discourse, they would have instantly cast him down a precipice, if he had not escaped from their hands k. 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 forbid1!" 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"1 : 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 peojile. The present attempts to bring the Jews into the Church of Christ are most dis- pleasing 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 dis- pleasure, as they were wont to do in the days of oldn.
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 re- jecting 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. * Matt. xxi. 33 — 41. and Luke xx. 14 — 16. m Acts xiii. 44, 45. 1 Thess.ii. 15, 16. n Acts xxiii. 21, 22.