sness is his. Let
him publicly confess that creed, and the great salvation is open to
him. It is the old teaching of Isaiah[6]--if a man but believe (in the
Christ) there is no {48} fear of his being put to shame. And here Jews
and Greeks are all on the same level of need and opportunity. There is
over all the same Lord Christ, with the same inexhaustible good will
towards all who simply call on Him. Again the old scripture testifies
that it is every one who calls on the name of the Lord who shall be
saved[7]. The conditions then are very simple. To call on the Lord,
we may say, men must believe in Him. To have the opportunity of
believing on Him, they must have heard about Him. To hear about Him,
they need one to speak in His name. And how can men speak in the name
of God except as His apostles, as men commissioned and sent from Him?
And these terms we know well enough have all been fulfilled. The
commissioned heralds of the good tidings of God have gone forth, so
that all men may hear and believe and call out to God. Truly Isaiah's
vision of the welcome preacher of good tidings[8] is realized to-day
(x. 1-15).

Now we have clear before us the simplicity of the gospel, the message
to faith. And we have before us the plain fact that the Israelitish
people, preoccupied with their own temporary {49} and misunderstood
standard of the law, have not generally accepted it. But this is no
more than Isaiah led us to expect. 'Lord,' he cries, 'who gave
credence to our message[9]?' (Faith, you see, according to the
prophet, requires just a listening to a divine message; and this
message has come to men by the preaching about Christ.) And can it be
pleaded that the Jews have not had the opportunity of hearing the
message? No, truly, as the Psalmist says, the voice of God's
messengers has gone over all the earth, and their words to the end of
the inhabited world[10]. Or can it be said that Israel did not know
that a preaching to the _Gentiles_ was to be looked for? No, a
succession of warnings had reached them. Thus Moses foretold that it
should be a nation which (religiously speaking) was no nation, a people
without understanding, that God would use to provoke His people to
jealousy, and stimulate their emulation[11]. Again, Isaiah uses
startling words, and declares that God has been discovered by those who
never sought Him, and revealed to those who never asked for
Him[12]--that is the Gentiles. But the wo