rently and properly from themselves. We have no quarrel with this argument-for though not convinced by it, neither do we feel curselves able to overturn it; and so long as it remains a plausibility which infidels cannot dispose of, then it rests on at least as good a footing as their own objection; and both therefore-both the hostile consideration of religion's enemy, and the defensive consideration of its friend-may be kept alike at abeyance. It is thus that we are sometimes led to look with indulgence on this one and that other scholastic ingenuity, conjured up for the protection of the faithfor though not in itself absolutely proved, yet, if incapable of being disproved, it may at least neutralise many an objection, intended by their authors as so many deadly thrusts at the Christian revelation-a revelation which stands secure on the basis of its own evidences, amid the conflicting and sometimes alike shadowy speculations both of its friends and its adversaries. But as we said before, for our own satisfaction these conjectural theories are in no demand with us; and though with some minds they should serve for the removal of stumblingblocks on which they might otherwise have fallen, yet for ourselves we can take these verses as they stand, and in their obvious meaning too-a meaning all too plain to require the exposition of them. We expect enigmas in theology as well as in nature; and as in the one department, we do not permit them to overbear the manifestation of the senses so in the other, they ought not to overbear

either the lights of history in favour of the Bible, or the manifestation of its truth unto our consciences.

And yet in these verses, hopelessly recondite and intractable as they might appear, we can read a lesson of signal value in practical religion. Even in philosophy, with the objects which we most familiarly handle, and the processes which pass most currently before our eyes, we are soon baffled and get beyond our soundings, when we attempt to trace present appearances into the past, though but a few steps back among the depths of causation. Let us not wonder then, if we should find it to be the same in the spiritual processes of Christianity; or if there should be a distinction here too between

things present, which we know how to deal with, and things remote, which elude our every effort to grasp or comprehend them. This is remarkably exemplified in the subject-matter of the passage now before us. We can say little or nothing of anterior, and especially of first movements-just as little in fact as we can clear our way upward to the electing grace of God. of God. And yet we can see thoroughly to the movements in hand, and wherewith we have most emphatically and most urgently to do. If we indulge in listless and spiritual sloth about the high matters of our salvation, God will give us the spirit of slumber. If we refuse to look with our eyes, God will take have, and so darken our eyes that we cannot see. If we hearken not diligently now at the call of

away that which we

principle, the conscience within will afterwards emit a feebler voice; and even the loudest remonstrances from without of the word and the preacher, may, in the growing obtuseness of faculties that we will not exercise, be altogether unheeded by the moral ear. If the store of comforts wherewith Providence has blest us, prove but a snare and a provocative to our unbridled appetites-these too will be made to war against our souls. In short,

by that economy of grace under which we sit, there may be an ever-growing blindness and ever-growing hardness, which follow judicially in the train of guilty indulgences; and, on the other hand, let the most be made of the light and the strength we at present have-and then, in the order of God's administration, or on the principle of the Holy Ghost being given to those who obey Him, this will be followed up by a supply of larger powers and larger manifestations. Here then is a view of these particular scriptures now before us, eminently subservient to the business of our discipleship as Christians; and, whatever obscurity may rest on the initial steps of this process-it is surely our part, among the actual steps of it in which we are now implicated, if we cannot solve the difficulties of the past, at least to busy ourselves with all diligence in the duties of the present-That is to awaken from our lethargies, and Christ will give us light; to order our conversation aright, and God will show us His salvation.1 These are the matters

1 Ephesians, v, 14; and Psalm 1, 23.

on hand wherewith we plainly have to do; and even the history of the Jews may be turned to the practical account which we are now making of them. For though the primary cause of their being cast off may be traced upward to a decree of election (ver. 5), its proximate cause was their own misconduct. Their personal rejection by God came on the back of their own rejection of the Saviour. They had withstood His miracles. They had turned a deaf ear to all His invitations. They had shut their eyes and steeled their consciences against such evidences of His mission as ought to have overpowered them; and the effect was, that it just hardened and blinded them the more-Insomuch that in the view of their approaching desolation, when the pitying Saviour wept over them, He pronounced as the final result of their impenitency in not minding the things which belonged to their peace—that now they were hid from their eyes. Well then did the apostle supplement the qnotations from writers of an ancient period, by a clause which applied their description to the Jews of his own time'Unto this day.'

VOL. IV.

L

162

LECTURE LXXXV.

ROMANS, xi, 11-22.

"I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

Now if the

fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office; if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? For if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches: but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off."

ONE of Paul's maxims was, that, for the sake of the gospel, he should be all things to all men; and, more especially, that to the Jews he should be as a