SERMON XII.* THEN LUKE Vii. 22. JESUS ANSWERING, SAID UNTO THEM, GO YOUR WAY, AND TELL JOHN YOU will immediately recollect the occa fion on which these words were spoken. They make a part of the answer which our Saviour gave to the two difciples whom John the Baptist sent to him, to ask whether he was the Great Deliverer that was to come, or they were to look for another. The whole paffage is a remarkable one, and affords ample matter • Preached at the Yearly Meeting of the Charity Schools, in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, May 2, 1782. for obfervation; but the particular circumftance to which I mean to draw your attention at prefent, is the laft clause of the text, in which we are told, that " to the poor the Gofpel is preached." That our Lord fhould appeal to the miracles which he had wrought before the eyes of the two disciples, as an inconteftible proof that he was the Meffiah, will be thought very natural and proper; but that he should immediately fubjoin to this, as an additional proof; and a proof on which he seems to lay as much ftrefs as on the other, that to " the poor the " Gospel was preached," may appear, at the first view, a little extraordinary. We fhall, however, foon be fatisfied that in this, as well as in every other inftance, our divine Mafter acted with confummate wifdom. He was fpeaking to Jews. His object was to convince them, that he was the MESSIAH. The obvious way of doing this was to fhew, that he correfponded to the defcription which their own prophets gave of that great perfonage. Now they fpeak of him as one, who should not only give eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, feet to the lame, and speech to the dumb, but but fhould alfo "preach good tidings to the These were two "meek and the poor distinct and separate marks by which he was to be known, and it was therefore as proper and neceffary for our Saviour to refer to the one as to the other. Whoever pretended to be the MESSIAH, muft unite in himself these two great difcriminating peculiarities, which, taken together, form one of the most illustrious and beneficent characters that can be imagined; a character diftinguifhed by the communication of the greatest of all earthly bleffings to two defcriptions of men, who stood most in need of affiftance, the difeafed, and the poor. To the former, the promised Saviour of the world was to give health; to the latter, fpiritual inftruction. In this manner was the great Redeemer marked out by the prophets, and this glorious diftinction did Christ display and support in his own perfon throughout the whole courfe of his ministry. That he was infinitely superior to every other teacher of religion in the number, and the benevolent nature of his miracles, is well known; and that he was no less distinguished * Ifaiah xxix. 18, 19. xxxv. 5, 6. lxi. 1. VOL. II. S by by the circumftance of " preaching to the "poor;" that there was no one either before or after him, who made it fo much his peculiar bufinefs to inftruct them, and paid fuch conftant and condefcending attention to them as he did, is equally certain. The ancient prophets were ufually fent to kings and princes, to the rich and the great, and many of their prophecies were couched in fublime figurative language, beyond the comprehenfion of the vulgar. There were, indeed, other parts of the Jewish fcriptures fufficiently plain and intelligible, and adapted to all capacities; but even these the rabbics and the fcribes, the great expounders of the law among the Jews, contrived to perplex and darken, and render almost uselefs by their vain traditions, their abfurd gloffes, and childish interpretations. So far were they from showing any particular regard or tendernefs to the common people, that they held them in the utmost contempt; they confidered them as accurfed*, because they knew not that law, which they themselves took care to render impenetrably obfcure to them. They took "away the key of knowledge; they entered Joha vii. 48, 49. "" not |