testifies; " I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land, wherein thou sleepest, I will give to thee and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in thee and thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." [1] Nor did God cease afterwards to excite in the posterity of Abraham, and in many others, the hope of a Saviour, by renewing the recollection of the same promise; for, after the establishment of the Jewish republic and religion, it became better known to his people. Many types signified, and prophets foretold the numerous and invaluable blessings which our Redeemer, Christ Jesus, was to bring to mankind. And, indeed, the prophets, whose minds were illuminated with light from above, foretold the birth of the Son of God, the wondrous works which he wrought whilst on earth, his doctrine, manners, kindred, death, resurrection, and the other mysterious circumstances regarding him; [2] and all these as graphically as if they were passing before their eyes. With the exception of the time only, we can discover no difference be tween the predictions of the prophets, and the preaching of the apostles, between the faith of the ancient patriarchs, and that of Christians But, we are now to speak of the several parts of this Article.
" Jesus"] This is the proper name of the man-God, and signifies Saviour; a name given him not accidentally, or by the judgment or will of man, but by the counsel and command of God. For the angel announced to Mary his mother: " Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus." [3] He afterwards not only commanded Joseph, who was espoused to the Virgin, to call the child by that name, but also declared the reason why he should be so called: " Joseph," says he, " Son of David, fear not to take Mary thy wife, for that which is born in her is of the Holy Ghost; and she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins," [4] In the Sacred Scriptures we meet with many who were called by this name the son of Nave, for instance, who succeeded Moses, and, by special privilege denied to Moses, conducted into the land of promise, the people whom Moses had delivered from Egypt; [5] and Josedech, whose father was a priest. [6] But how much more appropriately shall we not deem this name given to him, who gave light and liberty and salvation, not to one people only, but to all men, of all ages to men oppressed, not by famine, or Egyptian, or Babylonish bondage, but sitting in the shadow of death and fettered by sin, and riveted in the galling chains of the devil to him who purchased for them a right to the inheritance of heaven, and reconciled them to God the
