declaring to that people God's intentions respecting them ; and the children were therefore both signs of what God had pur- posed respecting the land, and pledges that he would carry that purpose into effect. The ungodly people of that day, not believing the purposes of God, turned both the prophet and his children into objects of contempt and ridicule. And this seems to be the literal import of our text.]
But the prophet had some followers also, who, having been converted by his ministry, were regarded by him as "his children" —
[These also, as being witnesses for God against their un- godly neighbours, were, together with the prophet, regarded as objects of popular reproach.
These, too, were honoured by the Lord as his peculiar friends and favourites ; or, rather, as his own children, to whom he stood in the relation of a Father. In this respect the prophet was a type of the Messiah ; who, being the spiritual Parent of these persons, acknowledged them as members of his mystical body; yea, as "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones '=."
Now this rendered them still more obnoxious to the un- godly world ; who always hate the saints, in proportion as they bear the divine image, and appear to be objects of God's pecu- liar love*^. And this I conceive to be the precise import of the prophet's words. He has, in the first place, an obHque reference to his own sons ; but he more especially alludes to his pious followers, whom, through the instrumentality of his word, the Lord himself had brought into the nearest possible union with himself. Of these he says, that they were " for signs and for wonders in Israel."]
In the same light have the saints in all ages been regarded —
[In the days of the Apostles, the children of God were looked upon " as the filth of the world, and the ofi'-scouring of all things^ : " and to this very hour are they, as the prophet Zechariah expresses it, " men wondered at*^." There is no one thing which will render persons more universally despised than a profession of real godliness. Every description of men, the moral and the immoral, the proud Pharisee and the scoff- ing Infidel, are alike hostile to the true Christian. The whole world will hate a follower of Christ. To the whole world, he himself was a butt of contradiction^: and all who designated him Beelzebub, will be sure to find some name sufficiently
t' Heb. ii. 13. with Eph. v. 30. ^ John xv. 19. ^ i Cor. iv. 13. f Zech. iii. 8. s Luke ii. 3L The Greek.