them as were ordained to eternal life should believe; or, more generally still, "until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled." This leaves the extent of conversion among the Gentiles undetermined; and also leaves us at liberty to judge, whether, while there is reason to believe, that about the time when the Jews are brought in there will be a great enlargement in the general Christianity of the world-whether that enlargement is to precede the Jewish conversion, or the Jewish conversion is to precede the enlargement. We are inclined to believe that, looking to these two events in the order of cause and effect, they will have a great reciprocal influence on each other—or that there will both be an action and a reaction. If it be a likelihood, on the one hand, that Gentile Christianity, when purified in its quality and made larger in its amount, shall, both by the exhibition of its graces and the efforts of its missionary zeal, tell with great and sensible effect on the obstinacy of Jewish unbelief-the likelihood is not less, that when a movement is once made on the part of these heretofore resolved aliens to the truth as it is in Jesus, it will tend mightily to open the eyes of all nations, so as to impress millions and millions more in favour of that gospel, whose predictions shall then be so illustriously verified; and to which so impressive a testimony will be given, when its most inveterate, and long its most hopeless enemies, shall, after the lapse of many generations, look in mourning and bitterness to Him whom their

forefathers had pierced, and, casting away their weapons of rebellion, shall fall down to worship Him.

But our further remarks on particular verses, we must postpone to the next lecture.

203

LECTURE LXXXVII.

ROMANS, Xi, 26–36.

"And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and

calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might

have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the

wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

VER. 26. 'All Israel. Some would interpret the clause thus-All of Israel who are to be saved. All of them who are ordained to eternal life. There is as much of force in these interpretations as to make it possible, nay we think even likely, that the meaning here of the word all, is not such an absolute and entire totality, as to include each and every one of the nation at the time of their predicted

conversion. Yet something more must be conveyed by the term, than that merely all the elect were to be saved-for, whether many or few, this holds true of them in every age. The all' must be held to denote so general, as should amount to a national conversion; and as the 'part' in the verse foregoing, signifies some, though so very few as to make an insensible fraction of believers among the Jewish people-so the 'all' of the verse before us, signifies at least so many as should form a great corporate change from Judaism to Christianity, and so as to leave the unbelievers, if any, but an insensible fraction of the whole.

'Out of Zion.' The passage referred to is Isa. lix, 20-where the prophet represents the Deliverer as coming to Zion, while the apostle represents Him as coming from Zion. These two inspired men reveal to us a glimpse of one and the same process, though at different but perhaps nearly, if not altogether contiguous parts of it-the one stating a previous ingress of the Saviour to Jerusalem, the other a consequent egress in the prosecution of His great undertaking. The light of prophecy here, as in many other instances, but permits us to contemplate the event as a general reality, without enabling us to enter on very full or explicit details of it. Its still undoubted futurity, however, is manifest from this-its being spoken of in the language of prediction both in the Old Testament and the New; and a prediction which has not had the semblance of a fulfilment since the days of the apostles.

Ver. 27. For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.' The conversion intimated here is described in substantially the same terms in Jeremiah, xxxi, 33, 34, and in Hebrews, viii, 8-12; x, 16, 17. It consists of the same steps, and is attended with the same blessed results all the world over; and in every instance, whether of Jew or Gentile, who is turned to Christianity. The taking away of their sins in this passage seems a blotting out of the guilt incurred by their transgression of God's laws-as equivalent to what in the other passages is said to be a remembrance (in judgment) of their sins and iniquities no more. The turning away of their ungodliness is their sanctification, even as the other was their justification; and is equivalent to what is spoken of elsewhere, as a putting of those laws-from the condemnation of having broken which they were delivered of putting these laws into their hearts, and writing them in their minds. The covenant with each individual believer is one and the same, in all ages and among all nations.

Ver. 28. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.' Their being enemies for the gospel's sake-points to the subservience of Jewish infidelity, as the instrument of diffusing Christianity through the world. We know that historically the rejection of the gospel by the Jews was followed up by its large and rapid furtherance among the Gentiles; nor can we doubt