The Churches Warned.
Note in what points, if in any, we may claim affinity with these representatives of Judaism at the eventful epoch of its dying struggle with the infant Church.
I. They, like us, had long been in possession of exclusive privileges, and accustomed to survey without emotion the great mass of mankind deprived of them.
II. Note the influence of long-continued and exclusive privileges on the opinions and the doctrinal belief of those enjoying them. It is curious, yet melancholy, to observe, with what facility advantages possessed by a few for the good of many may come to be regarded as prerogatives belonging to the few to the entire exclusion of the many. If the Jews, with an unfinished revelation and a heavy ceremonial yoke upon their necks, could dream of an exclusive right to God's compassions, what may not we, without preventing grace, infer from our unclouded light and our unshackled freedom? And if this grand error had a tendency to vitiate their whole view of divine truth, what security have we that an analogous effect may not be realised in our experience?
III. If we are conscious of inadequate exertions and of cold affections in the great cause of missions, let us think of Israel according to the flesh, and of what he was and what he is remember that such revolutions are still possible that if we do not value Christianity enough to share it with the heathen, they may yet become possessed of it at our expense nay, that while the glorious gospel is so commonly neglected and despised among ourselves, the word of this salvation is already sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it are hearing it.
J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ,p. 195.
Reference: Acts 28:28. Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 316.