Church with the utmost vehemence: that persecution drove multitudes of Christians (almost all except the Apostles) from Jerusalem, and scattered them through all Judaea and Samaria: and the people, so scattered, " went everywhere preaching the word:" so that, instead of suppressing the Gospel, as they hoped, the Jews were instrumental to the sending forth of thousands, all at once, to preach itb. Again, when Paul and Barnabas had preached to the Jews, as they had hitherto invariably done in the first place, at Antioch, the inveterate malignity of the Jews determined them henceforth to preach to the Gentiles, agreeably to the command which had been given them in the Scriptures : and the consequence of this was, that multitudes of the Gentiles immediately embraced the Gospel, and " glorified the word of the Lordc." Tims, " the fall of the Jews became the riches of the Gentiles," inasmuch as it was the occasion of the tidings of " reconciliation being published to the Gentile world," and " the unsearchable riches of Christ" being scattered in i*ich profusion over the face over the whole earth.]
The present rejection of the Jews is ultimately designed also even for the good of that benighted people —
[God designed that the transfer of his blessings to the Gentiles should " provoke to jealousy " his own forsaken peo- ple : and St. Paul, in preaching to the Gentiles, had that very object in view, namely, " to provoke to emulation those who were of his own flesh, and thereby to save some of them." Whilst possessing exclusively all the tokens of God's favour, they were regardless of it: but when they saw that the gifts of miracles and of prophecy were transferred from them to the Gentiles, and that the Gentiles were made happy in the enjoy- ment of their God, they were led to inquire more candidly into the truths delivered by the Apostles, and thus were in very many instances converted to the faith. Nor can we doubt but that the same effect would yet more frequently flow from that cause, if the lives of Christians continued to be such as they were in the apostolic age.]
But still richer benefits will flow to the world from,
II. Their future restoration —
That the Jews will in due time be converted to Christianity, is certain —
[When St. Paul asked, Whether their fall was final and irrecoverable, he shuddered at the idea, and declared, that
b Acts viii. 1, 4. c Acts xiii. 4G— 48.