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compass thee about, yet fhall thy life be brought up from corruption. I beheld the chariots of Pharaoh and the mighty host of Egypt plunging in the deep, when the morning appeared; but thou shalt triumph over principalities and powers, and fee them overwhelmed in the lake of fire. I led my people through the wildernefs, and gave them a law which had "the fhadow of good things to

come;" but thou fhalt conduct thine through the world, and teach them to "worthip in spirit and in "truth." I went before Ifrael to the borders of the promised land; but thou art the true fhepherd of fouls, and they who follow thee fhall "pafs from death unto life." Zacharias concludes his divine fong

with an apoftrophe to the infant Baptift, as one who was defigned by providence to be the precurfor of fucli a Saviour, and the publisher of fuch falvation.

9. And thou child fhalt be called the prophet of the Higheft, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, to prepare his ways;

10. To give knowledge of falcation unto his people for the remiffion of their fins

"THE law prophefied until John," who fuceeded it in it's office of pointing out the Meffiah, and fpake the language of it's inftitutions, when he faid, "Behold the Lamb of God, "which taketh away the fin of the "world."

"world."

"Remiffion of fins" is

the doctrine in which the Chriftian religion juftly glorieth, as that most neceffary and fundamental point, in which every other religion fails. The Heathen confeffeth himself to be in the dark; he gueffeth only what is the will of God, whom he knoweth not. He hath not ftrength to perform what he imagineth to be fuch; and he understandeth not the meaning of the facrifices and luftrations derived to him by tradition. The blood of bulls and goats cannot wash away the fins of the Jew; and his oblations, fince the truth is come, which they were intended to prefigure, are prepofterous, and impious. The Mahometan hath no evidence for the miffion of his prophet,

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phet, no argument for his religion but the fword, and no heaven but fenfe. The doctrine of "falvation "by the remiffion of fins," through faith in a Redeemer, was, from the beginning, the fum and substance of true religion, which fubfifted in promife, prophecy, and figure, till John preached their accomplishment in the perfon of Jefus. Paganifm was a corruption of it, before that time, as Mahometifm hath been fince; and modern Judaifm is an apoftafy from it. And fhall we go away, and forfake our Redeemer? To whom can we go? He hath the words of eternal life: he only can give "fal"vation by the remiffion of fins." It is this religion which enlightens the understanding with true know

lege,

lege, and warms the heart with true charity it is this which alone brings

confidence, and comfort, and joy, and bids fear and defpondency fly away: it is this which raises the foul, as it were, from the dead, puts new vigour into all her powers and faculties, and animates her to duty, by the powerful motives it fuggefteth it is this which is a counterbalance to the temptations of fenfe, by the promises made to our faith; which fupports the infirmity of nature by the glorious objects proposed to our hope; and which triumphs over the oppofition of the world, by the love of God fhed abroad in our hearts: it procures us the only folid happiness there is in this world, and opens a way to the felicities of the F 2

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