before. All political power centered in the one Cæsar Augustus." The provinces were placed under the care and administration of either the proconsols of the senate, or the legates and procurators of the emperor, and were thus associated together in the bond of amity; while their skill and munificence, aided by manual labour, provided an easy and ready access to all parts of the empire. All which facilitated the propagation of that gospel, by the preaching of which, the Spirit won multitudes to the faith.

Now, these instances may suffice to show, that the Holy Spirit is, by his agency in providence, the precursor to the manifestations of his grace.

When, therefore, the invention and im. provements in the art of printing are duly considered, the increasing facilities of communication between nation and nation, arising from both scientific and natural causes ;-the desire openly expressed, or tacitly implied, in the conduct

9 Mosh. Commenta. vol. i. begin. Vidal's Transla.

of idolatrous or superstitious nations ;the simultaneous efforts making in nearly all civilized countries, for the diffusion of knowledge ;—and the movement of all Christendom in behalf of those "sitting in darkness and in the region and shadow of death;"-these amount to a probability, at least, that some great improvement, some great moral and spiritual change is about to be effected by that Spirit, who has ever worked by means of human agency. The psalmist and the apostle drew their inference from circumstances, and why, with the same evidence, should not we?

1

"If we divide the regions of the world into thirty equal parts, the Christian's part is only as five, the Mohammedan's as six, the idolator's as nineteen; whence we have reason to conclude, that there is yet a time to come, before the consummation of all things, in which our Saviour will yet once more display the victorious banner of his cross; and like a mighty man

1 Ps. cii. 14. Phil. i. 7.

of war, march on, conquering and to conquer, till he hath confounded or converted his enemies; and finally consum mated his victories in a glorious triumph over all the powers of the earth, and made all nations, tongues, and languages to serve him."

On a point, however, in which the welfare of the human race is so deeply involved, we are not left to probability only. The spiritual empire of the Redeemer is to be so extended, that the accessions made to it will, in number, resemble the dewdrops of a summer's morning. Since, were there no prophecies to bear out the inference, the commission originally given, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," having never been repealed, justifies every exertion that can be made, and assures us that "our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord."

2 Whitby's Appendix to p. 247, and Serm. 143, p. Rom. xi. See also Abp.

Tillot. Serm. 139, vol. iii.

274.

But it is expressly affirmed, "he shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth" "yea, all kings shall fall down before him:"-" all nations shall serve him;"-"all nations shall call him blessed." "Kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers;"-"the Lord shall be king over all the earth;" -"from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts."

These and similar expressions are constantly to be met with in reading the Scriptures. And, as there is no period of the Christian church wherein they have yet been fulfilled, even they who contend against a double sense of prophecy, must, it would seem, admit some things

3 Ps. lxxii. 8, 11, 17.

Isa. xlix. 23. Zech. xiv.

9. Mal. i. 11.

remain to be accomplished. Of this it seems scarcely possible to entertain a doubt. For St. Paul, in the eleventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, referring to the rejection of the Jews, and to the advantages accruing thereby to the Gentiles, asks, "If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles;-how much more their fulness ?” "If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world,-what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?"—and concludes "that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in."5

Now, supposing this epistle to have been written about the year fifty-eight," i. e. some twelve years before the destruction of Jerusalem; it appears that the prophecies relating to the calling of the Jews, and "the entering in (eiotλUŋ) of the

5 Rom. xi. 12, 25.

6 See Lardner's Works, vol

vi. p. 646-649.