" the light had risen upon them, and God's glory was seen upon them." "As soon as they heard him, they obeyed his call ;" and within a few years from the publication of the Gospel to them, such multitudes became obedient to the faith, that they filled, as it were, every part of the Roman empire ; so gloriously was the prediction fulfilled in the eyes of the whole world.]
2. His complaint of the Jews —
[For two thousand years had the Jews been the Lord's peculiar people, the sole depositories of his revealed will, the only visible monuments of his saving grace. During all this time had God stretched out his hands to them with more than parental tenderness and affection, intreating them to accept his overtures of mercy, and urging them not to put away from them the blessings which he of his own sovereign love had prepared for them. He had assured them, that in and through their Messiah they should possess all the blessings both of grace and glory. He had spared no pains to draw them to himself. He had wrought such miracles for them as had never been wrought for any other people from the foun- dation of the world. He had loaded them with benefits with- out number, given them his statutes, his ordinances, his Sabbaths, and sent from time to time his prophets to instruct and warn them. In short, every thing that could be done for his vineyard, he had done in it.
But how had they requited all this unbounded love ? Had they turned to him ? had they loved, and served, and glorified him ? No : from the beginning they had been " a disobedient and gainsaying people." Hear how God complains of them by
the Prophet Jeremiah b But the most perfect contrast
between his tenderness towards them and their obstinacy will be found in their treatment of Hezekiah's messengers, when he sent them through the whole land to entreat and importune
them to return to Godc (Mark the extreme tenderness
with which God here " stretches out his hands to them.") And how did they receive these gracious communications? " Hear, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth !" they " laughed the messengers to scorn, and mocked them." Thus did they also in the days of Christ and his Apostles ; they were always " disobedient, always gainsaying " and opposing every thing that was said or done for their welfare ; till at last, by their "contradictions and blasphemies," they constrained the Apostle Paul to turn from them, and to execute without any further reserve the commission he had received to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles d With what a different spirit the
b Jcr. xxxv. 13, 15. c 2 Chron. xxx. G— 9. d Acts xiii. 44 — 17.