counsellor," Sennacherib, should comed. Then, in Jehovah's name, he addresses himself to the Jewish nation, to certify them, that, however greatly this formidable enemy should harass and distress them, they should be freed from his yoke6. Then he ad- dresses more immediately Sennacherib himself, and declares that he, his family, and his idols, should be signally and entirely cut offf. Lastly, beholding, as it were, his prophecy already accomplished, he points to the Messenger hastening over the mountains to announce the glad tidings : and he calls upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem to resume their wonted occupations, and especially their religious ordinances, in humble acknowledgment of the Divine goodness, and with a faithful regard to those vows which they had made in the day of their calamity g.
The affinity between this subject, and that which calls for our attention this day, will more fully appear, while we consider,
I. The tidings which are announced to us this day —
These certainly relate, in the first instance, to Hezekiah's deliverance by the destruction of Senna- cherib's army —
[This was a great deliverance, wrought by God himself through the ministry of an angel h. And it may well serve to illustrate the blessings we this day commemorate ' ]
But they relate also to the deliverance of mankind from sin and death through the intervention of the Lord Jesus —
[The deliverances vouchsafed to the Jews, are constantly represented in Scripture as typical of the great work of re- demption : and the very expressions in the text are used by
d ver. 11. e ver. 12, 13. f ver. 14.
? ver. 1.5. h Isai. xxxvii. 36.
1 If it be the Restoration of Peace, the parallel must be drawn be- tween the dangers to which Jerusalem, and our nation, had been exposed. And, if there have been any signal interpositions of the Deity in favour of our land, the mention of them will mark the parallel more strongly. If it be the Restoration of King Charles the Second, the blessings of Hezekiah's government, and the renewal of the established ordinances of religion, must rather be adverted to as the ground of the parallel.