SERMON prophets should adopt so strange a fancy, which VI. appears not to have entered into the views or conceptions of other men. When you are in this train of inquiry, it will surprize you still more to find, 2. By what persons, these prophecies, so remarkable for the matter of them, were announced. The publishers of this extraordinary doctrine were, in one word, JEws: that is, men of the most narrow and contracted minds; men, brought up in the highest conceit of themselves, and in the utmost scorn and contempt of the Gentiles; men, accustomed to think themselves the only favourites of Heaven, and to regard the rest of the world, as outcasts of its providence; men, in short, induced, partly, by the genius of their religion, ill understood, and partly, by their carnal temper, long indulged, to believe with assurance the perpetuity, the eternity of their divine law; and to deem it impossible that God should reign anywhere but in the land of Israel, or should impart his blessings to any that lived out of the Jewish pale. Was it, now, to be expected of such men, as these, that they should enlarge their ideas so far as to form the project of a new and universal religion; a religion, not imprinted outwardly on the flesh, but written in the heart; a religion, that was to supersede and evacuate the law of Moses, to which they were so immoderately addicted, and to enlighten and bless and save the heathen, whom they so perfectly despised and abhorred? You will suspect, perhaps, that the meaning of these prophecies was no more, than that the Jewish Law should finally prevail over all other Laws, and be the sole predominant religion of the whole earth: a prejudice, very likely, it may be said, to possess the minds of such a people as the Jews; and suitable enough to that zeal, which prompted them to compass sea and land, as Jesus himself observed of them, to make one proselyte 1. But the contrary is apparent from the structure of the Jewish Law, which, as I said, was so contrived, that it could not be observed out of Judæa—from the tenour of that Law, addressed only to the house of Israel, and not SERMON VI. VI. SERMON obligatory to any other people-from express declarations of the prophets themselves; who call the dispensation of the Messiah, a new Covenant, a covenant written in the heart, in opposition to the law of circumcision; who say, that the Lord will create new heavens and a new earth, that is, in the prophetic language, will institute a new dispensation of religion, different from that, which he had given to the Jews, and subversive of it ; who, lastly, speak of this dispensation, as of one, that should be established under a new name, and should be embraced by the Gentiles, as such, that is, by men, converted immediately to this new religion from their ståte of Gentilism, without passing through the strait gate of the Jewish Law1. i Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers- but this shall be my covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, &c. Jer. xxxi. 31-33. See also Jer. iii. 16. k For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind. Is. lxv. 17. 1 The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all Kings, thy glory: And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Is. lxii. 2. Judge, then, whether the prophets did not mean more than a proselytism to their own religion, when they predicted, and in such terms, the future conversion of the Gentiles; and whether such ideas, as these, could ever have entered into the hearts of Jews, if something, besides and above the natural suggestion of their own minds, had not inspired their prophecies. Add to all this, if you please, that Jesus was himself a Jew, and (to regard him as a man only) in the lowest class of the Jews, that is, of the most confined and bigoted education; and yet was not restrained by his prejudices from giving that sublime command to his followers-GO AND TEACH ALL NATIONS. But enough on the doctrine itself, and on the character of its teachers. It remains only 3. To add one word, on the manner, in which this prophecy, concerning the conversion of the Gentile world, appears to have been completed. There are especially Two prophecies on this subject, which merit our attentive consideration. ONE of them asserts, that the conver SERMON VI. Sion of the Gentile world shall take its rise 1. The FORMER of these prophecies is expressed thus-A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time m. In allusion to this prophecy, concerning the rise and progress of Christianity, is that parable of our Lord applied to the kingdom of heaventhe kingdom of heaven, says he, is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree: so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. And, with regard to the celerity with which this tree should grow up, we have a prophecy from Christ himself, and that wonderfully fulfilled-that his Gospel should be preached to all the world for a testimony to all nations, before the destruction of m Is. lx. 22. n Matth. xiii. 31, 32. |