against your nation for destroying their Messiah came upon them.

Now by this act, the crucifying of your Messiah, you did provoke God to jealousy to a greater degree than by any of your former crimes; for God sent you his co-equal, co-eternal Son: he sent you that Divine Person, who was "David's Lord," as well as "David's Son." The learned men of his own day acknowledged that the names, Son of man, and Son of God, were of the same import; and that, as assumed by Jesus, both the one and the other amounted to an assertion, that he was equal with God. You know also that his claiming these titles was the ground on which they accused him of blasphemy, and demanded sentence against him as a blasphemer. Thus according to your own acknowledgment, supposing him to have been the person foretold by the prophets as the Messiah, you have "crucified the Lord of Glory." Moreover, about the time that your fathers crucified him, they were ready to follow every impostor that assumed to himself the title of Messiah. "Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhedrim, a doctor of law, a man who was in high repute among all the Jews," acknowledged this readiness of the people to run after impostors: he mentions a person by the name of Theudas, who, with four hundred adherents, was slain and after him one Judas of Galilee, who drew away much people after him, and perished. We are informed also that Simon Magus, by his enchantments, seduced all the people of Samaria, from the least to the greatest, and persuaded them that "He was the great power of God"." Your own historian bears ample testimony to these facts. Here then you can see how you have provoked God to jealousy, in that you have destroyed his own Son, who came down from heaven to instruct and save you yea, though he brought with him the most unquestionable credentials, and supported his claim by the most satisfactory evidences, you rejected him

g Acts v. 34-37. h Acts viii. 9-11. i Josephus, lib. vi. cap. 5.

with all imaginable contempt, whilst you readily adhered to any vile impostor that chose to arrogate to himself the title of Messiah. Your former idolatries, though sinful in the extreme, were less heinous than this, inasmuch as the manifestations of God's love were far brighter in the gift of his Son, than in all the other dispensations of his grace from the foundation of the world; and the opposition of your fathers to him was attended with aggravations, such as never did, or could, exist in any other crime that ever was committed.

Here then we are arrived at the true reason of the judgments which are at this time inflicted on you.

Now let us investigate the judgments themselves; and you will see that they also are such as were evidently predicted in our text.

You are cut off from being the people of the Lord, and are absolutely incapacitated for serving him in the way of his appointments. On the other hand, God has chosen to himself a people from among the Gentiles, from "those who were not a people," and were justly considered by you as "a foolish nation," because they were altogether without light and understanding as it respected God and his ways. This you know to have been predicted by all your prophets, insomuch that your fathers, who looked for a temporal Messiah, expected that he would bring the Gentiles into subjection to himself, and extend his empire over the face of the whole earth. This the Lord Jesus has done: he has taken a people from among the Gentiles, who are become his willing subjects. Now this rejection of the Jews from the Church of God, and this gathering of a Church from among the Gentiles, is the very thing which in all ages has most angered you, and provoked you to jealousy. When Jesus himself merely brought to the remembrance of your fathers, that God had, in the days of Elijah and Elisha, shewn distinguished mercy to a Sidonian widow, and Naaman the Syrian; they were filled with such indignation, that, notwithstanding they greatly admired all the former part of his

discourse, they would have instantly cast him down a precipice, if he had not escaped from their hands*. When, on another occasion, he spoke a parable to the chief priests and elders, and asked them "what they conceived the lord of the vineyard would do to those husbandmen who beat all his servants, and then murdered his Son in order to retain for themselves the possession of his inheritance, they were constrained to acknowledge, that he would destroy those murderers, and let his vineyard to others who should render him the fruits in their season:" and on his confirming this melancholy truth with respect to them, they exclaimed, "God forbid!!" When the Apostles of Jesus afterwards preached to the Gentiles, the Jews could not contain themselves; the very mention of the name Gentiles, irritated them to madness: so indignant were they at the thought of having their privileges transferred to others, whom they so despised. And thus it has been ever since. Nothing is so offensive to a Jew at this day, as the idea of Christians arrogating to themselves the title of God's peculiar people. The present attempts to bring the Jews into the Church of Christ are most displeasing to them: they regard us as modern Balaams, rising up to bring a curse upon their nation: and when any are converted from among them to the faith of Christ, the old enmity still rises in the hearts of their unbelieving brethren; who are kept only by the powerful arm of our law from manifesting their displeasure, as they were wont to do in the days of old".

Here then you see the text fulfilled in its utmost extent: here also you see that perfect correspondence between the guilt and the punishment of the Jewish nation, which was predicted: they have provoked God to jealousy by following vile impostors and rejecting his Son; and he has provoked them to jealousy by rejecting them, and receiving into his Church the ignorant and despised Gentiles.

And now let me ask, Is this exposition of the text

k Luke iv. 22-30. 1 Matt. xxi. 33-41. and Luke xx. 14-16. m Acts xiii. 44, 45. 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. n Acts xxiii. 21, 22.

novel? No: it is that which is sanctioned by your own prophets, supported by our Apostles, and confirmed by actual experience.

Look at the prophets: do they not declare the call of the Gentiles into the Church, saying, "In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an Ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glorious"." The Prophet Hosea's language, though primarily applicable to the ten tribes, is certainly to be understood in reference to the Gentiles also: "I will have mercy upon her that hath not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people: and they shall say, Thou art my God"." And again, "It shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." But the Prophet Isaiah points directly to the Gentiles, when he says, "I am sought of them that asked not for me, I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name:" I say he points to the Gentiles there; for he immediately contrasts with them the state of his own people, saying, "I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts." If you turn to the New Testament, you will find there the very words of our text quoted, not merely to prove that the Gentiles were to be brought into the Church of God, but that Israel was apprised of God's intentions, and that, however averse they were to that measure, they could not but know that Moses himself had taught them to expect it: I say, Did not Israel know? says the Apostle:-did they not know that "there was to be no difference between the Jew and the Greek; and that the same Lord is rich unto all that call upon him?" Yes; for Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger

• Isai. xi. 10. P Hos. ii. 23. a Hos. i. 10. with Rom. ix, 24-26. r Isai. lxv. 1, 2. with Rom. x. 20, 21.

you. If we look to matter of fact, we find that there are, in every quarter of the globe, thousands and millions of Gentiles who are serving and honouring Jehovah, precisely as Abraham himself did: they are believing in the same God, and walking in the same steps: and the only difference between him and them is, that he looked to that blessed seed of his who should come; and they look to that blessed seed of his who has come, even Jesus, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed.

It is time that we now inquire,

II. What use is to be made of this prophecy by us Gentiles?

If ever there was a dispensation calculated to instruct mankind, it is that which is predicted in the words before us. I will mention three lessons in particular which it ought to teach us: and the Lord grant, that they may be engraven in all our hearts!

First, it should lead us to adore the mysterious providence of God. Let us take a view of God's dealings with that peculiar people, the Jews. When the whole earth was lying in gross darkness, he was pleased to choose Abraham out of an idolatrous nation and family, and to reveal himself to him. To him he promised a seed, whom he would take as a peculiar people above all the people upon earth. These descendants he promised to multiply as the stars of heaven, and as the sands upon the sea-shore; and in due time to give them the land of Canaan for their inheritance. After he had in a most wonderful manner fulfilled all his promises to them, they rebelled against him, and served other gods, and provoked him to bring upon them many successive troubles, and at last to send them into captivity in Babylon. But during this whole time he still consulted their best interests; and even in the last and heaviest of these judgments," he sent them into Babylon for their good." Afflictive as that dispensation was, it was the most profitable to them of all the