pensation was for a particular people, therefore no other people could have true religion extended to them. No, my brethren, we joyfully maintain, that the saving mercy of God in Christ Jesus will eventually extend over the length and breadth of the whole world; and be experienced in the circle of every family then on the earth. We maintain, that the death of Christ is a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; and that eventually salvation will prove co-extensive with redemption, that is, so far as respects the then population of the whole world. We say the then population of the world: for we utterly reject the ensnaring heresy of the universalists, which seems to be Satan's gilded bait to allure and destroy by unsanctified benevolence. This throws light upon the controverted question of the extent of redemption. Redemption is not salvation to any: neither is it unto salvation to all who are redeemed. It is done, not to human persons or sins, whether few or many, but to the character and government of God. Does God take account of sin, by relative quantity, as we do? Surely not. Whosoever shall keep the whole law, saith the Lord, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. To redeem a transgressor against one point, therefore, demands a price as rich, as to redeem a transgressor against all. And by parity of reasoning, if all mankind have transgressed against the whole law; to redeem one transgressor

demands a price as rich as to redeem all mankind: and the redemption of all men demands no more than would be indispensable for the redemption of one man. There is no place in this branch of the subject, for the consideration of relative quantities of sin, or relative numbers of sinners.

Salvation is quite a different subject, and is, for the present, confined to a specific number of persons elected out of mankind in Christ. Thus the doctrine of this dispensation corresponds with the history of the church: while, at the same time, a redemption is prepared, of sufficient value, to meet the demands of the " dispensation of the fulness of times." (Eph. i. 10.)

Our judgment, therefore, is, (and, we think, not without evidence, yea, not without proof,) that the design of the present dispensation is not the conversion of the Gentile world, but the calling of an elect people out of the Gentiles to the knowledge of God and salvation by Jesus Christ. In confirmation of this view, I revert to what has been already stated, and observe, that if this be the design of the dispensation, then we see the progressive accomplishment of that design in the history of the church.

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Another design of this dispensation is revealed to us, by comparing Deut. xxxii. 21, with Rom, x. 19, and xi. 11. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and

I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." "But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." "I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them (the Jews) to jealousy." From hence, we learn, not only that extending the blessings of the gospel to the Gentiles, would, in the first instance, excite the anger, and jealousy, and enmity of the Jews; but, also, that eventually the Jews, being recovered from their judicial stupidity and carelessness about the things of God, and perceiving the Gentiles to be in possession of the riches of the Messiah; would be moved to a holy emulation, that they might not be surpassed in the service of Jehovah by any people.

To this agree the words of our Lord: "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled;" by which it is clearly implied, that when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, Jerusalem shall not be trodden down any longer. And it is equally clear, that until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, all attempts to raise up Jerusalem as a nation must fail. We say, as a nation, because individuals may be converted, and Christians may be, as they have

been, the favoured instruments of doing what the apostle to the Gentiles laboured and prayed for, that is, of saving some.

Thus, as during the times of the Jews, "all were not Israel who were of Israel:" the whole nation being called, but only a remnant really chosen and saved; so now, during the times of the Gentiles, all are not Christian who are of Christendom: all are called, but only a few are chosen and saved. The way of life is narrow for the present; but we are waiting for the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who will bruise the serpent's head, restore the Jews, and cause the whole Gentile world to flow together to the glory of the Lord, as manifested in the nation of Israel. This harmonizes the scriptures, and provides for the rich abounding mercy of Jehovah to the world, in due time; without attempting to mar the symmetry of the gospel, or to stretch this dispensation beyond its revealed measure. God concluded the Jews in unbelief saving a remnant. He will conclude Christendom in unbelief saving a remnant. And when he hath concluded all in unbelief, and secured to himself for ever the acknowledgment of every creature, that salvation is of grace, then he will have mercy upon all! "O! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out."-Rom. xi. passim.

These then, we conceive, are the designs of the

present dispensation-1. To take a people out of the Gentiles. 2. To provoke the Jews to jealousy -so making way for the restoration and conversion of the Jewish nation, and the salvation of the whole heathen world.

II. With respect to the termination of the times of the Gentiles, it may be considered either as to its nature, or as to its date.

1. The nature of it will be to all Christendom, what every day of it is to some individuals in Christendom; that is, a separation, everlasting salvation to some, the damnation of hell to others. Of this most important and alarming statement we have, what appears to me, direct and satisfactory proof in the ancient prophecies, in the parables of our Lord, and in the apostolical epistles.

In the ancient prophecies.-The chief enemies of the Jewish nation, during the times of the Jews, were Edom and Babylon. Edom, who shook off the yoke of Jacob according to the prophecy of Isaac and Babylon, who held Judah in a seventy years' captivity. It is the general opinion of the Christian church, that the Jewish nation was at least in one point of view, a type of the true spiritual church of Christ; whence the application so constantly made of the Old Testament promises, to what is called the spiritual Israel of God. Upon the same principle, we maintain, that the enemies of the Jewish nation were types of the enemies of