c Rom. x. 20. Il Isai. lxii. ;5.
eternity exceed those of time and sense. If, then, we observe with awe his " severity" to his ancient people, must we not behold with admiration and gratitude his " goodness" to us? In fact, his mercies to them were mere shadows of those vouchsafed to us : so that we may well exclaim with the prophet, " How great is his goodness! how great is his beauty! "
But the character of this dispensation will yet more fully appear, if we view it through the medium of the image by which it is illustrated.
The Apostle represents the Jewish Church as an olive-tree planted by the hand of God himself, and watered with the dews of heaven. For a time, it brought forth fruit: but, after a season, it became barren, and disappointed wholly the expectations of the divine Husbandman. At last, Almighty God determined to express against it his merited displea- sure, and to display in it his righteous indignation. Accordingly, he broke off, in quick succession, all its branches, and scattered them over the earth, as warnings to an ungodly world. In every place under heaven has he caused them to be despised and trampled under foot : and, from being the joy and admiration of the whole earth, they are become " a hissing and a curse," to all who behold them.
Not willing, however, that the stem should stand in all its naked deformity, God has taken, from a wild olive, branches to supply the place of those which have been broken off. The wild olive was in itself as worthless as any tree of the field, and utterly incapable of bringing forth any fruit at all : but, by engrafting its branches into the good olive, and making them partakers of its root and fatness, God has rendered them " fruitful in the fruits of right- eousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." Thus are the Gentiles now growing in the very place of the Jews who have been broken off, and enjoying all the privileges which in former ages belonged exclusively to them. But, to see this in its true light, we must contemplate the end that awaits them both ; the scattered branches withering,
1898.1 god's dispensations to jews and gentiles. 433
and shortly to be gathered as fuel for the fire ; and the engrafted scions forming a noble tree, luxuriant and fertile beyond all former precedent, and shortly to be transplanted to the paradise of God, a glorious and eternal monument of God's power and grace. Say whether, if this image be realized in our minds, we must not adore both the severity and the good- ness of God, acknowledging equally the justice of the one, and the unbounded riches of the other ?
Such is the character of this dispensation, which we now proceed to consider,
II. In its final issue —
It will be observed, that in the dispensation, as far as we have hitherto considered it, the sovereignty of God is most conspicuous. It was altogether of God's sovereign will and pleasure that he chose Abraham out of an idolatrous world, to make him the head and father of an elect seed. It was no less an act of sovereignty in God to confine his blessings to the line of Isaac, whilst Ishmael, an elder son, was over- looked. The same sovereignty was displayed, also, in the descendants of Isaac ; Jacob the younger being chosen to the exclusion of Esau, " whilst they were yet in the womb, and consequently could have done neither good nor evil," to be the ground of God's future dispensations towards them. It was also purely of his own sovereign will and pleasure that God chose the Gentiles to inherit the blessings which the Jewish people had forfeited and lost. It is im- possible to view this matter in any other light ; and we must be as blind as the Jews themselves, if we do not see that we ourselves are monuments of God's sovereign grace, in that we behold the full radiance of the Sun of Righteousness, whilst on millions of our fellow-creatures not so much as one ray of his light has ever shone. But, whilst in these things we ac- knowledge the sovereignty of God, we hesitate not to declare, that, in their final issue, God will proceed altogether in a way of righteous retribution. This