sary, either to adopt this hypothesis or tion. Let us not wonder then, if we should decisively to reject it. For aught we find it to be the same in the spiritual proknow there may be grounded on some cesses of Christianity; or if there should deep-hid physical necessity, which we are be a distinction here too between things not in circumstances either to affirm or present, which we know how to deal with, deny-be that essential defectibility in and things remote, which elude our every every created thing which the schoolmen effort to grasp or comprehend them. This tell us of; and if so, it looks a plausible is remarkably exemplified in the subject. conclusion that all the direct moral influ- matter of the passage now before us. We ences put forth by God upon His crea- can say little or nothing of anterior, and tures are on the side of what is good,- especiaily of first movements-just as little while all the evil which they exhibit is in fact as we can clear our way upward to not worked in them by the Divinity, but the electing grace of God. And yet we can only left to its own working, as it comes see thoroughly to the movements in hand, inherently and properly from themselves. and wherewith we have most emphatically We have no quarrel with this argument and most urgently to do. If we indulge in for though not convinced by it, neither do listless and spiritual sloth about the high we feel ourselves able to overturn it; and matters of our salvation, God will give us so long as it remains a plausibility which the spirit of slumber. If we refuse to look infidels cannot dispose of, then it rests on with our eyes, God will take away that at least as good a footing as their own ob- which we have, and so darken our eyes jection; and both therefore--both the that we cannot see. If we hearken not hostile consideration of religion's enemy, diligently now at the call of principle, the and the defensive consideration of its conscience within will afterwards emit a friend-may be kept alike at abeyance. feebler voice; and even the loudest reIt is thus that we are sometimes led to monstrances from without of the word and look with indulgence on this one and that the preacher, may, in the growing obtuseother scholastic ingenuity, conjured up ness of faculties that we will not exercise for the protection of the faith-for though be altogether unheeded by the moral ear not in itself absolutely proved, yet, if in- If the store of comforts wherewith provicapable of being disproved, it may at dence has blessed us, prove but a snare least neutralise many an objection, in- and a provocative to our unbridled appetended by their authors as so many dead-tites-these too will be made to war against ly trusts at the Christian revelation-a our souls. In short, by that economy of revelation which stands secure on the ba- grace under which we sit, there may be sis of its own evidences, amid the conflict- an ever-growing blindness and evergrow. ing and sometimes alike shadowy specu-ing hardness, which follow judicially in lations 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 stumbling-blocks at 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 enig-ly subservient to the business of our mas in theology as well as in nature; and discipleship as Christians; and, whatever as in the one department, we do not per- obscurity may rest on the initial steps of mit them to overbear the manifestation of this process-it is surely our part among the senses—so in the other, they ought not the actual steps of it in which we are now to overbear either the lights of history in implicated, if we cannot solve the difficulfavour of the Bible, or the manifestation ties of the past, at least to busy ourselves of its truth unto our consciences. with all diligence in the duties of the presAnd yet in these verses, hopelessly re-ent-That is to awaken from our letharcondite and intractable as they might ap-gies, and Christ will give us light; to order pear, we can read a lesson of signal value our conversation aright, and God will show in practical religion. Even in philoso- us His salvation.* These are the matphy, with the objects which we most fami- ters on hand wherewith we plainly have liarly handle, and the processes which to do; and even the history of the Jews pass most currently before our eyes, we may be turned to the practical account are soon baffled and get beyond our sound-which we are now making of them. For ings, when we attempt to trace present though the primary cause of their being appearances into the past, though but a few steps back among the depths of causa 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, eminent Ephesians, v, 14; and Psalm 1, 23. cast off may be traced upward to a degree | more—Insomuch that in the view of their of election (ver. 5), its proximate cause approaching desolation, when the pitying was their own misconduct. Their per- Saviour wept over them, He pronounced sonal rejection by God came on the back as the final result of their impenitency in of their own rejection of the Saviour. not minding the things which belong to They had withstood His miracles. They their peace-that now they were hid from had turned a deaf ear to all His invita- their eyes. Well then did the apostle tions. They had shut their eyes and steeled supplement the quotations from writers of their consciences against such eviden- an ancient period, by a clause which ap ces of His mission as ought to have over-plied their description to the Jews of his powered them; and the effect was, that own time-Unto this day.' it just hardened and blinded them the 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 emula tion 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 tnou, 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 unbelef they were broken off, and thou standeth 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 | on the coming enlargement of the childsake of the gospel, he should be all things ren of Israel; and with that exquisite to all men; and, more especially, that to wisdom he manages, if I may so speak, the Jews he should be as a Jew. No one between them and the Gentiles, with both could practise with greater skill or delica- of whom he at the time is jointly holding cy than he did, the art of conciliating those converse-claiming kindred with the one whom he addressed-though, of course, he because of his office, and with the other beonly carried this so far as truth and princi- cause of his relationship. In short, unlike ple would let him. Nothing could be to the polemics of our modern day, and more sturdy and determined than his re- yet as uncompromising and bold as any sistance, as we may see in his whole Epis- of them-whenever an agreeable thing tle to the Galatians, when any great or can be said, he says it-So that while, in cardinal doctrine of the gospel was trench-truth and substance, he had the stern ined upon, though by ever so little. Yet tegrity of an old prophet when dealing when it possibly could be avoided, none with principles-he, in manner, had the more sensitively fearful of giving offence pliancy and nice perception of an accomthan he was; and when unavoidable, plished courtier when dealing with perwhich it very generally was, he was al-ŝons—and all this for the sake of the ways at the greatest pains to soften it to gospel, all for the purpose of gaining the uttermost. Even in the verses we have just quitted, and in which he had to Ver. 11. 'I say then, Have they stumpronounce an awful sentence of abandon-bled that they should fall? God forbid: ment and utter degradation upon his countrymen the Jews, still he does it as a Jew -interposing their own writers as a sort of screen between him and them; and, as if more effectually to secure their conviction though not their acquiescence and consent, speaking to them not in his own person, but in the persons of their most revered prophets and holy men of old. And in the succeeding verses we can very obviously see, with what congeniality, as if to redeem and compensate the severities which he had just uttered, he breaks forth some. but rather through their fall salvation is * Romans, ix 32; x, 3. After God, in whose hand men are but the in- | have been partially but not fully ex struments of His policy; and who causes plained, either in regard to the efficien even their very sins redound to His own or the final causes which are concerned glory, and subserve the accomplishment in it-so that it remains in great part still of all His pleasure. When as a preacher a mystery in the counsels of God, of he views them morally, he connects these which the most we have to say is, that sins with the wickedness of man-When such is the will and the appointment of as a prophet he views them historically, Him our Almighty Sovereign. We must (for prophecy is but history in anticipa- not expect, that, at least in our present tion, or the history of the future,) he state, we shall ever so master the philosolooks to them in connection with the phy of the question, as to leave no room sovereign power of God-first put forth for the exclamation of the apostle, O the at election by Him who ordains all, after-depth and unsearchableness of God's wards carried into effect by Him who judgments, and how past finding out! worketh all in all throughout the succes- Yet let us not forget that, in the language sions of nature and providence. One of of Job, there are parts of His ways which these successions he distinctly announces do lie open to our observation, though it in the verse now before us, when he af- be indeed a little portion that we know of firms the fall of the Jews to have been the Him. And of His ways as of His works, salvation of the Gentiles-as if these two it is well that they should be sought out events stood related to each other in the of all them who have pleasure therein*— way of cause and effect, or of anteced-as far as they are shone upon by the ent and consequent. The same connec-lights, whether of Scripture or of experition he reasserts several times in certain ence. Let us attend then a little to what clauses of the verses which follow, and which we may now single out, and thus save the necessity of our again adverting to them-as in the 12th verse, where we are told that the fall of the Jews was the riches of the world, and the diminution of them the riches of the Gentiles; and in the 15th verse, where we read that the Had Christianity been received by the casting away of them was the reconciling great bulk of the Jewish nation, and had of the world; and in the the 28th verse, they in consequence been animated by where we learn, that by their treatment that spirit of proselytism which essenof the gospel they became the enemies of tially characterised it-a spirit heretofore God for the sake of the Gentiles, to whose new to them, though under its influence benefit therefore this rejection of the Jews now they might have laboured for the was in some way subservient; and final-diffusion of their new faith over the whole ly, in the 30th verse, which gives us ex-earth-still it might well be imagined, pressly to understand, that through the unbelief of the Jews mercy was obtained by the Gentiles-All suggesting the idea of a metaphysical sequence, or of a connection between these two events in the order of cause and consequence; and this again has set curiosity on edge to discover what the ligament could be which so bound together the infidelity of the Jews with the faith of the Gentiles, or what the operating influences were in the first which could bring the second in its train. these enquirers have got to say about this question, and what the fruit of the consideration which they have bestowed on it. There are certain palpable things which lie on the surface, as it were, of this hidden mystery; and which it were quite legitimate to notice. that coming as it would with one mind and by one effort, from the whole people, it was but a development of their old Judaism, still unchanged, or changed only in this, that, whereas it used to be tolerant though unsocial, it had now become restless and aggressive,-making inroads on all other countries which they had hitherto let alone. It might have been most plausibly conceived, that such a national enterprise, sanctioned by all the authorities of their state, as well as by the enthusiasm of a unanimous populaNow if God affirm that the two are thus tion, would have provoked a national linked together, it is our part so to believe resistance every where; and far more it, whether all the cementing links and readily awakened the suspicion of those influences have or have not been submit- ambitious designs, which would array ted to our observation. We hold it the every community whom they invaded, in more necessary to premise this, because an attitude of all the more resolute and we think that with all men's powers of ex- prepared hostility against them. Nothing, ploration, they have not been able tho- it might with all seeming fairness be rearoughly to unravel the process which in- soned, nothing could more effectually tervenes between the rejection of the gos-disarm this adverse imagination, than pel by the Jews, and either the diffusion that the new religion should be carried or acceptance of the same gospel among the other nations of the earth. It may * Psalm cxi, 2. abroad by a few persecuted outcasts, but that they might be sound and good whom the Jews as a nation had disowned explanations, although they very much -a better vehicle surely for a religion proceed on the natural influence of cirwhich was to owe all its triumphs to the cumstances, as they were brought to bear unaided force of principle and truth over upon human nature, such as it is. For the consciences of men. It was thus in though it lies within the power of God to fact that it first made way upon the earth- overrule all the ordinary influences for protected for a time, rather than withstood the furtherance of His designs-yet we by the Roman authorities; and certainly know it to be the general policy of His not calling forth the whole power of the administration that He should be exceedempire against it, till it had acquired a ingly sparing of any conflict with, or magnitude which alarmed the civil ma- that there should be an exceeding rarity gistrate for the safety of existing institu- of deviations from, the laws and the tions, but not at the same time till it had regular processes which He Himself has acquired a strength which weathered and established; and so with the exception. survived all his efforts for its extermina- of a few select miracles to accredit His tion. And as this great national resistance various revelations, it seems the rule of of the Jews, with the consequent disper- the Almighty's government, that its pursion over all countries both of Jews and poses shall be carried into effect in the Christians, acted most powerfully as sec- uniform course of things, and not by a ond causes for the propagation of Chris- series of violations upon that uniformity. tianity at its outset in the world-So it And thus it is that it comes within the has further been contended, that to us philosophy of history to assign what the who look retrospectively on past ages, the connections and methods were, by which evidence for the truth of our religion is the unbelief of the Jews opened a way thereby presented in a far more impres- for the gospel, and so as to speed its sive form than it would otherwise have progress and acceptance among all other been-the testimony of its first disciples nations. But yet though in this way we being thus far more decisively tried and may have a deal of valid and satisfactory found to be of purest stamp and quality, reasoning on the relation or the subserwhen thus delivered and thus persevered viency of one event to another, under our in before the presence of these resolute existing economy of moral and physical and implacable adversaries, who yet causes-there remains unresolved, and could not overthrow it; but who rather we think in our present state unresolvahave contributed and that mightily to its ble, the transcendental question, Why strength, both as the depositaries, and the such an economy was instituted, so as to unexceptionable, because hostile witnesses necessitate evil that good might follow, for the elder Scriptures of our faith, and and so as to postpone for many centuries so for all the corroborative argument, and generations the reign of universal whether of doctrine or of prophecy, that virtue and happiness in the world. It is is contained in them. And certain it is, well for man to be made sensible of the that we have an evidence before our eyes limit within which his faculties are beset in the present state of the Jews, which, and encompassed; and so as to acknowbut for their unbelief persisted in for soledge, with all his certainty of a thing many centuries, we could not have ap- that so it is, his own profound ignorance pealed to--the evidence of their singular of how it is. Let our attempts then be preservation, unprecedented in all other successful as they may, to explain the history; and bespeaking the special pro-actings and reactings of Jewish infidelity vidence of God, both in upholding this wonderful people as a remnant of former revelations, and in reserving them for fulfilments and further evolutions in the scheme of the Divine administration which are yet to come. Altogether it is a phenomenon charged with argument on the side of Christianity; and having in it all the power of a living voice, to rebuke, if not the infidelity, at least the neglect and heedlessness of those who look on the Bible and all its revelations, as a thing of nought. and Gentile faith upon each other, they must carry us at last to the inscrutable will of God; nor do they supersede that apostolic reflection which follows, and which we again anticipate, of "O how unsearchable his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Yet with all this sense of a present darkness and a present diffi culty, it is our unbroken confidence, that what we know not now we shall know afterwards; when we join in the triumphant song of eternity, "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of Such are some of the explanations which might be given for the actual foot-saints!" steps of the Divine procedure, in thus For to provoke them to jealousy.' But regulating the advances of Christianity however unable to make out the whole throughout the world. Nor does it hinder meaning and mystery of this proce we should imagine, when all the periods of their computation have run out, must finally expire. And in the second place, it lies with us to fulfil the part which is here assigned to the Gentiles. We should make Christianity the object cf emulation and desire to the Jews and to all others, by our exemplification of it. Let us not wonder that this influence has hitherto come so little into play. This is not altogether owing to Jewish insensibility. The failure is ours-at least as much, if not more, than theirs. If their minds have not been excited to an attention or a respect or a longing after Christianity, it is because we have done so little, or done nothing at all, to excite them. The light of our religion has not so shone upon them, as to make it glorious in their eyes. It may have told in the first ages, when dure by reasons of our own, yet when Scripture condescends to give a reason, we may adopt it with all safety, as part at least, if not the whole of the explanation. The effect stated in this verse was predicted by Moses many centuries before (x, 19). The calling of the Gentiles tended to provoke the Jews to jealousy or emulation; and the use of this, we are told by the apostle in the 14th verse, was, that It might save some of them.' And in future verses of this chapter the same thing is hinted at, as in verse 26th, where, after mention has been made of the fullness of the Gentiles to come in, it is represented that so all Israel shall be saved; and in verses 30th and 31st, where it is intimated, that in like manner as the unbelief of the Jews was the medium through which mercy comes to the Gentiles, so the mercy shown to the Gentiles was after-the very heathen could exclaim," Behold wards the medium through which mercy should come to the Jews-And the impellent cause for this result we gather from the clause now before us, even that the sight of Gentile Christianity had in it something which moved a desire on the part of the Jews after, and so as to turn them to the faith-when no longer biding in unbelief, they shall be again graffed into their own olive tree. (Ver. 23.) these Christians how they love each other." But it ought to be no surprise to us, that, when Christianity declined, this moral force, which the apostle ascribes to it, should decline also-so that men would cease either to imitate or admire it. This its constraining and attracting power is obviously discernible in apostolic times, as may be gathered from distinct and repeated traces in the book of Acts ;* and perhaps for a century or two it may not have altogether expired. But we are not to marvel that we so entirely lose sight of it in the miserable degeneracies which followed-as in the middle ages, when, instead of their examples or their guides, Christians became their fierce and contemptuous persecutors; or even in the present times, when such a wretchedly inadequate exhibition is still made, either of the virtues of the gospel or of its consequent effect on the peace and prosperity of men. We have indeed a mighty distance and declension to recover, ere we can make the Jews emulous to be what Christians are-whether by an exhibition of the grace and beauty which our faith imparts to the character of its individual professors, or of its beneficial influences on the well-doing of society. Were the made distinctly to see what Christianity does for the virtue and happiness of men, we can understand how the principle of the text might, even at this day, come into powerful operation. But as it is, the sad imperfection of Gentile Christianity operates as a barrier in the way of Jewish conversion. We cannot say that we have seen much yet of the distinct operation of this mo- | tive among the children of Israel. Indeed there has been little hitherto of conversion to Christianity from among the Jews, when compared with the whole bulk and body of the people; but even in the individual cases of such conversion, we are not aware that the principle adverted to in the text has had much of an efficient or actuating influence, for bringing about this change from one religion to another. Before we could affirm this, we should require to know more the history of particular conversions, and have greater access to the minds of those who have undergone the transition, than we have had the privilege of enjoying. We cannot therefore say in how far the observation of Gentile Christianity, and of its good effects on those who had embraced it, has acted as a provocative on the Jewish mind, and impelled to such efforts and enquiries as may have led in more or fewer instances to the faith of the gospel. But as the great national conversion is yet to come -so we can anticipate how the motive specified in our text might gather strength with the lapse of time and in the course of It is this which makes the task of a successive generations. In the first place, Christian missionary among the Jews all their own hopes of the Messiah on whom the more arduous; and lays an awful rethey still calculate as a Prince and De-sponsibility on us, if, instead of being in. liverer yet to come, other than Jesus Christ struments for the furtherance of the great the only Son of God, must every year become more languid; and at length, * Acts, ii, 47; iv, 21; v, 13, 14, 26; vi, 7. |