this day, to make their flocks pass under their pas- toral rod, in order that he might number them, or separate some from the rest6. In this way God pro- mises to make Israel pass before him, in order to select from them a people unto himself, and to bring them into the bonds of his everlasting covenant. And, in conformity with this view, we might well direct your attention to the future conversion of the Jews, who shall assuredly be restored to the favour of their God. But, waving this part of the subject, I will rather speak of conversion generally ; the pro- cess of which is the same, whether in them or in us. We may notice, then, this work of conversion, as here described,
I. In its commencement —
" The Lord," we are told, " hath set apart him that is godly for himselfV This he accomplishes in a variety of ways :
1 . By the dispensations of his Providence —
[Sometimes things which, humanly speaking, we should call accidental, are ordered with a special view to the awaken- ing of immortal souls, and leading them to the knowledge of himself. In our Saviour's progress from Judea to Galilee, " he must needs go through Samaria; and, being wearied with his journey, he stopped at a city called Sichar, and seated himself by a well called Jacob's well. Whilst he was there, a woman of Samaria came thither to draw water." In all this there appears nothing but an ordinary occurrence : but it was God's appointed way of bringing her, together with many others, under the rod, and eventually into the bond of his covenants. Not unfrequently he is pleased to make use of some afflictive dispensation ; as in the case of Manasseh, upon whom " God brought the armies of the king of Assyria, who, as his instruments, took him among the thorns, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon : " the effect of all which was, that, " when he was in affliction, this monster of impiety besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly be- fore the God of his fathers11," and obtained mercy at his hands. Multitudes of others also, in every age, have found reason to say, " Before I was afflicted, I went astray ; but now have I kept thy law."]
e Lev. xxvii. 32. Jer. xxxiii. 13. f Ps. iv. 3.
e Johniv. 3 — 7, 25, 26. h 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 — 13.