SERMONS.

SERMON I.

Sunday, January 25, 1835.

ON THE UNKINDNESS OF FRIENDS.

ZECHARIAH XIII. 6.

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

THE prophet Zechariah, whose words we have borrowed as our text, is perhaps more remarkable for the many palpable allusions to the history of the great Messiah, which are to be found in his prophecy, than any other of the prophets, not excepting even the "evangelical" prophet, as Isaiah has been called, if we take into consideration the relative proportion of their respective writings : and, amongst other passages, the words which have been now selected for your meditation, contain an interest not inferior to any that might be selected: "And one shall say unto him, What are these

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wounds in thy hands?

Then he shall answer,

Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends!"

In reference to these words, we propose to inquire :

I. Who the person is that is mentioned as being wounded?

II. What is meant by his being wounded in the house of his friends?

III. What is to be particularly understood by his being wounded in the hands? And,

IV. What we are to think about his being wounded at all; and what we ought to do in consequence of the information which we gain from these inquiries?

I. First of all, let us inquire who the person is that is said to be wounded in the house of his friends?

That person, my brethren, was, and is, no other than the great GOD, our Creator and Redeemer ! That person was, and is, also, no other than the MAN Christ Jesus, in whom, as the apostle states, "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily!"*

When man was first created by his Maker, he * Col. ii. 9.

was created, as you know, just and holy, pure and pious. But, being tempted by the tempter, he rebelled against his Father and his God, and thereby drove himself to a distance from the Author of his being, from the Source of his happiness, from the rightful Sovereign of his heart. He became, what every man is consequently now by nature, estranged and averse, wicked, wretched, and ruined !

Now, in order to approach unto his fallen, apostate creature, and to bring him back to himself, it was requisite that the eternal God should so disguise his awful majesty, that man might be able to look upon him, to converse with him, to think of him, accordingly as the degraded capacity of his nature would permit; in order that, by considering the heavenly pattern after which he was himself originally created, and comparing himself therewith, man might become sensible, and consequently ashamed of his own wretched and wicked condition, and enamoured of that moral beauty and blessedness which was made manifest by God incarnate, and which is the only truth, hope, and source of any real happiness.

Thus, then, it was God, God himself! who deigned to become a man for the salvation of men, and whose human form, or person, was designated by the name "JESUS CHRIST:" it was this incomprehensible God, it was this mysterious man, it was

this God-man, of whom the prophet inquires in the words of our text, "What are these wounds in thy hands?" and who answers for himself, "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends!" "Yea, they pierced my hands and my feet!"*

But what can this extraordinary saying mean? And does it not imply a something extremely unnatural, and peculiarly horrible and revolting? "Wounded in the house of his friends!" Is it the part of a friend to wound?

II. Let us, however, in the second place, inquire what is meant by his being "wounded in the house of his friends."

No doubt, it is this fair world that is meant by "the house of his friends," agreeably to the account given in the exordium of St. John's gospel :-" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and was God. All things were made by Him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew

* Ps. xxii.