DISC. Iv.1 CHRIST ADMIRED AND GLORIFIED IN HIS SAINTS. `395 sentiments, in the matters of religion, and live upon them as their only hope. Astonishing. spectacle ! when the dark and savage in- habitints of Africa, and our forefathers, the rugged and warlike Britons, from the ends of the earth, shall appear in that assembly, with some of the polite nations of Greece and Rome, and each of them shall glory in hav- ing been taught to renounce the gods of their ancestors, and the demons, which they once worshipped, and shall rejoice in Jesus, the king of Israel, and in Jehovah, the everlasting God. The conversion of the gentile world to christianity is a matter of glorious wonder, and shall ap- pear to be so in that great day : That those, who had been educated to believe many Gods, or no God at all, should renounce atheism and idolatry, and adore the true God only; and those, who were taught to sacrifice to idols, and to atone for their own sins with the blood of beasts, should trust in one sacrifice, and the atoning blood of the Son of God.. Here shall stand a believing atheist, and there a converted idolater, as monuments of the almighty, power of his grace. There shall shine, also, in that assembly, here and there a prince and a philoso- pher, though not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty are called ;" T Cor. i. 26. and they shall be mat- ter of wonder and glory : That princes, who love no con- trol, shall bow their sceptres, and their souls, to the royaltyand godhead of the poor man of Nazareth : That the heathen philosophers, who had been used only to yield to reason, should submit their understandings to divine revelation, even when it has something above the powers and discoveries of reason in it. It shall raise our holy wonder too, when we shall be- hold some of the Jewish priests and pharisees, who became converts to the christian faith, adorning the tri- umph of that clay. The Jewishpharisees, who expected a glorious temporal prince for their. Messiah, that they should at last own the son of a carpenter for their Teacher, their Saviour, and their King; that they should veil the pride of their souls, and acknowledge a parcel of poor fishermen for his chiefministers ofstate, and receive them as ambassadors to the world. That those, who thought they were righteous, and boasted in it, should renounce their boastings and their righteousnesses, and
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