SERMON VI.

THE JUBILEE.

LEVITICUS Xxv. 8-10.

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound, on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

ALL our comfort in this world of sorrow, and all our hope of a future and eternal state of peace and joy, are derived from the Sacred Volume. The Bible is the fountain whence the streams of refreshment flow to cheer and purify the pilgrim in the wilderness; and it is the Pisgah of the soul, whence a bright prospect of" the Rest that remaineth for the people of GOD" may be contemplated with delight and joy. How precious, therefore, is this treasure of Divine mercy; and how important is it that no doubt should exist respecting its Divine authority! To remove

any such doubt, and to prevent its distressing and destructive influence, the evidence for the plenary inspiration, and, by consequence, for the Divine origin, of the Bible, is most conclusive and satisfactory. It is not my intention to produce the full and varied testimonies which might easily be brought forward on this point; but, in introducing the subject of the text, it may be well to call your attention, for a moment, to the proof which is here afforded of the Divine mission of the great Legislator of Israel, and of the sacredness and inspiration of the institutions of that favoured and peculiar Nation. No lawgiver who was uninspired by GoD, would have presumed to appoint every fiftieth year to be celebrated as a Jubilee, or to command the inhabitants of the land to abstain from sowing and cultivating the earth during that year: neither would he have ordered the restoration of all landed property to its original owner, in the year of Jubilee. The man who could thus enjoin the cessation of tillage and cultivation throughout a whole country for a whole year, must have been sent from the LORD of Heaven and Earth, who alone has power to make the earth bring forth so abundantly in one season, as to supply the necessities of a whole population during the appointed period of intermitted labour. The institution of the year of Jubilee, therefore, is ONE among the many internal proofs of the Divine mission of Moses and the Divine origin of the Holy Scriptures.

Let us, then, consider this institution itself, and point out the spiritual blessings, of which it was typical. And may Grace from on High direct and sanctify our meditations!

Notice, 1st, the APPOINTMENT of this joyful year. GOD, of His own good pleasure, was pleased to command, that every fiftieth year should be observed as a Jubilee. All the beneficial institutions of the Jews, and all the spiritual blessings which those institutions represented, are the result of the free and sovereign love and mercy of God. Neither the Feast of the Passover, nor the Year of Redemption, would have entered into the thought of Moses, or any one of his nation. Both originated entirely from Him who is "wondrous in His doings towards the children of men." And so it is in the things that accompany Salvation. The PASCHAL LAMB OF GOD, whose blood, sprinkled upon the soul of a sinner, secures him from the vengeance of the destroying angel-and the Proclamation of the good news of deliverance from the bondage of condemnation and corruption, and of the return of the impoverished and outcast sons of men into the possession of an eternal inheritance of blessedness-are to be traced up to that great and glorious God, who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.

The Israelites had nothing to do with the institution of the Jubilee and so, fallen man had nothing

to do with the appointment of the way of redemption. We could never have discovered the means of rescue from the misery of the Fall. GOD, therefore, mercifully contrived and instituted the whole Plan of Salvation. This He did from everlasting; and the wondrous scheme, which brings "glory to God in the highest," and secures eternal happiness to His people, was all ordered in the councils of THE EVER-BLESSED TRINITY, before time had a beginning, or sin an entrance into the once pure and peaceful bowers of Paradise. This reference of all things pertaining to Salvation to the sovereign determination and foreappointment of GOD, is calculated to deepen our humility, to confirm our hope, and to render us steadfast and immoveable in the ways of faith and holiness. The "everlasting Covenant” is "ordered in all things and sure;" the mercy which we receive in consequence of that Covenant, is "from everlasting to everlasting;" the love of God to His people continues without intermission, because it springs from the fountain of Divine Sovereignty; and the inheritance of glory is secured to all the children of our HEAVENLY FATHER, not by their works or worthiness, either before or after their adoption into the family of the redeemed, but by the unchangeable appointment and Almighty power of the FATHER, by the meritorious righteousness and expiatory sufferings of the Son, and by the effectual operation and unfailing influences of the HOLY SPIRIT.

Notice 2dly, The TIME of the Jubilee. This was fixed and determined. The year, and the day on which that year was to commence, were particularly mentioned. Every fiftieth year was to be the Jubilee, and that year was to commence on the great Day of Atonement. The Jews were to reckon this period by sevens. The number seven, among the Jews, signified rest and satisfaction. The multiplication of this number by itself, so as to make forty-nine years complete, at the end or consummation of which the joyful season of the Jubilee was to commence, would naturally impress a Jewish mind with the idea and expectation of the most perfect rest and satisfaction during the year of Jubilee. All that the arrangement of the most significant number in their most significant language could convey, was adapted to enlarge their desires and their expectations of happiness in the joyful year of redemption. There was a typical design in this; for it shadowed forth the "exceeding and eternal weight of glory," reserved for the LORD's people in “the time of restitution of all things," at the Jubilean period of the Second Advent of CHRIST. This is such as "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived;" and it was fitting, that what typified it should be expressed in terms conveying the most lively and extensive idea of perfection and felicity.

The Jubilee year was to begin “on the tenth day of the seventh month," answering to our September.