you*. If we look to matter of fact, we find that there are, in every quarter of the globe, thousands and millions of Gentiles who are serving and honour- ing Jehovah, precisely as Abraham himself did : they are believing in the same God, and walking in the same steps : and the only difference between him and them is, that he looked to that blessed seed of his who should come; and they look to that blessed seed of his who has come, even Jesus, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed.
It is time that we now inquire, II. What use is to be made of this prophecy by us Gentiles ?
If ever there was a dispensation calculated to in- struct mankind, it is that which is predicted in the words before us. I will mention three lessons in particular which it ought to teach us : and the Lord grant, that they may be engraven in all our hearts!
First, it should lead us to adore the mysterious pro- vidence of God. Let us take a view of God's dealings with that peculiar people, the Jews. When the whole earth was lying in gross darkness, he was pleased to choose Abraham out of an idolatrous na- tion and family, and to reveal himself to him. To him he promised a seed, whom he would take as a peculiar people above all the people upon earth. These descendants he promised to multiply as the stars of heaven, and as the sands upon the sea-shore ; and in due time to give them the land of Canaan for their inheritance. After he had in a most wonderful manner fulfilled all his promises to them, they re- belled against him, and served other gods, and pro- voked him to bring upon them many successive troubles, and at last to send them into captivity in Babylon. But during this whole time he still con- sulted their best interests ; and even in the last and heaviest of these judgments, " he sent them into Ba- bylon for their good1." Afflictive as that dispensation was, it was the most profitable to them of all the
s Rom. x. 19. * Jer. xxiv. 5.