treep?" Despair not then of doing them good; but exert yourselves in every possible way for their conversion to the faith of Christ. You are told, that " if they abide not in unbelief, they shall be graffed in again : for God is able to graff them in againq." Seek then to convince them of the truth of Christianity, and to bring them to the knowledge and love of their Messiah. If you desire only the conversion of the Gentile world, you should begin with the Jews ; because it is the fulness of the Jews that is to operate on the Gentiles, and to effect, as it were, among them, " a resurrection from the dead1." But it is for God's sake, whose people they are ; and for Christ's sake, who bought them with his blood ; and for your own sake, who must give an account of the talents in- trusted to your care, that I call upon you to be workers toge- ther with God in this great cause : and, if you have any sense of God's "goodness to you," seek to avert and terminate " his severity to thems."]
p ver. 24. i ver. 23.
r ver. 15. 3 ver. 22. with 2 Cor. ii. 16.
Rom. xi. 17 — 21. If some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The bra?iches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well ; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear : for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
IT is surprising, considering how minutely the Apostle has explained the subject contained in this chapter, and how strongly he has marked its almost unparalleled importance ; it is surprising, I say, that it should so little have attracted the attention of the Christian world. The Apostle, after contemplating it, exclaimed, " O the depths ! " But we, after having read his statement times without number, have seen no depths in it; or, at least, none which we have been at all disposed to fathom. There is one point in particular, which, in considering this subject, we have