2. How to regard the Lord Jesus Christ himself —
[Methinks these Jews, though so blind and sinful, may well rise up in judgment against the generality of the Christian world. The serpent which they worshipped had never done any thing for them ; the persons whom it had healed, had lived eight hundred years before ; and it prevailed only to prolong for a season their corporeal life : and no benefit had accrued from it to any child of man since the day that it was erected in the camp. Yet they honoured it, and " offered incense to it." But the Lord Jesvis Christ has been healing immortal soids ; and that from the foundation of the world to this pre- sent hour ; and so healed them, that they should live for ever. This too he has done, not by being unconsciovisly and vdthout volition suspended on the cross ; but by voluntarily leaving his Father's bosom, and assuming our nature, and dying on the cross under the load of all our sins, and drinking to the very dregs that cup of bitterness which must otherwise have been put into our hands to drink for ever. Yet how many days
^ Hab. i. 16.
and months and years have been spent by most of us without ever oifering to him the incense of our prayers and praise ! Yea, notwithstanding he is erected for the heahng of us, and is at this moment empowered to bestow on us all the blessings that we can need for body or for soul, for time or for eternity, how little is he adored and magnified by us ! May we not well be ashamed when we reflect on tliis? May we not be confounded when we compare our treatment of him with the conduct of the Jews towards the senseless shadowy representa- tion of him ? Yes indeed ; we have reason to blush and be confounded before him. Let us then repent of all our ingra- titude towards him. Let us remember that there is no fear of honouring him too much, since He is God, as well as man ; and not the medium of communication only, but the true and proper source of all blessings to our souls. Then shall our communion with him be sweet : and " the golden oil shall flow through the golden pipes ^" of his ordinances, from Him the fountain of it, to the enriching of our souls with all spiritual blessings, and to the everlasting glory of his great and glorious name.]
1 Zech. iv. 11—14.