Advent with the Hackney Phalanx: ransom captive Israel

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume I (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - a sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, evoking Israel's waiting over the generations of the Old Covenant as a type of the Church's Advent hope:

With many, in all times, the special hope of promised blessings treasured in the heart, became a solid ground of consolation amidst the trials and the sorrows of their earthly pilgrimage: it enlightened all the patriarchal ages: it was the theme of expectation in their families, soothing the toils of their simple occupations and laborious lives: its doctrines were further opened by the Prophets, with whom the teaching of the Spirit had a larger scope; and they who, in any age or country, were careful to seek God and to keep his ways; they who shall taste the mercy of the Lord as sincere and righteous persons in their measure and proportion, shall find that such was the source of every needful succour in God's gracious providence, and the ground of every lasting blessing which is laid up for a future scene ...

This view which has been taken of the gradual display of the good providence of God in the redemption of the world , should serve to keep us hopeful and contented during our own term of attendance, and to settle our unshaken trust in that word which has already found so much of its completion.