x. 16; Jeremiah iv, 4: “Be ye circumcised in heart; take away the superfluities of your heart, and harden yourselves not. For your God is a mighty God, strong and terrible, who accepteth not persons.”
That God said He would one day do it. Deut. xxx, 6: “God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, that thou mayest love Him with all thine heart.”
That the uncircumcised in heart shall be judged. Jeremiah ix, 26: For God will judge the uncircumcised peoples, and all the people of Israel, because he is “uncircumcised in heart.”
That the external is of no avail apart from the internal. Joel ii, 13: Scindite corda vestra, &c.; Isaiah lviii, 3, 4, &c.
The love of God is enjoined in the whole of Deuteronomy. Deut. xxx. 19: “I call heaven and earth to record that I have set before you life and death, that you should choose life, and love God, and obey Him, for God is your life.”
That the Jews, for lack of that love, should be rejected for their offences, and the heathen chosen in their stead. Hosea i, 10; Deut. xxxii, 20. “I will hide myself from them in view of their latter sins, for they are a froward generation without faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God, and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, and with an ignorant and foolish nation.” Isaiah lxv, 1.
That temporal goods are false, and that the true good is to be united to God. Psalm cxliii, 15.
That their feasts are displeasing to God. Amos, v. 21.
That the sacrifices of the Jews displeased God. Isaiah, lxvi. 1-3; i. 11; Jer., vi. 20; David, Miserere.—Even on the part of the good, Expectavi. Psalm xlix, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.
That He has established them only for their hardness. Micah, admirably, vi.; 1 Kings, xv. 22; Hosea, vi. 6.
That the sacrifices of the Gentiles will be accepted of God, and that God will take no pleasure in the sacrifices of the Jews. Malachi, i. 11.
That God will make a new covenant with the Messiah, and the old will be annulled. Jer. xxxi. 31. Mandata non bona. Ezek.
