general tenour of fcripture, that no fanctified perlon will be shut out of heaven, and no unfanctified one admitted into it: "for without holinefs no man "fhall fee the LORD."

And happy is that meeknefs and poverty of spirit, which industriously declines the rugged thorny paths of controverfy and captious difpute, and walks in the plain smooth way of duty and practical religion; which ftudies GOD's commands, and labours to understand things of a fize with its capacity. Too many instances there are of daring men, who, by presuming to found the deep things of religion, have cavilled and argued themselves out of all religion. These men mistake their bufinefs. For what CHRIST requires of those who profefs his religion is, not penetration or fubtlety of wit; nice distinctions, or fublime notions; but victorious faith, and an honeft holy life; fobriety, temperance, and chastity; juftice and charity, piety and devotion. Let the Chriftian fubmit his reafon to revelation, and let humility and deference to GOD recommend his faith; and then, though there may be knowledge too wonderful for him, and fo high that he cannot attain unto it, yet he will be fure not to want any that is neceffary or profitable for him.

"JACOB have I loved, but ESAU have I hated." Rom. ix. 13. The Apostle quotes the foregoing text from the prophet MALACHI, cap. i. 2, 3. By attending to the context it will plainly appear, that what has been haftily concluded from it, respecting the perfonal election of one party, and the perfonal reprobation of the other, was not the idea meant to be conveyed by the prophet. "I loved JACOB," faith the LORD," and I hated ESAU." The account of the manner in which this divine love and hatred were manifested is im mediately fubjoined. "I loved JACOB, and I hated ESAU; and laid his mountains and his heritage waste, for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas EDOм faith, we are impoverished, but we will return and build the defolate places. Thus faith the LORD of Hofts; they fhall build, but I will pull down; and they fhall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. And your eyes fhall fee, and ye fhall fay, the LORD will be magnified from the border of Ifrael." The latter words in the foregoing paffage refer to the circumftance of the MESSIAH being to come from JACOB, and not from ESAU. In which refpect JACOB is faid to be loved, and ESAU to be hated; that is, the line of JACOB was preferred by GOD to that of ESAU for the conveyance of the bleffing promifed to ABRAHAM. The promife to ABRAHAM was, that in his feed all the nations of the earth fhould be bleffed." But it was no part of this promise, that the bleffing fhould be conveyed through the elder branch of his family; and it could pafs only through one branch of it; it remained, therefore, with GOD to choose which branch he thought proper. According to his will, then, the bleffing of the promised feed paffed through. ISAAC, not through

ISHMAEL; through JACOB, and not through ESAU; through JUDAH, not through either of the other fons of JACOB; and through DAVID, in preference to his elder brethren.

With a view to the preference given upon this occafion, ISAAC, JACOB, JUDAH, and DAVID may be faid, in the ftrong language of fcripture, to have been loved of God; that is, preferred by Him; whilft ISHMAEL, ESAU, and the brethren of JUDAH and DAVID, were hated or rejected. In the fame fenfe the Virgin MARY may be faid to have been loved by GOD, and all other women in the world hated; because the was chofen or preferred, before all other women, to be thể mother of the promised MESSIAH.

The expreffions, therefore, of loving and bating, as applied to JACOB and ESAU, are to be taken in the fense in which our SAVIOUR Ufed the latter, when he faid, that "if any man came to him, and 'bated not his father and mother, &c. he could not be his difciple." LUKE xiv. 26. That is, he that preferred his father and mother, &c. before him, and was not willing to facrifice every worldly confideration, rather than renounce him, was not worthy to be his disciple.

And that this text, quoted from the Prophet, referred not to the personal condition of the parties mentioned in it, but to that of their refpective pofterities, the argument of the Apoftle furnishes a proof. "For the children," ESAU and JACOB, fays he, "being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ; it was faid, the elder fhall ferve the younger." Rom. ix. 11, But ESAU the elder, as appears from the hiftory, never did ferve JACOB. Perfonally, JACOB seems ever to have been the inferior. The word of the LORD, therefore, in this remark. able paffage, not being verified in the perfons of ESAU and JACOB, the accomplishment of it must be referred to their pofterity; and upon this head no doubt can be entertained

by any one who reads the whole paffage as it ftands, Gen. xxv, 23: "And the LORD faid unto REBEKAH," as the was upon the point of being delivered of the two fons in question, "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people fhall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be ftronger than the other people; and the elder fhall serve the younger."

This circumftance of the elder ferving the younger not having then taken place in the perfons of ESAU and Jacob, we muft look for fome fpiritual fenfe, in order to perceive the completion of this blefling to JACOB; and this will lead us to that person promised to ABRAHAM and to ISAAC, as the bleffing of all nations, even JESUS CHRIST.

The original promife to ABRAHAM implied, that all nations of the earth fhould have an equal right in the blessing of the MESSIAH; yet the church of God, of which the MESSIAH is head and king, was for a time confined to the defcendants of JACOB. In this state of the church, did the pofterity of ESAU ferve, or was inferior to, that of JACOB. At length the dif tinction was taken away. The church of God was opened to all nations, and Gentiles as well as Jews became the people of GOD. Then did ESAU the Gentile break the yoke of JACOB the Jew from off his neck, and became his equal.

An attention to the Apoftle's argument will convince the reader, that it was St. PAUL's object on the occasion, not to fupport the doctrine of predeftination, or the perfonal election of individuals to the Divine favour; but to reconcile the Jews, to whom it was addreffed, to the Divine difpenfation in the promulgation of the Gospel.

The Gofpel was to be firft preached to the loft sheep of the houfe of Ifrael; and upon their rejection of it, to the Gentiles. "It was neceffary" (faid the Apoftles to the Jews) "that the word of God fhould firft have been spoken to you; but feeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy

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of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles: for fo hath the LORD commanded us." Acts xiiì. 46, 47.

The Jews, the peculiar people of God, were at this time to lofe that diftinction. The middle wall of partition, which heretofore feparated the Jewish from the Gentile worshipper in the temple, is therefore faid, by the Apostle, to have been broken down by CHRIST; that both Jew and Gentile might thereby understand, that they were now to be admitted into the church upon the fame footing; the object of Jesus CHRIST'S coming into the world being, "that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross." Ephef. ii. 16. In allufion to this part of the Divine difpenfation respecting the admiffion of the Gentiles into the church, the Apoftle refers to the prophet HOSEA, where he says in the name of the LORD," "I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved, which was not beloved, And it fhall come to pafs, that in the place where it was faid unto them, Ye are not my people; there fhall they be called, The children of the living God." Rom. ix. 25, 26.

This circumftance refpecting the admiflion of the Gentiles into the Chriftian church proved a great stumbling-block in the way of the Jews, at the first preaching the oGfpel. To reconcile them to it, the Apoftle tells them, they might as well afk, why GoD at first chofe the Jews to be his elect and peculiar people; to which no reason was to be given, but that it was his will fo to do. "I will have mercy (fays GoD) on whom I will have mercy." In like manner they might ask, why GoD chofe that the MESSIAH should defcend from the line of JACOB, in preference to that of ESAU; to which a similar anfwer was to be given; It was God's will that so it should be. In this cafe, of preferring one nation before another, the Creator of man hath exercised the fame power which the potter exercises over the clay of the fame lump, to make one weifel unto honour, and another unto difhonour; and the