of his enemies, he serves the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of his life. The believer, when delivered from the hand of the condemning law, says to Christ, as the men of Israel did to Gideon, Judg. viii. 22: "Rule thou over us; for thou hast delivered us from the hand of our enemies."Suppose a king should not only pardon a rebel, but restore him his forfeited inheritance, advance him to the highest places of honour about the throne; yea, make him his son, his heir, and set him upon the throne with himself: would not that man be under a far greater obligation to serve and obey the king, than if he had never received such singular favours at his hand? There is no bond of obedience like the bond of gratitude to an ingenuous spirit. 6thly, He is under the bond of a renewed nature. The man is made a partaker of the divine nature, by which the life of God, the love of God, and the law of God, is laid in his very heart; and this is a mighty bond to obedience: Heb. viii. 10: "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." It is engraved there with the finger of the Holy Ghost his heart is cast into a divine mould, moulded into the will of God, his will of grace, his will of precept, and his will of providence; so that he "delights in the law of God, after the inward man. The law of his God is in his heart," and therefore "none of his steps shall slide." and Lastly, The inhabitation of the Holy Ghost is another efficacious bond to obedience: Ezek. xxxvi. 27: "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes; ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." This law of the Spirit of life, which is in Christ Jesus, makes them "free from the law of sin and death." And being led by the Spirit, they do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. To conclude, that very grace of God which frees them from the law as a covenant, binds them to it as a rule, Tit. ii. 11, 12. These are some gospel bonds of obedience: and you who never knew what it is to have your souls under the sweet influence of these, but only obey the law with a view to purchase a title to heaven, or to redeem your souls from hell and wrath, I, in the name of God, pronounce the heavy doom of my text against you, He that believeth not, is condemned already. Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us.-LUKE I. 78. THESE words are a part of the prophetic song of Zacharias, concerning the person, kingdom, and glory of Christ. The man was filled with the Holy Ghost, and this made his "tongue like the pen of a ready writer" to proclaim the praises of our glorious Immanuel. Whenever the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon a soul, his great work is to glorify Christ. Time will not allow me to insist in opening up the connexion. Only, in a word, Zacharias having spoken of John Baptist as the harbinger of the glorious Messiah, he tells us what would be his province and peculiar work, ver. 77: "To give the knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of sins," or for the remission of sins; that is, to open up the way how guilty sinners may come to be justified through the righteousness of Christ, this being the only way of salvation from the wrath of God, and the curse of the broken law. And if any should ask, How comes it about that salvation and remission of sins should be published to a guilty lost world? You have a very apposite answer to this inquiry in the words of my text: it is, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us. Where notice, (1.) How the manifestation of Christ, as the Saviour, is expressed; it is called, The day-spring from on high. (2.) The moving cause of this manifestation of Christ: it is, Through the tender mercy of our God, or, as in the margin, the bowels of his mercy. O sirs, it was not the works of righteousness that we had done, or were to do, that laid God under an obligation to send his Son into the world; no, no, it was the working of his own heart, the rolling of his own bowels of love and pity to perishing sinners, John iii. 16: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life." It is observable here, that Zacharias does not simply say, the tender mercies of God; but, through the tender Preached immediately before the celebration of the Lord's supper, at Portmoak, June 2, 1728. mercies, or bowels, of our God. This is the ordinary way of faith; whenever it views God as a God of mercy in Christ, it lays claim to him, it applies and appropriates him; this being the echo of faith to the covenant-grant, "I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God." But now, if it should be asked, What way have the bowels of mercy vented themselves to us? what is the issue of them? Why, says he, Through the tender mercy of our God, the day-spring from on high hath visited us. As if he had said, By the mani"festation of his eternal Son in our nature, and the gracious approach that he has made to us in him, he has dispelled these dark and black clouds of wrath that were hovering over our heads. "We that sat in darkness, saw great light; and to us that sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." Some render the words of the text, the sunrising from on high, others, the branch-spring from on high hath visited us. I shall follow our own translation, the day-spring from on high hath visited us. The words will be farther clear in speaking to the following observation: OBSERV. "That Christ's approaches in a way of grace make a joyful day of salvation to spring from on high upon a miserable world. The day-spring from on high hath visited us.— Hence it is that Christ is sometimes called the light of the world; sometimes, the Sun of righteousness; sometimes, the bright and morning Star; and his goings forth are prepared as the morning." Method, I. To inquire what this text and doctrine supposes. III. Why his visits are likened to the spring of the day. IV. What sort of a day springs up when Christ visits the soul. V. Why this day is said to spring from on high, VI. Apply the whole. I. The first thing is, to inquire what is implied in the expres sion in the text, The day-spring from on high hath visited us. 1. It supposes Adam's posterity to be in a dark, lonely, and miserable condition, before Christ visits them from on high. What the condition of the old creation was before the forming of light, that is man's before Christ pays him a visit: the old creation was "without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;" so is man: man is without form or comeliness, a mass of darkness, and disorder, and misery.As the darkness of the night overspreads the face of the earth before the spring of day, so a melancholy night of darkness overspreads all the children of men. Immediately upon the entry of sin, a curtain, a veil, was drawn between God and man, by the justice and holiness of God, till it was rent again by the death and blood of a Redeemer. Oh, what darkness was upon our first parents before Christ was revealed in the first promise! such a darkness as caused horror and trembling, and flying in among the thickets of paradise. There is a manifold darkness that sin has brought upon man: a darkness of ignorance; the eyes of the understanding are dashed out by the fall, that we cannot know, cannot receive the things of God: a darkness of error, full of mistaken notions about God and the things of God; we naturally change the truth of God into a lie, put darkness for light, and light for darkness: a darkness of enmity and prejudice against God; we are "enmity against God, and alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in us." The very darkness of death is upon us; we "sit in the regions and shadow of death," Matth. iv.: the darkness of a legal death, being "condemned already, and the wrath of God abiding on us:" the darkness of spiritual death, being without God, and consequently without life, "in the world, dead in trespasses and sins, like the slain that lie in the grave." Now, sirs, this is your condition and mine by nature, before Christ comes in a way of grace to us, making the day-spring from on high to visit us. 2. The day-spring from on high hath visited us; it supposes Christ to be the glorious Sun, whose coming brings light along with him: Mal. iv. 2: "Unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings." All the stars in the firmament, and constellations of the heavenly bodies, cannot make day till the sun arise; so neither could all the angels of heaven afford the least glimmering of comfort or relief to a lost world, till the Son of God came and paid us a visit; he alone is "the God of salvation, to whom belong the issues from death." 3. The text implies, that Christ coming upon this errand, for our salvation, was unconstrained and voluntary: a visit is a free and voluntary thing without any manner of force.What is said of the natural sun, Psal. xix. 5, that he "rejoiceth as a strong man to run his race," is much more true of Christ the sun of righteousness; he "rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and his delights were with the sons of And as the sun in the firmament, with the greatest freedom, scatters his beams through the world, so does Christ scatter the rays and beams of his grace and love among sinners in the dispensation of the everlasting gospel. And when he comes by his Spirit, either in a day of conversion, or of a renewed manifestation of himself to a believer, it is with delight and pleasure that he does it: "Behold he cometh," says the spouse, "leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills." 4. The text implies, that Christ's visits are wonderful, sweet and acceptable. What can be more desirable than the spring of day, after a dark, long, and melancholy night? "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." Oh, will the soul say, when Christ comes, welcome, welcome, welcome, ten thousand times welcome, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord to save us." O sirs, never did Christ come yet to visit, but he brought welcome with him: "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, we will be glad, and rejoice in his salvation." 5. The text implies an infinite disparity between the party visiting and the party visited; hence the day-spring is from on high. O sirs, we were brought low by our iniquities, lying upon the very confines of hell; and therefore when Christ, who lay in his Father's bosom from eternity, when he "who inhabits eternity, and dwells in the high and holy place," comes to visit us, he must humble and abase himself to meet us; he leaves the upper regions of glory, to dwell or tabernacle with us upon earth. Hence we are told, that though he was “in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Thus, you see what the text and doctrine imply. II. The second thing is, to notice some of the gracious visits of Christ, or gradual advances of this day-spring from on high. 1. Then, there was the early visit that he made us in his eternal purpose from the ancient years of eternity, before ever the world was made: Mic. v. 2: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Which last words may either denote the eter nal generation of the Son; he was begotten of his Father from eternity, being the same eternal, independent, self-existent God with him: or it may point out his eternal destination by the Father to be the Redeemer and Saviour of lost sinners; agreeable to which is that of Christ, Prov. viii. 23: “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." This was, as it were, his first motion towards us, though, as yet, at a great and inconceivable distance. O sirs, wonder at this wonderful grace and love of God, that paid us a visit when he saw us in our blood, and before we |