DISCOURSE VIII. God in Christ is the Saviour of the Ends of the Earth; or, Faith represented in its lowest Degrees. Is. xiv. 22.-Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God; and there is none else. THE SECOND PART. THIS is an invitation of surprising and sovereign mercy to creatures in the utmost distress and misery. It is the great and blessed God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, calling the Gentile world to salvation. It is God in Christ inviting sinners from the ends of the earth, and the borders of hell, to partake of heaven and happiness. It is Immanuel, God with us, who calls us to look unto him and be saved. If we are sensible of our own misery; if we are weary of sin, and would be secured from the wrath to come, let us look to him as a Saviour, with an eye of faith and holy dependance. This was the subject of the former discourse. Let us now go on to the last question, and learn, what assurance we can have from the text, that we shall possess this salvation in the way proposed; or that faith in God our Saviour shall be attended with such success. The reason is given by the prophet in almighty and convincing language; For I am God and there is none else. This sentence has two distinct parts in it, and each of them carries strong reasons for the support of our faith, and the encouragement of our hope. The first part is the assertion of his own godhead. I am God; which carries in it these two supports or assurances : 1. I am God; therefore, I am all-sufficient to save; and therefore, ye dying sinners, look unto me, and be saved. What is there that the most wretched of creatures can stand in need of, but there is a supply to be found among the treasures of a God? When a God undertakes to be a Saviour, the creature cannot perish. There is light and wisdom enough in him to make the Tool wise for ever; and to scatter all our darkness: There is power enough in God, to make the weakest soul strong in grace, and active in every duty: There is love enough in him to melt the most stubborn heart, and change an old enemy into an humble and willing subject. Ye may be assured of this salvation if ye look to Jesus, who is God, and therefore mighty to save; Is. Ixiii. 1. There is an all-sufficiency in his blood and righteousness to atone for infinite transgressions, and to procure the everlasting favour of God: For this High-priest or Mediator himself is one with God, he is God, and his sacrifice on earth, and his intercession in heaven, are all over dignified with godhead, and thereby become almighty for salvation. 2. I am God; and therefore have a right to prescribe the means of obtaining my salvation. Look therefore unto me, ye sinners, and be saved. I will give it to every one that looks; he that believes on me shall be saved from sin and death; Mark xvi. 16. John iii. 15, 16. God is rich in grace; and if he will manifest the glory and freedom of it in the grant of his new covenant, and will promise salvation to faith, and not insist upon that personal perfect obedience which once was required, let the thankful sinner rejoice, and submit, and give God the honour of his abounding mercy. Let him pursue the highest measures of holiness, under the melting influences of gratitude, and the constraining power of divine love. This is naturally implied in the first part of the words, I am God. But when he adds this glorious clause, and there is none else, he seems, in the second part of this sentence, to intimate these three things further to us: 1. There is none that can save besides me. The salvation of a sinner from the ends of the earth, from the borders of hell, is too great a work for any being that is less than God. What mere creature has worth enough to make compensation to the great God for the sins of men: Or what created power has influence enough to persude God to be reconciled? Is there knowledge enough in a mere fellow-creature, intimately to acquaint himself with all the thoughts and wants of a perishing sinner? Is there power enough to new-mould his nature? To strike divine light into his conscience? To bend his stubborn will and subdue all his powers to the obedience of the gospel? Has any mere creature power sufficient to change a dead sinner into a living saint? To secure him through every temptation? To fit him for the society of God and angels? And to bring him through death to eternal glory? All this must be done if a sinner be saved. 2. These words also imply, there is none but God who has a right to prescribe the means of our salvation. If he says to sinners, look and be saved; who shall dare forbid the blessing, or appoint a different way to obtain it? If the Lord of heaven has said to poor perishing creatures on earth, ye shall be saved if ye believe. Shall the Jew dare to impose circumcision as necessary to salvation? Or the papists command penances or pilgrimages? Or shall the conceited Pharisee require a perfection of holiness, and a righteousness made up of the works of the law, in order to obtain eternal life? "The righteousness of the law saith, do this and live:" But the "righteousness of faith says, Believe and be saved;" Rom. x. 5, 6, 9. It is granted that this saving faith must be a vital principle in the soul, that manifests itself in repentance, and endeavours after universal holiness; for a dead faith cannot save: But it is not our holiness that can provide acceptance with an offended God, it is faith in the sacrifice and righteousness of the Redeemer, that is the means appointed for this end. The great God has appointed it, and who shall dare to forbid; his authority is sovereign, and his appointment a sufficient warrant for our hope. 3. I am God, and there is none else, includes thus much also for the comfort and assurance of the believing sinner; that there is none can prevent your salvation, if you comply with the gracious proposals. Who shall condemn if God will justify? Rom. viii. 33, 34. Who can pluck us out of the hand of Christ, or separate us from his love? John x. 28. Who shall destroy, if God will save? It is his property, and his divine prerogative, to kill and to make alive, to save and to destroy; Deut. xxxii. 39, 43. "See now, that I, even I am he; and there is no God with me; I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. Rejoice therefore, O ye nations, ye Gentiles, together with his people Israel; for he will render vengeance to his adversaries, and be merciful to his land; Is. xliii. 11, 13. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no Saviour. I will work; and who shall let it ?" Thus it appears, that there is abundant ground from the words of my text, for a poor perishing sinner to raise his hope to assurance that he shall be saved, if he does but sincerely answer this gracious invitation from heaven, and trust in God, as he is revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ, for salvation, according to that description of true faith which is given us in the word of God. All the improvements I shall make of this discourse at present, shall be contained in these four reflections. I. We may learn from this scripture, how extensive and glorious is the salvation of Christ! How answerable it is in every respect to the weaknesses and the wants, to the miseries, dangers, and fears, of a convinced, and awakened sinner! It reaches to those who are perishing in the ends of the earth. Let us survey them a little more particularly. 1. Is our guilt and distress exceeding great and dreadful? Behold here a salvation of rich fulness and divine all-sufficiency: for it is a God that provides it. The riches of grace, the depths of wisdom, and the efforts of almighty power are employed in this blessed work; and the mercy is expressed in the manner of a speaking God: He who said, Let there be light, and there was light, says also, look and be saved: And the sinner looks and receives salvation. It is a God who commands deliverances for Jacob, and salvation for his people; Ps. xliv. 4. 2. Are our enemies great and mighty? Are the flesh, and the world, and the powers of hell engaged against the safety of our souls? yet our salvation is perfectly and eternally secure; for he that saves us is God: No creature can divest us of it, and there is no other God besides him. Neither height, nor depth, nor principalities, nor powers-nor life, nor death, nor any creature, shall separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus, our Lord; Rom. viii. 38, 39. 3. Are we at such a dreadful distance from God, that we seem to be on the utmost verge of all hope, at the ends of life and this world, at the borders of hell and despair? Yet we are within the reach of the call of mercy, within the sound of the voice of Christ, and his extensive grace: Look from the ends of the earth, and be saved. 4. Are we poor impotent creatures, that can do nothing to make satisfaction to God for our sins, and little or nothing towards the restoring our souls to the likeness of God, and the recovery of holiness? Do we stand in need of such a Saviour, that must work all our works for us, and in us? Behold such a one in my text: He requires of you but to look to him, and trust in him, in the manner I have described, and the salvation is free and sure. Christ himself will bestow it on us. There are some poor, melancholy, desponding creatures, who are even almost overwhelmed with a sense of their guilt, and of the power of sin in them, and are just giving up all hope, who have need to have the riches and amazing condescensions of grace to be set before them, in such a manner as this. And blessed be God, that his gospel contains in it such abounding mercy to creatures so miserable.— We may therefore cry out with joy and thankfulness, and holy wonder: O the fulness and sufficiency of this salvation! It is God who provides it, who knows and can supply all the vast variety of our wants! O the wide extent of it! It reaches to all nations, to all characters of persons, even to the ends of the earth. O the rich freedom of this grace, that requires us to look, and be saved! O what free and full, what large and extensive, what rich and sovereign salvation! II. What a blessed security of this salvation is given to all those who comply with the invitation of this grace! It is as safe as it is extensive. No creature can take away what a God resolves to bestow. No finite being can prevent what an infinite being resolves to do. If he that is God will save, none else can destroy, or frustrate the designed salvation? Who shall forbid the blessing that the Almighty Saviour will confer on those who look to him from the ends of the earth? The enemy, even the most malicious and powerful enemy, whose name is Abaddon, or the destroyer, is but a creature; but the friend, the mighty and merciful friend, whose name is Jesus, or the Saviour, is God, even Immanuel, God with us. When he stands upon the throne of his mercy, and cries out to perishing sinners, Look to me from the ends of the earth, and be saved; not all the powers of hell shall be able to destroy the sinners that look to him, and accept of his salvation. What a glorious relief is found in my text against all temptations to despondency? Your Saviour is God, and there is none besides him. III. How much do those sinners deserve to perish for ever, who will not be saved upon such gracious terms? In vain do you turn your eyes around you, and look to one creature, and seek to another for help; your ruin is too great, and your misery too deep and dismal, for any power but that of God, to raise and recover you. If they who refused to hear the voice of Moses, who spake from earth, died without mercy, of how much sorer punishment shall ye be thought worthy, who refuse to hearken to the voice of God speaking from heaven? Heb. x. 28, 29. Can you ever imagine it possible that you should escape the divine vengeance, who neglect so great, so divine a salvation. Consider, ye sinners, that are this day under the call of grace, though now you seem to be as it were at the ends of the earth, afar off from God and Christ; from all that is holy, and all that is happy, yet you are not utterly abandoned to destruction, while, the voice of mercy sounds in your ears. But take heed that ye hearken while ye are called to-day, lest ye perish before the morrow come. Remember this, that the silver trumpet of mercy will not always sound: Christ Jesus will not always say, look unto me, and be saved. Ye are now upon the confines of hell; if once death open its dark gates, and hell has shut her mouth upon you, you will then be far out of the sight of Jesus the Saviour, and beyond the call of his mercy for ever. Let me turn my voice now for a few minutes to the gospel Israel, to the children of the kingdom. While I have been inviting the ends of the earth to be saved, and have been calling sinners afar off from God and his church to receive Jesus Christ and his salvation, is there any dispensation for you to neglect it, who dwell in the midst of the visible church? You who were born of holy parents, who have lived in religious families and are by this means brought near to the kingdom of heaven? Are you ready to flatter yourselves that you are out of danger of perishing? Have a care of vain presumption, and foolish feeble hopes. The wounded Israelites, who lay just under the brazen serpent of old, might die and perish there in their own folly, if they refused to look up to the appointed remedy; while some from the |