Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/122

118 practices and customs of the surrounding heathen. But did He speedily give them up to work out their own destruction with greediness? No. He bore with them for upwards of fifteen hundred years after he had delivered them out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. Moreover, when they had well nigh filled up the cup of their iniquity in rejecting the only Savior of sinful man, still, the Lord forbore to visit them according to the demerit of their crimes. The axe it is true, was lying at the root of the tree; but he did not speedily issue forth the order,—cut it down—its day of salvation was protracted a little longer. Accordingly, the blessed Savior, after his resurrection from the dead, in commissioning his Apostles to spread the glad tidings of mercy universally, instructed them, especially, to begin at Jerusalem—to give the first offer of salvation to them who had crucified the Lord of life and glory. Thus the history of that peculiar people