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Jerusalem with their doctrine,* insomuch that he and his fellows began to feel some alarm, lest the indignation of the people should be excited against them as the murderers of Jesus. Ye intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Shortly afterwards we read, that the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. So even in this city of Antioch, where the chief men of the city persecuted Paul and Barnabas, many of the Jews followed them; and in Iconium, a great multitude of the Jews, and also of the Greeks, believed. Let us, then, in the first place, learn to regard the Jewish people, of whose unbelief and hardness of heart we are perhaps accustomed to speak in too indiscriminate terms of censure, as our elder brethren in Christ: and, in the second place, let us observe, that although the Jewish nation is, by a just decree of the Almighty, degraded from its place and station in the world, so to remain, a perpetual monument of his justice and truth, till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in;§ yet the individuals of that nation are not judicially excluded from the blessings of the gospel

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covenant, although the very fact of their preservation as a distinct race, which ought to open their eyes to the evangelical fulfilment of prophecy, serves only to perpetuate their blindness: but they also, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.

But, lastly, let us take warning from their fate; and not suffer a devoted attachment to, or a complacent acquiescence in the externals of religion, to usurp the place of spiritual piety and holiness. Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy; otherwise if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.*

It appears, from the conclusion of the fourteenth chapter, that the mission, upon which Paul and Barnabas had been sent from Antioch, was a special mission, confined to certain objects, and to the inhabitants of a certain district. When they had preached the word in Perga, they went down into Attalia, and thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God, for the work which they fulfilled.

* Rom. xi. 11. 21.

That work, it appears, was, to open, in a public and solemn manner, the door of the kingdom to the Gentiles; and to justify its opening, even upon the principles of the Jews themselves: when they were come, and had gathered all the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

That great mystery of the Gospel having been thus proclaimed, they left the knowledge of it to be spread abroad by the ordinary means of communication; till the curiosity of the heathen world should be sufficiently awakened, and the more religious Gentiles prepared to receive the doctrine of the Apostles, when they should enter, at the proper time, into a larger and more arduous field of ministerial labours. The interval was employed by St. Paul and his colleague in strengthening and consolidating the foundations of Christ's Church, which had been already laid; an object of the first importance, and nearest to the heart of that great Apostle, zealous as he was for the conversion of the heathen. They abode there long time with the disciples,* and continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.†

*Acts xiv. 28.

+ Acts xv. 35.

It is not enough that we bring men to the knowledge of Christ, unless they are afterwards, by the usual process of instruction, rooted, and grounded, and built up in it. They are not made Christians once and for ever; but must grow in spiritual strength and grace, from the infancy of the life of God in the soul, to a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness in Christ,* being fed by their appointed teachers, first with the milk of the word, and, by degrees, with stronger meat, from the principles of the doctrine of Christ, going on unto perfection.† Happy are they, who possess the advantage of such continued and improving intercourse with those faithful labourers in the harvest of souls, who not only sow the good seed, but watch and tend it in its anxious progress to maturity; and happy those spiritual husbandmen, who are permitted to behold the fields which they have sown, whitening for the harvest; and many souls, which they have trained up, under the continual dew of the Spirit, to be plants of righteousness, ready to be gathered, together with themselves, into the garners of the Lord!

* Eph. iv. 13.

+ Heb. vi. 1.

LECTURE VIII.

ACTS xv. 8, 9,

God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us: and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.

ST. PETER is here speaking of the Gentiles, of whom the first-fruits had been gathered into the Church by himself, when he was sent into that harvest by a special revelation of the counsel of God. Upon that occasion he had made the joyful and consolatory declaration; Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him.*

This was

to the Apostles themselves a great mystery; as it was to the Jews in general a great objection against the Gospel. That the Gentiles, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, excluded, as they

* Acts x. 34.

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