with very few exceptions, at all think of seeking after God. Having but little sense of their guilt, and no idea whatever of any way in which their guilt might be removed, they con- cerned not themselves about a future state. The sentiment of the great mass among them was, " Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we die." But, on the first proclamation of the Gospel to them, they received it gladly, and experienced, throughout all the Roman empire, its saving benefits. Thus was fulfilled in them that prophecy, " I am sought of them that asked not for me : I am found of them that sought me notV
The Jews, on the other hand, many of them at least, had a considerable desire after a righteousness that should justify them before God : and they actually sought after such a right- eousness, by conforming to the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic law. But through their undue attachment to that law, which was now fulfilled and abrogated in Christ Jesus, they set themselves against the Gospel, and thereby cut themselves off from all participation of its benefits. The offer of salvation, through the merits of another, was a stumbling-block to them: they thought, that if they observed the duties of the moral law, and compensated for their defects by a strict attention to the ceremonial law, all would be well : and being persuaded of this, they would not hear of a salvation, which dispensed with the observances on which they placed so great a dependence. It ivas to this alone, and not to any secret and irresistible decrees of God, that they were thus left to perish. Thus it was that the Gentiles embraced the Gospel, and were saved by it; whilst the Jews, with all their superior advantages, rejected it, and perished.]
But this fact only verified what had been long since predicted by the prophets —
[Christ had been represented as " a foundation-stone," on which whosoever should build should live for everc. On the other hand, he had been represented as a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, over which many would fall to their heavier condemnation d. Thus the very Scriptures that an- nounced his advent, declared that he should be " set for the fall, as well as for the rising again, of many in Israel"." This, if viewed abstractedly, was a very improbable event : for, however he might be disregarded by the Gentiles, the pro- bability was, that the Jews, of whose nation he was, who ex- pected his advent, and, from their own prophecies, might have learned his character ; who actually saw all his miracles,
b Isai. lxv. 1. c Isai. xxviii. 16.
d Isai. viii. 14, 15. e Luke ii. 34.