for you : but, remember, you must not confine it to yourselves. You must make use of it for the instruction and salvation of the Jews. From you I withheld the light which I bestowed on the Jews : but I do not intend that the light which I am now bestowing upon you should be withheld from them : on the contrary, I purpose that it shall be imparted to them : and I intend to make you my channel of communication to them. See to it, therefore, that you improve this mercy aright, and that you labour incessantly for their good ; for I grant this mercy to you, not for your own benefit only, (though, doubtless, it is for yourselves in the first instance,) but for them also, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.''
Thus, in the whole of this dispensation, God has acted in a sovereign way, yet also in a way of mercy ; — of mercy to the Jews, whom he would provoke to jealousy; and of mercy to the Gentiles, whom he would provoke to love.]
Permit me now to ask,
1. What use have you made of this Gospel for yourselves ? —
[Have you " believed it?" Have you, by faith in it, been brought to God ? Have you been led to admire and adore the goodness of God, in that, when he withheld his blessings from his own highly-favoured and peculiar people, he con- ferred them upon you, who were alike unworthy of them, and might well have been left to perish, on account of your abuse of the light with which he had favoured you, and which, small as it was, was sufficient to acquit or to condemn you, accord- ing as you conducted yourselves in reference to it? In a word, have you seen the " mercy" of God, as revealed in the Gospel ? and are you transported with it, as offering " mercy" to your souls ? Does that " mercy," as bought for you by the precious blood of Christ, form the one ground of all your hopes, and the one spring of all your joys? Remember, if the feebler light vouchsafed to Abraham, and Moses, and David, wrought so powerfully on them, as to guide their feet into the paths they trod, much more should your superior light elevate your souls, and transform you into the very image of your God ]
2. What use have you made of the Gospel for your Jewish brethren? —
[Alas ! how little have any of us answered the end for which the Gospel has been committed to us, or ever consi- dered the design of God in bestowing it upon us ! It is per- fectly surprising, that for so many centuries we should have altogether overlooked our Jewish brethren : as if God himself