Discourse, I would address myself somewhat more fully to this part of my subject. And if, in doing this, I should trespass somewhat longer than usual on your time and patience, I trust that the importance of the subject will plead my excuse, and be kindly received by you as an apology.
To the first and most common objection, that the time is not come, I need add little to what I have already said. If only it be borne in mind, that I am not speaking of the complete in-gathering of the Jews, but only of our duty to seek their conversion, I may reply to the objector, ' When is the time not come ? What period has there been, from the first establish- ment of Christianity to the present hour, when we were released from all obligation to fulfil this duty V And, if to this I add, that the present moment sin- gularly accords with that which is described in my text, I conceive that the objection will be allowed by all to have no reasonable weight. If the fallacy of it was made apparent, when urged by the Jews for their delay in building the second temple4, much more will it be found altogether vain, when urged by us as an excuse for our neglect to re-edify his spiri- tual temple amongst the Jews. Some, indeed, have been led to this idea by that passage of Scripture, " Blindness in part is happened to Israel, till the ful- ness of the Gentiles be come in :" from whence they conclude, that the great body of the Gentiles must first be brought into the fold of Christ ; and that then the conversion of the Jews is to commence. But what, then, is the meaning of those words in the very same chapter, " If the fall of them (the Jews) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness ?" And again : " If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the deadu?" Here we see that it is the fulness of the Jews that is ordained to be "as life from the dead" to the whole Gentile world. That there is no real opposition between
* Hagg. i. 2—4. u Rom. xi. 12, 15, 25.