Yes; so it shall be. By the children of the kingdom are meant the Jews who in those days were still the chosen children of God, to whom Christ, Our Lord, first preached the Gospel Himself and by His apostles; bat as that people obstinately refused to believe through malice and perversity, they were abandoned by the disciples of Christ, and the heathens had the happiness of being instructed in the Christian faith and converted to God. Paul and Barnabas openly reproached the Jews with this: “To you it behoved us first to speak the word of God: but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the gentiles;”[1] they will believe in Christ and many of them will inherit His kingdom. My dear brethren, we in this country are descended from heathens. Oh, more than happy they who, wherever they come from, shall possess the kingdom of heaven! Hitherto we have been considering its infinite joys and delights by way of meditation in order to inflame our desires for it all the more; but what will all that avail us if, as is usually the case after sermons, we forget all about it again? Ah, dear Christians, let it not be so with us! Heaven, although we may never hear a sermon about it, is well worth often thinking of and desiring constantly. My object to-day is to excite you and myself to this constant recollection and desire of heaven. Plan of discourse as above.
- ↑ Vobis oportebat primum loqui verbum Dei: sed quoniam repellitis illud, et indignos vos judicatis æternæ vitæ, ecce convertimur ad gentes.—Acts xiii. 46.
