2. What encouragement have all to embrace that covenant !
[Are any persons ready to apprehend that they are ex- cluded from it as unworthy? Behold the provisions of the covenant itself! See for whose benefit it is particularly de- signed ! Are we not only in darkness, but blind also ? Are we enslaved, and so fast bound in prison that we cannot come forth? We then are the very persons for whose sake the Son of God became incarnate, and for whose relief both his and his Father's honour are mutually pledged.
Let none then listen to such unfounded apprehensions ; but rather let every one remember, that Christ is given for a cove- nant to the whole Gentile world ; and that the more desperate our condition be, the more will God be glorified in our accept- ance of his proffered mercy.]
b 2 Sam. xxiii. o.
god's dealings with his people opened.
Isai. xlii. 16. I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I tvill lead them in paths that they have not known ; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
GOD has fore-ordained every thing which he him- self will doa; and he has been gradually unfolding his designs from the beginning. The restoration of the Jews from Babylon, and the calling of the Gentiles into the Church, were very wonderful events, but in them the prediction before us was fulfilled: it receives a further accomplishment yet daily. We may take occasion from it to observe,
I. God's dealings are mysterious —
The dispensations of his providence have been at all times dark —
[How ill-judged (according to human estimate) was the direction given to the Israelites at their departure from Egypt b! Yet it eventually led to their more complete deliverance c. How strange do their long wanderings in the wilderness appear ! Yet God conducted them by the right wayd. The present disper- sion of the Jews shall enhance the mercy and the glory of their restoration. Their degradation shall issue in their fulness e.]
The dispensations of his grace are equally in- scrutable—
This is seen in the first quickening of men from their spiritual death —
[God sets their sins in array before them. He charges home their guilt upon their consciences. He threatens them with his eternal wrath and indignation. Who would conceive that these were tokens of his love ? How little did the three thousand, when pricked to the heart, imagine that joy was so nigh at handf! How little could the jailor, when about to commit suicide, have supposed that his terror was the first dawn of mercy to his soulg! Thus are many still brought to Christ " in a way which they knew not" ]
a Acts xv. 18. b Exod. xiv. 2, 3. c Exod. xiv. 17, 23, 28. d Ps. cvii. 7. Deut. viii. 2. e Rom. xi. 12, 31.
f Acts ii. 37. e Acts xvi. 27 — 29.
929.] god's dealings with his people opened. 155
It further appears in their subsequent spiritual life —
[Men usually expect to be led on in a way of peace and joy. But God often leaves them to feel the depravity of their own hearts. He sometimes permits them to be " in heaviness through manifold temptations." He suffers also many heavy calamities to befall them. They seem, at times, as though they should be overwhelmed. They not unfrequently are brought to the borders of despair. Yet these are ways which God takes to humble and to prove them. Who could have thought that Peter's fall should be overruled for good ? Yet perhaps nothing else would ever have purged out his self-confidence. The buffetings of Satan were earnestly deprecated by Paul1'; yet were they necessary to prevent the workings of pride1. How true is that observation of the Psalmist k — . The more we con- template his dealings with his people, the more shall we ex- claim with the Apostle1 — !]