.Zech. viii. 20 — 23. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities .* and the inhabitants of one city shall go to
another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts : I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jeiv, saying, We will go with you : for we have heard that God is with you.
IF we did not see that the generality of Christians, with the Scriptures in their hands, are yet ignorant of the plainest and most fundamental doctrines of our religion, we should wonder how the Jews, with the sacred oracles before them, could be such strangers to God's design of bringing the Gentiles into his Church. If there were no other passage, in all the inspired volume, relating to the subject, besides that which we have now read, they would have had abundant reason to expect that glorious event.
But the prophecy before us, however fulfilled in part in the apostolic and succeeding ages, is yet to receive, at a future period, a more complete accom- plishment. In unfolding its meaning, we shall be led to consider,
I. The conversion of the Gentiles —
To human appearance, it must be granted, this event is very improbable : but, It is certain —
[It is an event foretold from the earliest ages by Moses a and the prophetsb; and we are confirmed in our expectation of it by Christ0, and his apostles d.]
It will, however, be sudden —
[There will probably be no more prospect of its arrival, than there was of the restoration of the Jews from Babylon a little time before it took effect. "A nation shall then, as it were, be born in a day e." " As soon as the people hear of Christ, they shall obey himf." No sooner shall his standard be erected, than they shall flock to it in crowds, " like doves to their windows g." Like persons eager for some great and
a Deut. xxxii. 21. with Rom. x. 19, 20.
b Ps. lxxii. 8 — 11. Isai. xlix. and lx. c Luke xxi. 24.
d Rom. xv. 8 — 12. and xi. 25. e Isai. lxvi. 8.
f Ps. xviii. 43, 44. s Isai. lx. 2, .'3, 8.