The Righteousness of CHRIST, an everlasting Righteousness.
DANIEL ix. 24.
_And to bring in everlasting Righteousness._
ON reading these words, I cannot help addressing you in the language of the angels to the poor shepherds, who kept watch over their flocks by night, “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy,” such tidings, that if we have ears to hear, if we have eyes to see, and if our hearts have indeed experienced the grace of GOD, must cause us to cry out with the Virgin _Mary_, “My soul doth magnify the LORD, and my spirit doth rejoice in GOD my Saviour.” The words which I have read to you, are part of one of the most explicit revelations that was given of JESUS CHRIST, before he made his public entrance into this our world. It has been observed by some, and very properly too, that it is one mark of the divine goodness to his creatures, that he is pleased to let light come in gradually upon the natural world. If the sun from midnight darkness, was immediately to shine forth in his full meridian blaze, his great splendor would be apt to dazzle our eyes, and strike us blind again: but GOD is pleased to make light come gradually in, and by that means we are prepared to receive it. And as GOD is pleased to deal with the natural, so he has dealt with the moral, with the spiritual world. The LORD JESUS CHRIST did not appear in his full glory all at once, but as the sun rises gradually, so did the LORD JESUS, the Sun of righteousness, rise gradually upon men, with healing under his wings. Hence it was, that our first parents had nothing to fix their faith upon, but that first promise, “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” And in future ages, at sundry times, and after divers manners, GOD was pleased to speak to our fathers by the prophets, before he spake to us in these last days by his son; and the prophets that were more peculiarly dear to GOD, it should seem had more peculiar and extraordinary revelations vouchsafed to them, concerning JESUS CHRIST.