the operation of another principle, the principle of envy ; if by any means he might prevail upon them to turn unto him. And, doubtless, this was well calculated to impress their minds with penitential sorrow for their past sins, and with an ardent desire to be restored to his favour. They saw all that their most favoured saints had ever enjoyed now transferred to the Gentile world, whom they had been accustomed to despise as dogs ; and pardon, and peace, and holiness, and glory, now imparted to a people whom they had deemed incapable of such blessings ; whilst they themselves were given up to judicial blindness and obduracy. True, indeed, this operated rather to increase their anger, than to produce humility : but God's end was mercy ; though they, through their incorrigible per- verseness, made it only an occasion of bringing down upon themselves yet heavier judgments. This is a point which we are too apt to overlook. God never intended finally to cast them off, but only to reject them for a season ; until, by be- holding his mercy vouchsafed to the idolatrous Gentiles, they shall be prevailed upon to humble themselves before him, and to imjnore a restoration of their forfeited inheritance : — " I say, then, have they stumbled, that they should fall (for ever) ? God forbid : but rather, through their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them, to jealousy %."~\
2. To provoke the Christian world to love —
[Mark with care the expression in my text : " They, the Jews, have now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercyh." God might, if he had seen fit, have admitted the Gentiles to a participation of his blessings in conjunction with the Jews. But this was not the plan which he, in his unerring wisdom, had ordained. He determined to manifest his displeasure towards the Jews, on account of their rejection of the Messiah ; but at the same time to shew mercy to them through the instrumentality of the despised Gentiles. To the Gentiles he gave a yet clearer and fuller revelation than that which he had given to the Jews : and he gave it, not for their benefit only, but as a sacred deposit for the Jeivs, and as a talent to be improved for their especial use. In bestowing the Gospel on the Gentiles, he said, in fact, ' Here is salvation
R ver. 11.
h Some, on account of the construction of the Greek, and the position of the word "wa, have translated the passage differently. But that position of the word 'Iva is common in St. Paul's writings (see 1 Cor. ix. If). 2 Cor. ii. 4. Gal. ii. 10. Eph. iii. 17.) : and, beyond a doubt, our translators have given the true import of the passage. The other translation would destroy the parallelism altogether, and, in fact, the sense also.