In this manner the Jews were educated by the Lord of Hosts. Can we then wonder that they, in a moral point of view, should have been the most cruel and wicked of any nation on earth? It follows, that they were a disgrace to that God who selected them as his own; and the Jewish dispensation ended in a complete failure: so that it is recorded, that the Lord “_hateth his own inheritance._” Jehovah failed to rear up and protect a nation who should serve as a pattern to the rest of the human family. They axe acknowledged, by both God and man, to have been the worst people on earth. We are now about to consider another attempt, on the part of the God of Israel, to recover and convert his disobedient people to the new covenant, or dispensation, by sending the long-expected Saviour of the seed of Abram, according to the flesh. Here we ought to expect that a double degree of caution will be manifest on the part of the Jewish God, so that no mistake may happen to the Jewish nation in their reception of, and obedience to, his Son, as an ambassador of peace and reconciliation; because, if the mission of Jesus was not clearly understood by the Jews, another scene of trouble, more dreadful than their former disobedience, would follow as a consequence. We ought to expect that Christ would be instructed so to present himself to his brethren, that his person and his plans for their recovery would be self-evident. No guess-work can be allowed, as it respects the vast importance of his mission, or the identity of his person. It needs no argument to show, that, when an end or object is to be fully obtained, the means must be adapted to answer the end intended, or a failure is the consequence. Here we may ask, for what purpose did Christ come to the Jews? Was it to fulfil the promises made to them by Jehovah, _that he would make a new covenant with them, and write his laws on their hearts; not according to the covenant he made with their fathers, when he brought them out of Egypt, but that he would write his laws on their hearts, and their sins and iniquities remember no more, and that they should be to him a people, and that he would be to them a God?_ In fact, we cannot admit of the possibility of any mistake or failure to happen in Jehovah’s plan of salvation, when we consider that the seed of Abram longed for and expected the Great Deliverer of Israel. No trickery or deception ought to be resorted to in a case involving such dreadful consequences. It is highly dishonorable to the God of the Universe, to admit of any double-dealing on his part, when his people were prepared to receive the Messiah.