And it was faith in God, too, which put it into the minds of the good men who choose these Sunday lessons out of the Bible, to appoint such chapters as these to be read year by year, at the coming in of the new year, for ever. Faith in God, I say, put that into their minds. For those good men trusted in God, that He would not change; that hundreds and thousands of years would make no difference in His love; that the promises made by His Holy Spirit to Isaiah the prophet would stand true for ever and ever. And they trusted in God, too, that what He had spoken by the mouth of His holy apostles was true; that after the blessed Lord came down on earth, there was to be no difference between Jews and Gentiles; that the great and precious promises made by God to the Jews were made also to all the nations of the earth; that all things written in the Old Testament, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Malachi, were written not for the Jews only, but for English, French, Italians, Germans, Russians—for all the nations of the world; that we English were God’s people now, just as much, ay, far more, than the old Jews were, and that, therefore, the Old Testament promises, as well as the New Testament ones, were part of our inheritance as members of Christ’s Church. And therefore they appointed Old Testament lessons to be read in church, to show us English what our privileges were, what God’s covenant and promise to us were. We, as much as the Jews, are called by the name of the Lord who created us. Were we not baptised into His name at that font? Has He not loved us? Has He not heaped us English, for hundreds of years past, with blessings such as He never bestowed on any nation? Has He not given men for us, and nations for our life? While all the nations of the world have been at war, slaying and being slain, has He not kept this fair land of England free and safe from foreign invaders for more than eight hundred years? Since the world was made, perhaps, such a thing was never heard of, such a mercy shown to any nation; that a great and rich country like this should be preserved for eight hundred years from invasion of foreign armies, and all the horrors and miseries of war, which have swept, from time to time, every other nation in the world with the besom of desolation.