people, if any where, sincere national piety might have been expected. All advantages were on the side thereof. Public and private happiness, in the enjoyment of all earthly blessings, was expressly connected with it. But so depraved did human nature appear, even when placed in the most advantageous circumstances, that the most eminent friends of God were the most remarkable sufferers, and the chief objects of the public hatred among them long before the Saviour appeared in the world. If the fire of opposition was thus already kindled, how must it flame forth when now the fulness of time was come, that the Divine righteousness should be revealed among men by the appearance of Jesus Christ the Son of God?

He appeared at the time when it was presumed that the national righteousness was carried to as high a pitch as could well be hoped for, till the grand complete reformation expected from the Messiah should take place. They were now thoroughly weaned from the gross idolatry of the neighbouring nations; they were zealous for the worship of one God? they were ardent in their wishes and hopes for the sudden appearance of the Messiah, and as it were prepared to meet him. The expectation was general. They were full of the fond thoughts (like those which possess the minds of modern Christians concerning some future calling of the Jews and Gentiles) that the time was at hand, when piety and integrity, worldly peace and prosperity, issuing forth from their capital city, should overspread the earth. We may have some idea, then, of what the Jews were at that time, if we can represent to ourselves a Christian nation firmly persuaded of the near approach, and in eager expectation of what we hear fondly called in sermons, and other writings, The thrice-happy period, or The best of eras.

Yet in these very circumstances was the whole revelation made to the Jews, with their whole national constitution formed upon it, so corrupted, as to be pointed by them in the strongest opposition to him who was the great end and scope of it, Jesus the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Nor was this occasioned by any new disorder or insurrection, making a sudden breach of the constitution: no; the venerable, the prime deputies in the theocracy, watchful over the public tranquillity, took the most cautious method of apprehending Jesus without tumult, solemnly condemned him, and stirred up the people to ask his death of the Roman govThe whole matter was conducted according to the coolest sentiments of the nation, sentiments wherein they af

ernor.

terward uniformly and steadily persisted, and such as still prevail in every nation called Christian.

The pride of their national righteousness made them despise the divine; yea, the very zeal they had for their law, made them oppose the end of it. Their table or altar, which was instituted for their feasting with God on his sacrifices, became a snare before them; and their happy national constitution, which should have been for their welfare, a trap to entangle them. In comparison with any other people, they had the advantage much every way; yet every advantageous circumstance in their favour they themselves industriously made use of to their own utter ruin. But, not to multiply reflections where they occur so readily, what should hinder us Gentiles, who have now got the advantage on our side, to lay our hand to our heart, and frankly return the acknowledgement once made in the name of the Jews by one of the foremost of them? What then? are we better than they ?— No, in no wise.

AT the time we have been speaking of, as the opposition showed itself in a new and clearer manner than formerly, so a new style or form of expression was introduced, to distinguish the opposite sides. Till now, it had been most openly foreshowed or prefigured in the stated separation betwixt the favourite nation and all others. That nation was distinguished by the names of Israel, Judah, the holy people, the seed of Abraham, people of God, &c., from all others, called in the general the nations, or the Heathen, and the families or tribes who called not on the name of the true God. But now, as no distinction was to be established betwixt any one earthly nation or body politic and others, and as the separation betwixt the two seeds, intimated by the Deity at the fall of man, was to be clearly manifested by the appearance of him who was primarily pointed at by the designation of the seed of the woman; as this separation, I say, was to take place in the midst of the favourite nation, it is evident that new names of distinction became necessary.

Jews, from Judah, was now the most common national name; yet it would seem, that Jesus, in his doctrine, declineseven to make use of this name, choosing rather to say, instead thereof, the world. I do not find that he ever used it in speaking to his disciples, or even to any of his own nation, except once in his answer to the high priest, after having first made mention of the world: John xviii, 20, I spake openly to THE WORLD; I ever taught in the synagogues, and in the temple,

whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing. Nor do I find it mentioned by him to others on more than two occasions. 1st, When, in answer to the woman of Samaria, he says, John iv, 22.-Salvation is of the JEWS; and 2dly, To the Roman governor, John xviii, 36, -If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. He openly opposed their claim to the title of Abraham's seed, while he acknowledges Zaccheus, the publican, for a son of Abraham. He sometimes mentions the name of Israel, yet we may find at the same time some hint of the restriction of his meaning. As, to take one instance for all, when Jesus said of Nathaniel coming to him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile. The difference betwixt Israel after the flesh and Israel after the spirit began now to be explained. Agreeably to this, Paul, opposing the boasting of the Jews, says, Rom. ii, 17, Behold thou art called a Jew ;and v. 28, 29,—He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, &c. Now also the difference of clean and unclean, which had so long subsisted betwixt the Jews and other nations, began to turn on its true hinge, when Jesus said to those who believed on him, Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

All other distinctions began now to give place to the capital one established betwixt the world and Jesus with his disciples, to whom he said, If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me (prov pov) the first of you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. When Jesus was proved to be the Christ by his resurrection, and openly confessed as such by his disciples; and when they came to be joined by the uncircumcised at Antioch in the same confession, so could no more be distin-` guished as any particular class of Jews, they were called Christians. This name, though it seems to have been given to them first by the world, was yet well received among themselves, being of the same import with the phrase (xosov) often used by Paul, to signify those who are Christ's, taken originally from the words of Jesus, Mark ix, 41.

As Jesus Christ stands at the head of all who are his, receiving worship from them as their God and King; so he points forth the adversary as conducting all who are against him, and acting as the prince of this world; even as Paul calls him, in the same view, The god of this world. Thus we see how greatly the earthly theocracy was corrupted,

when the favourite nation, formed under it, came to such a height of impiety and disloyalty, as to put to death the Son of God, the King of Israel, subjecting themselves to his adversary as their prince and their god.

UNDER the influence of the prince and god of this world, we find the Roman virtue, the devout zeal of the Pharisees, and the more enlarged sentiments of the Sadducees, all pointed against him, who is the adequate object of the fulness of the Divine good pleasure and delight. Hence we may see, when Paul came to know the dignity of the person who suffered on the cross, and observed there what aspect the world bare to the source of all his happiness, with how great propriety and majesty he said, Far be it that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. At the cross of Christ, Paul took his last leave of the world, and all that is admired in it. Hence we see what he was to expect from it in his course of preaching salvation through that cross. But if the world, like a dying man, looked cold and averse to him, he was bold to profess himself fully even with it. He did not regret the want of its countenance; he enjoyed a ground of glorying, which made him look above it: and whatever other source of boasting men had to talk of, he was in readiness to despise it, with full as great confidence as they were capable to do his.

The whole corruption of revelation, with every notion of the Divine character opposite to the gospel, is in the New Testament called the darkness of this world. The adversary and his angels are called the rulers of that darkness. Agreeably to this, Paul speaking of those who with himself knew the grace of God in truth, says, Col. i, 12, 13, Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.*

We have seen, then, whence the apostles learned to insist so much as they do in their writings, in declaring what is of the world, and what is of God; or, in other words, what is

*

Son of his love. Here, by the way, we may observe one reason why Jesus Christ is called the Son and image of God, and accordingly wor shiped as God: for if the Divine love was to be fully manifested to men by a gift equal to, or fully expressive of it, surely no less than a person of infinite dignity, a divine person, was fit to be the proper and adequate product thereof. Accordingly, we find, that the Scripture gives us no other measure of the Divine love but this gift; and this gift is the full measure thereof. God so loved the world, that he gave his Son.

of the flesh, and what is of the spirit; and in stating the opposition betwixt these in the strongest manner; and to be so diligent in animating Christians to fight the good fight of faith, and contend earnestly for it; and why they issued so many awful threatenings against all who went about by any kind of trimming, or reconciling methods, to quench the fire of that contention which Jesus Christ came to revive in the earth. Those who wanted to make a fair show in the flesh, and sought to make Christianity more palatable to men, or less obnoxious to their hatred, that the offence of the cross might cease, gave the apostles the greatest disquiet. Though nothing is reckoned more idle and foolish by many called Christians, than a controversy about the faith; yet the great effect of the Spirit of the truth on any man in whom he dwells, is to make him zealous in contending for it, and withal ready to bear patiently all the effects of the world's hatred and contempt of it. Thus he labours for the glory of God; thus he shows the greatest good will to men. Paul spent his life in this contention, and he thought it well bestowed therein: Yea, (says he in his epistle to the Philippians,) and if I be offered (or poured out as a drink-offering) upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. And he urges these same Christians to zeal in this contention, after his example, as the great purpose for which they were gathered together into church order; yea, as the principal characteristic of a conversation becoming the gospel. Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me. But to proceed :

The new state of things, the kingdom or church erected by Jesus Christ, is the true, heavenly, and eternal theocracy, prefigured by the old earthly one, which passed away. This new kingdom received its form and establishment when the King thereof was anointed and seated on his throne; when the soul and body of the Son of God, wherein he became exceeding sorrowful unto death, were brought into the full possession and enjoyment of that glory and blessedness, which he had with the Father before anything was created. In