DISCOURSE VIL 251 fore our salvation is ordained to be of faith, that it might be Of grace. It is thé law or constitution of faith, as the means of our salvation, that it must excludeall boasting ; Rom. iii. 27 ; That all that are saved might glory only in the Lord; 1 Cor. i. 31. Nowwhen faith itself is expressed in so low and feeble exercise of it as looking unto Christ, it sloes in a most emphatical manner exclude every thing of self; it utterly forbids all boasting, and renders all the honour to Christ alone. How can a dying wretch pretend to any glory or merit in his own salvation, who only looked and was saved ? IV. There is in this way of expression a natural and easy reference to the command of looking to the brazen serpent, which was a type of Christ, and which was to confer health and life on the wounded and dying Israelites, by their looking up to it in the wilderness. See John iii. 14, 15. 11nd as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of. man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have eternal life. Compared with Numb. xxi. 8. The Lord said unto, Moses make thee atfiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall cone to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it shall live. Happy people, for whom so divine a remedy was provided against a national mischief! So sovereign an antidote against spreading and mortal poison ! Those that were stung and perishing, though they were at the utmost limits of the camp, might, as it were from the borders of the wilder- ness, look up to the brazen remedy, and find health and life: From the ends of the land they looked and were saved. Physicians were useless in that day, and all medicines insig- nificant. The swift and fiery poisonwrought powerfully in them that were bitten, and they were quickly brought to the borders of the grave. But before their eyes were closed in death, if they couldbut cast a look towards the appointed signal, the divine medium of salvation, behold they are miraculously healed,, and live ! And which of all the sons or daughters of Israel could boast of' any thing of his own in this wondrous deliverance, when on the very confines of life and the brink of the grave, they were healed by a look to the brazen image of a serpent? Such is the perishing sinner casting an eye toward Christ for salvation ! But some poor trembling sinner. will be ready to say, " Surely this is so little and so low an act of faith, that I am ready to question' whether this can save me or no : How shall I know whether my looking to Christ is of that kind as shall be effectual to my salvation ?" Now in answer to such an enquiry, let the fearful soul re- member what I have said before under the second particular, concerning the several acts of the seul that are secretly induct-
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