An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

In the Old Testament we read of two very eminent that had this name, and both of them are made Types of Christ: Joshua, who lead the people of Israel into Canaan, when Moses could not do it: So Christ brings us to Heaven, which was impossible to the Law; and Joshua the high Priest, mentioned by Zechary, who being first accused, because of his despicable garments, was afterwards covered more gloriously. So Christ our high Priest, in the time of his Humiliation, was condemned, and of no reputation; but in his Exaltation was magnified and exalted gloriously. The word thus explained, we observe,

That the Lord Christ is a Jesus, a Saviour to his people.¹

1. 1The Lord Christ is a Jesus, a Saviour to his people.

This truth should be sweeter than the honey or the honey-comb to the lost sinner. Christ hath some names of terror and dread, as when he is called a Lion and a Judge; some again of love and comfort, as this of Jesus, which, as Bernard saith, is, In ore mel, in aure melos; not that the name, or the sound of words is such; and therefore that superstitious custom of bowing at the name of Jesus, was not for some hundred of years after Christ, and hath no Scripture institution. But the Office signified by name is to be cordially improved by the believing soul.

This truth should be sweeter than the honey or the honey-comb to the lost sinner. Christ hath some names of terrour and dread, as when he is called a Lion and a Judge; some again of love and comfort, as this of Jesus, which, as Bernard saith, is, In ore mel, in aure melos; not that the name, or the sound of words is such; and therefore that superstitious custome of bowing at the name of Jesus, was not for some hundred of years after Christ, and hath no Scripture institution. But the Office signified by name is to be cordially improved by the believing soul.