Mai. i. 11. From the rising of the sun, even unto the going doivn of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles : and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering : for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.
THROUGHOUT all the prophetic writings we shall find the predicted abandonment of the Jews fol- lowed by a promise respecting the future call of the Gentiles. It should seem as if God intended by this to provoke his people to jealousy, according as he had before intimated by Moses, in order that by any means he might stir them up to deprecate his threatened
judgments. In the passage before us, Jehovah com- plains of the extreme impiety of the Jewish nation. Amongst the priests themselves, who should have been an example to others, such was the selfishness and utter destitution of every religious principle, that none were to be found who would even shut the tem- ple doors for nought, or kindle a fire upon his altar but for their own temporal advantage. God therefore tells them, that he would "no more accept an offering at their hands." But would he therefore be destitute of a people, and be forgotten in the world ? No : "for" he would take to himself a people from among the heathen, amongst whom such offerings should be presented to him as he would accept, and " his name," which the Jewish people had so dishonoured and despised, " should be great among them to the ends of the earth." Thus would he make their apostasy subservient to the good of others, or, as St. Paul ex- presses it, " the fall of the Jews should be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them should be the riches of the Gentiles a."
In further considering this prophecy, I shall notice,
I. What is implied in it —
We may see here by implication,
1. The intended abolition of the Mosaic law —
[Sacrifices and incense were to be offered at Jerusalem alone, and in the temple, in which God had chosen to place his name there b. But in the prophecy before us it is intimated, that incense and offerings should be presented to the Lord in every place ; which could not be without a disannulling of the commandment before given. Of course, with this one com- mandment must the whole law be abrogated, because the whole priestly office, in all its most important operations, would be superseded. Nor is this an inference of mine only : it is drawn by an inspired Apostle from premises precisely similar. God had foretold, by David, that a new order of priesthood should arise, even one after the order of Melchizedec. This would of necessity militate against, and supersede, the established priest- hood ; that which was predicted being to arise from the tribe of Judah, whilst that which had been established was confined to the tribe of Levi. From hence the Apostle infers the total
a Rom. xi. 11, 12. * Deut. xii. 10—14.
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