see the kingdom of heaven come with power, as he promised they should, Mark ix. 1,

(2) What is next to be observed is the success of the gos pel among the Samaritans. After the success of the gospel had been so gloriously begun among the proper Jews, the spirit of God was next wonderfully poured out on the Samaritans, who were not Jews by nation, but the posterity of those whom the king of Assyria removed from different parts of his dominions, and settled in the land that was inhabited by the ten tribes whom he carried captive. But yet they had received the five books of Moses, and practised most of the rites of the law of Moses, and so were a sort of mongrel Jews. We do not find them reckoned as Gentiles in the New Testament: For the calling of the Gentiles is spoken of as a new thing after this, beginning with the conversion of Cornelius. But yet it was an instance of making that a people that were no people: For they had corrupted. the religion which Moses commanded, and did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, but had another temple of their own in mount Gerizzim ; which is the mountain of which the woman of Samaria speaks, when she says, ? "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain." Christ there does not approve of their separation from the Jews; but tells the woman of Samaria, that they worshipped they knew not what, and that salvation is of the Jews. But now salvation is brought from the Jews to them by the preaching of Philip, (excepting that before Christ had some success among them) with whose preaching there was a glorious pouring out of the spirit of God in the city of Samaria; where we are told that "the people believed Philip, preaching the things concerning the kingdom of Christ, and were baptized, both men and women; and that there was great joy in that city." Acts viii. 8-12.

Thus Christ had a glorious harvest in Samaria; which is what Christ seems to have had respect to, in what he said to his disciples at Jacob's well, three or four years before, on oc casion of the people of Samaria's appearing at a distance in the fields coming to the place where Christ was, at the insti

gation of the woman of Samaria. On that occasion he bids his disciples lift up their eyes to the fields, for that they were white to the harvest, John iv. 35, 36. The disposition which the people of Samaria showed towards Christ and his gospel, showed that they were ripe for the harvest. But now the harvest is come by Philip's preaching. There used to be a most bitter enmity between the Jews and Samaritans; but now, by their conversion, the Christian Jews and Samaritans are all happily united; for in Christ Jesus is neither Jew nor Samaritan, but Christ is all in all. This was a glorious instance of the wolf's dwelling with the lamb, and the leopard's lying down with the kid.

(3) The next thing to be observed is the success there was of the gospel in calling the Gentiles. This was a great and glorious dispensation of divine providence, much spoken of in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and spoken of by the apostles, time after time, as a most glorious event of Christ's redemption. This was begun in the conversion of Cornelius and his family, greatly to the admiration of Peter, who was ́used as the instrument of it, and of those who were with him, and of those who were informed of it; as you may see, Acts x. & xi. And the next instance of it that we have any account of, was in the conversion of great numbers of Gentiles in Cyprus, and Cyrene, and Antioch, by the disciples that were scattered abroad by the persecution which arose about Stephen, as we have an account in Acts xi. 19, 20, 21. And presently upon this the disciples began to be called Christians first at Antioch, verse 26.

And after this, vast multitudes of Gentiles were converted in many different parts of the world, chiefly by the ministry of the Apostle Paul, a glorious pouring out of the Spirit accompanying his preaching in one place and another. Multitudes flocked into the church of Christ in a great number of cities where the Apostle came. So the number of the members of the Christian church that were Gentiles, soon far exceeded the number of its Jewish members; yea so, that in less than ten years time after Paul was sent forth from Antioch to preach to the Gentiles, it was said of him and his companions,

that they had turned the world upside down: Acts xvii. 6. «These, that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." But the most remarkable pouring out of the Spirit in a particular city that we have any account of in the New Testament, seems to be that in the city of Ephesus, which was a very great city. Of this we have an account in Acts xix. There was also a very extraordinary ingathering of souls at Corinth, one of the greatest cities in all Greece. And after this many were converted in Rome, the chief city of all the world; and the gospel was propagated into all parts of the Roman empire. Thus the gospel sun, which had lately risen on the Jews, now rose upon, and began to enlighten the Heathen world, after they had continued in gross Heathenish darkness for so many ages.

This was a great thing, and a new thing, such as never had been before. All nations but the Jews, and a few who had at one time and another joined with them, had been rejected from about Moses's time. The Gentile world had been coyered over with the thick darkness of idolatry: But now, at the joyful glorious sound of the gospel, they began in all parts to forsake their old idols, and to abhor them, and to cast them to the moles and to the bats, and to learn to worship the true God, and to trust in his Son Jesus Christ; and God owned them for his people: Those who had so long been afar off, were made nigh by the blood of Christ. Men were changed from being Heathenish and brutish, to be the children of God; were called out of Satan's kingdom of darkness, and brought into God's marvellous light; and in almost all countries throughout the known world were assemblies of the people of God; joyful praises were sung to the true God, and Jesus Christ the glorious Redeemer. Now that great building which God began soon after the fall of man, rises gloriously, not in the same manner that it had done in former ages, but in quite a new manner; now Daniel's prophecies concerning the last kingdom, which should succeed the four Heathenish monarchies, begins to be fulfilled; now the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, began to smite the image on its feet, and to break it in pieces, and to grow great, and to make

great advances towards filling the earth; and now God gath ers together the elect from the four winds of heaven, by the preaching of the apostles and other ministers, the angels of the Christian church sent forth with the great sound of the gospel trumpet, before the destruction of Jerusalem, agreeable to what Christ foretold, Matth. xxiv. 31.

This was the success of Christ's purchase during this first period of the Christian church, which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem.

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2. I would proceed now, in the second place, to take notice of the opposition which was made to this success of Christ's purchase by the enemies of it.........Satan, who lately was so ready to triumph and exult, as though he had gained the victory in putting Christ to death, now finding himself fallen into the pit which he had digged, and finding his kingdom falling so fast, and seeing Christ's kingdom make such amazing progress, such as never had been before, we may conclude he was filled with the greatest confusion and astonishment, and hell seemed to be effectually alarmed by it to make the most violent opposition against it. And, first, the devil stirred up the Jews, who had before crucified Christ, to persecute the church: For it is observable, that the persecution which the church suffered during this period, was mostly from the Jews. Thus we read in the Acts, when, at Jerusalem, the Holy Ghost was poured out at Pentecost, how the Jews mocked, and said, “These men are full of new wine;" and how the scribes and Pharisees, and the captain of the temple, were alarmed, and bestirred themselves to oppose and persecute the apostles, and first apprehended and threatened them, and afterwards imprisoned and beat them; and breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, they stoned Stephen in a tumultuous rage; and were not content to persecute those that they could find in Judea, but sent abroad to Damascus and other places, to persecute all that they could find every where. Herod, who was chief among them, stretched forth his hands to vex the church, and killed James with the sword, and proceeded to take Peter also, and cast him into prison.

So in other countries, we find, that almost wherever the apostles came, the Jews opposed the gospel in a most malignant manner, contradicting and blaspheming. How many things did the blessed Apostle Paul suffer at their hands in one place and another! How violent and blood thirsty did they shew themselves towards him, when he came to bring alms to his nation!. In this persecution and cruelty was fulfilled that of Christ, Matth. xxiii. 34. “Behold, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:"

3. I proceed to take notice of those judgments which were executed on those enemies of Christ, the persecuting Jews. (1) The bulk of the people were given up to judicial blindness of mind and hardness of heart. Christ denounced such a wo upon them in the days of his flesh; as Matth. xiii. 14, 15........ This curse was also denounced on them by the Apostle Paul, Acts. xxviii. 25, 26, 27; and under this curse, under this judicial blindness and hardness, they remain to this very day, having been subject to it for about 1700 years, being the most awful instance of such a judgment, and monuments of God's terrible vengeance, of any people that ever were. That they should continue from generation to generation so obstinately to reject Christ, so that it is a very rare thing that any one of them is converted to the Christian faith, though their own scriptures of the Old Testament, which they acknowledge, are so full of plain testimonies against them, is a remarkable evidence of their being dreadfully left of God.

(2) They were rejected and cast off from being any longer God's visible people. They were broken off from the stock of Abraham, and since that have no more been reputed his seed, than the Ishmaelites or Edomites, who are as much his natural seed as they. The greater part of the two tribes were now cast off, as the ten tribes had been before, and another people were taken in their room, agreeable to the predictions of their own prophets; as of Moses, Deut. xxxii. 21. «They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked, me to anger with their vanities;`and I will