with all imaginable contempt, whilst you readily adhered to any vile impostor that chose to arrogate to himself the title of Messiah. Your former ido- latries, though sinful in the extreme, were less hei- nous 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 evi- dently 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 un- derstanding as it respected God and his ways. This you know to have been predicted by all your pro- phets, 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, notwithstand- ing they greatly admired all the former part of his