verse of the preceding chapter, and observe the terms in which the former excluded state of the Ephesians, as Gentiles, is described. The words used, place before us not merely spiritual, but ecclesiastical, and, if I may apply such a term, theo-political abandonment. They were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, as well as strangers to the covenants of promise; having no hope, as without promise; and without God in the world, as aliens from the commonwealth.

But the epithets here given will be best understood, when compared with their opposites, in Rom. ix. 4, 5. In this latter passage, St. Paul is mourning over the almost departed glory of his much-loved nation; and he seems to take a painful pleasure in enumerating the high distinctions which had made Israel illustrious. I think you will at once see the marked contrast between this passage and the other just referred to, in the 2d chapter of Ephesians: you will see, that exactly what the Jews had possessed, the Gentiles were destitute of; that is, that the latter wanted all those visible distinctions and beneficial institutions which had been, for so many ages, the invaluable inheritance of the one favoured nation.

As this is a main point, I wish you to consider it attentively. Read, if you please, first one of these passages, and then the other, (Rom. ix. 4, 5, and Eph. ii. 11, &c.), and judge whether it can be doubted, that the Jewish privileges, so affectionately dwelt upon in the former passage, were distinctly in the Apostle's view in the latter passage, and furnished the standard of his negative statement:

that the benefits recounted in the Epistle to the Romans, were those which the Jews possessed externally, and nationally, is proved by this circum→ stance, that external Jews only were, at that moment, in the Apostle's mind. He is grieving for that rejection and national overthrow which are at hand, and which he could almost be ready to avert, were that practicable, by a sacrifice of himself. He laments the impending ruin, be it observed, for the sake of those visible and national privileges. His taste and his devotion, the associations of his youth, and all the kindliest habitudes of his life, made those features of his nation delightful to his mind, and clear to his heart; we cannot, therefore, doubt his meaning, when he speaks to the Romans: and I conceive he gives, as strictly as possible, the directly opposite view in stating the former condition of the Ephesians. But if so, it will follow (and I think every expression in the sequel of the 2d chapter strengthens the conclusion), that St. Paul ascribes to the Christians at Ephesus, and, by consequence, to the body of Gentile Christians generally, a transferred, or rather co-participant enjoyment of the Israelitish constitution; that is, of every thing in the Jewish Ecclesiastical polity which was solidly beneficial, or intrinsically lovely: every thing which served, on national principles, to diffuse religious sentiment through a whole people, and to preserve religious truth, unimpaired and unadulterated, through successive generations: every thing which tended to endear Divine worship to youth, and to inspire the feeling," I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house

of the Lord:" every thing, in a word, which had been formed to make religion engaging, and penetrating, and permanently captivating to the whole of human nature; to individual man, and to the collective mass, inspiring common sensations of grandeur, cheerfulness, and tenderness, wherever there was capacity for such impressions, and laying hold of all by, at least, some sensitive tie; so that none could overlook the magnitude, or remain wholly unconscious of the attraction.

On such principles, the Jewish dispensation had been formed by the wisdom which knew what was in man. That it deeply answered its end, in spite of aberrations and apostasies, we know, by irresistible evidence. The raciness of Old Testament piety, especially in the inimitable and ever-blooming Psalms (upbraiding our Christian chilliness with a warmth which few ever pretend to rival; and, let me add, a happiness which, in some modern divinity, it has been a principle to discard), this matchless spirit (as yet, I fear, I may call it matchless spirit) of Jewish Catholicity bursting forth, even at the last, in the songs of the Virgin, of Zechariah, and of Simeon, and thereby shewing how it had lived and wrought, during the whole period, in all similar minds: all this, I say, implied a system of things not to be contemplated by such a mind as St. Paul's without cordial interest, and an instrumentality very unlikely to be wholly set aside under an improved prosecution of the same ultimate objects.

That this was the nature of St. Paul's attachment to Judaism, cannot be doubted: his enume

ration of particulars puts the matter of his predilection out of all question; and, as we cannot suppose him actuated by childish likings, or mechanical habits, we must resolve his concern into some such sense of worth and benefit as I have hinted at. How deep that concern was, need not be elucidated. His language on this subject has been the wonder of the Christian Church. Doubtless, much passed through his mind (in interesting and heart-wounding detail) of Jewish history, Jewish celebrations, Jewish prospects. And the melancholy reverse of all that the Old Testament describes, and the Psalms exemplify, of God's own people filling God's own house with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, with triumphant gratitude, and still more triumphant anticipation-lowered before him like a night of clouds, which even the light of the Sun of Righteousness does not seem to have at once overcome. I conceive I am stating no more than the beginning of the 9th chapter to the Romans warrants. But, if such were the Apostle's feelings at that time when he beheld the calamity, but seems not to have possessed preponderant consolation, with what delight must he have penned the latter part of the 2d chapter to the Ephesians? Every expression here giving evidence that the Gentile Church, as now contemplated by him, presented a rich and delightful compensation for all that was to be parted with in the literal Judea and Jerusalem.

It is here, then, I mean in a systematic transfer. and establishment of all that was permanently useful and intrinsically valuable in Judaism, that I

seem to myself to find the Apostle's mysterious sense of the calling of the Gentiles. As his words already adverted to, seem to admit of no other interpretation, so, in what follows, it is forced upon us in a way not to be evaded. The first expression, "were made nigh," is equivalent to, "were made Jews;" see the 17th verse, where the literal Jews are described by this expression,"He preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh." But mark how this nearness was accomplished: by breaking down the middle-wall of partition; that is, not by disfranchising Jews, but by co-enfranchising the Gentiles: painful observances, which made the separation, are abolished. But all valuable privileges must be retained, when the benefit conferred consists in admission to the situation which the privileged class had, till then, exclusively occupied.

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The Apostle conveys his meaning with additional clearness, in his beautiful metaphor of a building fitly framed together," and growing "into an holy temple." The term in the original, which answers to the former of these two expressions (ovvagonoyouμévn), could not be made intelligible by any single English word; nor can a paraphrase do it full justice: it gives the idea of the most perfect and comprehensive symmetry of parts, various from each other, yet forming one harmonious whole. The work, we are told, is to proceed to the last in the same exquisite order, until the chief corner stone shall have combined the two fronts (which it necessarily implies) the Jewish and Gentile (the latter built upon the