and diftempered: for fin is not only a defect, but a positive disease, including the nature of all the dif eases incident to man. The eyes of his mind are blind; its ears are deaf; its tongue is dumb; its feet are lame; its conftitution infected with foul diftempers; it is agitated with vain cares, cheated with vain pleasures, and diftreffed with emptiness and want. When the apostle had this subject before him, well might he exclaim, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? For the life we have upon these terms as natural men, is rather death than life; and fo the gospel hath confidered it: we are dead in trefpaffes

and