great a mystery did he consider it, that, in the contemplation of it, he exclaimed, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding outb!"
But consider these four things : the long delay ; the partial bestowment ; the subsequent transfer ; the final restoration : and every part of it will appear an inscrutable mystery.
That God should leave the world in ignorance for two thou- sand years — that he should then make himself known to one man only, and confine the knowledge of himself for two thou- sand more years in one particular branch of that man's family — that then he should cause the candlestick to be removed from that people; and be set up amongst the idolatrous Gentiles, who had been left to themselves for four thousand years — that eighteen hundred years more should elapse, and the light be not yet spread amongst the Gentiles generally, or restored to the Jews — who does not see, in this whole dispensation, the sovereignty, the uncontrollable sovereignty, of the Most High, who imparts to every one so much only as he himself sees fit, and that too in the time and manner which seems best to his unerring wisdom ? The Apostle illustrates this by an olive-tree, the branches of which were broken off, that others might be engrafted on it, and that, at a future period, they might be engrafted again on their own olive-tree c. And, truly, in the whole of this mysterious appointment we must acquiesce, saying, " Even so, Father; for so it hath seemed good in thy sight d."]
But, though we cannot comprehend this mystery, we know, for certain,
II. The design of God in it —
This is two-fold ;
1. To provoke the Jews to jealousy —
[Moses himself, who gave to the Jews God's written word, told them, that they would, by their obstinate unbelief, provoke God to withdraw his mercy from them, and to transfer it to the Gentile world : " They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God : they have provoked me to anger with their vanities : and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people ; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation e." This passage St. Paul expressly cites in the preceding context f; and informs the Jews, that God, having in vain dealt with them in the way of mercy and of judgment, was now anxious to try another way, and to influence them through
» ver. 33. c ver. 17—24. a Matt. xi. 26.
e Deut. xxxii. 21. f Rom. x. 19.