in a state of perfect safety ? Alas ! when have we spent one single hour in prayer for them? What sacrifices have we made, or what exertions, for the enlightening of their minds, and the saving of their souls ? If we should say, " My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved," would not our daily experience give the lie to our pro- fession ? Surely we have need to blush and be ashamed, every one of us. Had we seen a vessel wrecked, and all the crew perishing in the ocean, there is not one amongst us so inhuman, but he would be filled with the tenderest concern for them, and exert himself to the uttermost, if by any means he might save some of them. But we have seen millions of God's ancient people perishing for ever, and have had the means of saving them within our own reach, and yet have made no efforts for their welfare, nor felt a pang on account of their destruction. O brethren ! let it not be thus with us any longer : but let us cultivate the spirit of the Apostle, and labour henceforth as he did, for the restoration and salvation of our Jewish brethren.
It will be in vain, however, to urge you to exertions for others, if you begin not with your own souls. Here is, in reality, the root of all our neglect of others : we are not truly and thoroughly concerned even about ourselves. Alas ! if we were to make, respecting our own souls, the appeal to God which the Apostle made respecting his Jewish brethren, how few could utter it in truth ! Let us try it one moment : " O my God, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart" on account of my own sins ; I feel them as a heavy burthen, too heavy for me to bear ; and I find no rest in my soul, but by coming weary and heavy-laden to my Lord and Saviour. Beloved brethren, is this true of you ? can you say it and " not lie?" Does your conscience attest the truth of it ? and does the Holy Ghost, the heart-searching God, bear witness to it ? What a fearful state must you then be in, if, with your superior advantages, you are yet impenitent and un- believing, like the Jews themselves? Surely there is need that your brethren in Christ, who once were in your perilous con- dition, but have been converted by the grace of God, should weep and mourn over you, even as the Apostle did over the unbelieving Jews.
Will you say, that there is no occasion for you to fear, since in your baptism you were made " members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven ? " True, you have by baptism all that the Jews derived from circumcision f
f See the Church Catechism, which with great propriety represents us as enjoying by baptism all the privileges which the Jews enjoyed by circumcision. But notwithstanding those privileges, we must
OUR DUTY TOWARDS THE JEWS. o4o
1883.]
But this is the very reason why you should weep the
more for your sins ; because, when you already possess such glorious advantages, even as the Jews did by circumcision, you should lose them all, instead of securing the everlasting pos- session of them through the exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle acknowledges the exalted privileges of the Jews, "to whom pertained the adoption" into God's family: but he had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart for them notwithstanding, because their guilt was the greater, and their condemnation would be the heavier on ac- count of their impenitence and unbelief. And so, whilst you are exalted to heaven, even like Bethsaida and Capernaum, in the privileges you enjoy, there is reason to fear that you will be cast the deeper into hell for your misimprovement of them, and that in the clay of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, yea, and for Sodom and Gomorrha, than for you.