attracted the notice of the Gentiles, who besought, that the same words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. The interval was however

spent, by Paul and Barnabas, in conversation with the pious Jews and proselytes: but on the next Sabbath day, when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy; partly at the popularity of the new teachers, but more especially on account of the great concourse of Gentiles, who presented themselves as candidates for those privileges, which the Jews considered to belong exclusively to themselves: and they spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Upon this, Paul and Barnabas made open proclamation, in the face of Jews and Gentiles, of their mission to the heathen. It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, (Jews); but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. Here then, properly speaking, was opened by an Apostle the divine commission of evangelizing the heathen world. The Gospel, which had been preached, in pursuance of their Lord's command, in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria*, was now to be carried to the

* Acts i. 8.

uttermost part of the earth. And what was the conduct of the Gentiles when that joyful news was sounded in their ears? When they heard it, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord; and as many as were ordained to eternal life, (or, as the words properly signify, as many as were set in order for eternal life, that is, were duly prepared for the reception of the Gospel,) believed.

The Jewish and Gentile citizens of Antioch, viewed with reference to the reception which they gave to the Gospel, are the types of two classes of hearers, upon whom the Word preached produces very different effects: this history is but one out of many instances to prove, that men who enjoy every external advantage of religion, are oftentimes far more insensible to its spirit, more inaccessible to the energy of divine truth, than those who are suddenly called out of entire darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel. To have in trust the oracles of God; to be ritually admitted into covenant with him; to bear his name; to be called his people; to have a speculative knowledge of his will; to be in communion with the saints; these are great advantages, singular privileges; special vouchsafements of God's mercy! but they are only the outward part of religion, instrumental and

auxiliary to its spirit and essence; the steps and approaches, by which we are to ascend to the shrine of truth and the throne of grace. Yet how common has it been, in every age of the Church of God, for men to rest contented with these; to regard them as the substance of religion, and as constituting the service which God will be contented to receive, and to which he will assign his covenanted rewards. Important as the outward forms and offices of religion must ever be, to beings of a mixed and imperfect nature; yet if their proper end and use be not stedfastly kept in view, they will impede those spiritual results, which they are intended to produce. The reading of God's Word is a religious duty but if it be performed merely as being in itself a duty, and without the further and higher view of realizing both its precepts and promises in our own persons, it is made the groundwork of a mistaken and dangerous selfcomplacency: we fancy that we are building up a goodly superstructure, while in fact we are busied about the scaffolding; and that, which is the true food of the immortal soul, from which, in the process of a spiritual reading and digesting, it should draw that nutriment which feeds the life blood of the inner man, serves only to

fill it with crude and speculative notions; inflates it with vain glory, and confirms it in limited and inadequate views of religion. Such was the case with the Jews, who, as St. Paul said on another occasion, rested in the law, and made their boast of God, and knew his will, and approved the things that were more excellent (or tried the differences of things) being instructed out of the law;* and yet how far they were from profiting by that precious and highly valued treasure, appears from the history of our Saviour's ministry, and from the reception which they gave to his Gospel, shadowed out and prefigured as it was in their Scriptures. By a process analogous to this, the positive ordinances of religion are often by degrees substituted for its moral energies or effects; and thus the very armour of righteousness becomes an incumbrance, instead of an instrument of protection or of conquest.

On the other hand, it sometimes happens, that when the word of God is for the first time heard by an ignorant sinner, and the glorious disclosures of the Gospel are made to one, who had before held no intercourse with religion, its effect is increased by the marvellous contrast between

* Rom. ii. 17.

a total darkness and the sudden blaze of light: the soul is taken, as it were, by surprise; its spiritual desires are at once awakened, and satisfied with the assurances of God's pardoning mercy it is glad, and glorifies the word of the Lord.*

But in thus contrasting the blindness and incredulity of the Jewish formalist, with the ready docility of the soul-humbled and awakened Gentile, who pressed eagerly forward into the kingdom of heaven, we must not do injustice to the ancient people of God. As a nation, the Jews rejected their Messiah. He was rejected by their rulers, their priesthood, the authorized interpreters of their law, and the chiefs of their religious sects. But then it must not be forgotten, that his Apostles were Jews; that after his resurrection he appeared to more than five hundred Jewish brethren at once; that three thousand Jews were added to the disciples on the day of Pentecost; that not long after, five thousand were converted by Peter and John; that multitudes, both of men and women, were again added to the Lord after the death of Ananias and Sapphira; and that, by the confession, or complaint, of the high priest himself, the Apostles had filled

*Acts xiii. 48.