Difpenfation to David. cipal ufe is the conviction of future generations, more than the information of the present and time, which is apt to destroy other writings, ripens prophecy. So that, on this account at leaft, fucceeding generations grow wiser than those that have gone before-not by any acceffion of improvement in the faculties of the human understanding, but by the acceffion of events, which illuftrate and explain what has been prophefied.

With refpect to Chriftian prophecy in particular, many good reafons may be affigned, why it fhould not be as explicit in the delivery of it, as it is accurate in the accomplishment. Confidering the agency of man, to fay nothing of the agency of evil Beings above him, it may be a fuitable step in the wife conduct of Providence, to deliver his purposes in such a manner, that the obfcurity of them may prevent fome from being in too much hafte to accomplish them, and others from being busy in defeating them. Confidering too the condition of man, as a religious dependent creature, it is more fuitable he fhould be directed by hope gradually improving upon him,

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him, than be at once filled with compleat knowledge. And, notwithstanding the obscurity attending any facred prophecy at its delivery, if it has but light enough to fhew a ground to fet. hope and faith upon, it will be fufficient to justify this method of God's revelations.

With respect to the revelation which God gave of Christ by his prophet David-it was general and obfcure; fo was the original promise of a Redeemer given to Adam : and as that was at firft fufficient for the religious hope of thofe to whom it was given, and, in the courfe of prophecy, gradually opened itself, till it discovered that a fon of David fhould be that Redemer; fo now, the promife of that fon, though general and obfcure, was fufficient for the religious hope of those times; and it might well be left to the future course of prophecy to difcover, that this fon of David fhould be Chrift.

The age in which this prophecy was given faw, that a fon of David was defigned in it, which the fucceeding age foon faw was not fully accomplished in Solomon ; from whence religious minds would naturally

derive hopes of some future bleffing to be derived to them, in a more full and exact completion of it. If they faw thus much, they faw enough;-as much as was fufficient, according to God's ufual method of revelation, and as much as was fufficient, whereon to build their religious faith and obedience to God.

SERMON

SERMON IV,

The fame Subject continued.

2 SA M. vii. 12, 13:

I will fet up thy feed after thee-and I will eftablish the throne of his kingdom for ever.

T is natural to fuppofe, that the divine

IT

promise of an everlasting kingdom under a fon of David, was not at first understood in that spiritual fenfe, in which the Chrif tian accomplishment of it shews it was meant. It is natural to suppose, that the Ifraelites were led by it to expect the grandeur and ftrength of a temporal kingdom that the fucceffors of David fhould poffefs his throne in fecurity and fplendor, till fome one among them should at length arife, who should extend his empire over all the heathen world.

But