It must be so, my good friends, else we should be worse off than
the old Jews, and not better off, as all the New Testament solemnly
assures us a thousand times over that we are.
For in the covenant which God made with the Jews, and in the strange
events, good and bad, which He caused to happen to their nation, not
only the great saints among them were taken care of, but all classes,
and all characters, good and bad, even those who had not wisdom or
spiritual life enough to seek God for themselves, still had their
share in the good laws, in the teaching and guiding, and in the
national blessings which He sent on the whole nation. They had a
chance given them of rising, and improving, and prospering, as the
rest of their countrymen rose, and improved, and prospered. And when
the Lord came to visit Judaea in flesh and blood, we find that He
went on the same method. He did not merely go to such men as Philip
and Nathaniel, to the holy and elect ones among the Jews, but to the
whole people; to the LOST sheep, as well as to those who were not
lost. He did not part the good from the bad before he healed their
sicknesses, and fed them with the loaves and fishes. It was enough
for Him that they were Jews, citizens of the Jewish nation.
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