Isai. xliii. 4. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee.
FEW have any conception how close the analogy is between God's dealings with his people of old, and his conduct towards his Church and people in the present day. In truth, we scarcel) know how to admit that God will manifest such condescension to us as he did to them. But it can never be thought that the Christian Church is less privileged than the Jewish ; or that God will manifest less grace towards those whom he has redeemed through the blood of his Son, than he did towards those whom he delivered from a mere temporal captivity. True, indeed, his interpositions may be, and in fact are, less visible; but they are not a whit less real than in the days of old. Connect this chapter with the last two verses of the preceding chapter; and you will see how God
still magnifies his grace and mercy towards us, when we have reason to expect nothing but his wrathful in- dignation11. So, in like manner, we may behold in the text itself to what an exalted state the true Christian is raised. We cannot but acknowledge the truth of God's appeal to them in the words which I have just read ; and the same expressions are equally appli- cable to his people in every age and place. If we understand the passage aright, we may clearly see in it the rise and progress of the Christian's calling. Let us notice,
I. The rise of the Christian's calling —
Whence and how were the Jews exalted to their unrivalled eminence ?
[Were they selected by God either for their number or their superior goodness ? No : they were " the fewest of all people," and ecpial to any in depravity. It was altogether an act of sovereign grace when " God chose them, and set his love on them, and made them his peculiar people : " " He loved them, because he would love themb" Hence he re- minds them of their origin, under the image of a child just born into the world of Heathen parents, without any one to administer to its necessities : " Thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee : thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee ; but thou wast cast out in the open held, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Live ; yea, I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Livec." And by Isaiah he reminds them of this saying, " Look to the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged : remember Abra- ham your father, and Sarah that bare you ; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased himd." Such was their state when God chose them to himself, " to be a peculiar peo- ple to him, above all upon the face of the earth ;" and set them
a Examine the passage in this view ; and compare it with vcr. 1. which marks distinctly how they came to he " precious in God's sight.
h See Deut. vii. G— S. and ix. 4 — G. c Ezek. xvi. 3— G.
d Isai. li. 2, 3.