THE Deliverer will come out of Sion for these ends, by an extraordinary circulation of the Holy Scriptures.  When Christ comes to a person or a people, he sends his word and heals them.  The sacred Scriptures are the word of salvation: when Christ sends them to men, he comes to them, and says, “Unto you is the word of this salvation sent.” [Acts 13.26.]  The Scriptures are the word of Christ, and therefore wherever they go, Christ is there, because they testify of him.  When the word of Christ abides in believers, Christ dwelleth in their hearts by faith, and is in them the hope of glory.  This word is the appointed mean by which God convinces men of their sin and misery, reveals his Son in them, and calls them by his grace.  The Sacred Oracles are a lamp to the feet, and a light to the path of men, [Psalm 119.105,] and therefore when God bestows them on the nations, he sends Christ, who is the sun of righteousness, and the light of the world, to bring them out of darkness into his marvelous light. [Mal. 4.2; John 8.12; 1 Pet. 2.9.]  There cannot be any true knowledge of God, of Christ, or of the guilty sinner’s salvation, but by the light of God’s word.  Of all Scripture it may be said, “These are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” [John 20.31.]  In the holy providence of God, and by the mediatorial administrations of Jesus Christ among men, the Sacred Scriptures have been sent into many nations in their own language, many have been disposed to receive and peruse them, and some in every place into which the word has entered, have believed in Christ, and turned to God from idols and other destructive vanities. [1 Thess. 1.9.]  The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testaments, have been put into the hands of the Jews, in their original language, and in other languages with which they are acquainted, and some have read of the Messiah, and believed in him to their everlasting salvation.  The happy effects which the Divine word has produced on many of God’s ancient people, in the different places where they sojourn, encourage the hope, that, by this and other means, the Deliverer will soon come out of Sion, to turn away ungodliness from Jacob.  This diffusion of the word of life among Jews and Gentiles, is a most glorious sign of our times.  It is a new thing in the earth.  The effects which have been produced already, are proportioned both to the means that have been employed, and to the time that has been spent in the application of them.  From what has been done in our own day, it is evident that God is sending the rod of the Redeemer’s strength out of Sion, by which his people are made willing in the day of his power, [Psalm 110.2-3]; and that this will continue and increase, by the conversion of Jews and Gentiles, till Christ’s saints shall be numerous, and prove like the drops of dew, from the womb of the morning.