These sentences contain evident allusions to a popular opinion. And looking into the Jewish character, we find that the event here foretold assails a very distinguishing feature of their belief.

That people believed that their law had been prescribed to them by the Creator of the world, for the express purpose of separating them from other nations. Certainly it had produced that effect. Without entering upon the origin of that law; without going back to the primary causes of that peculiarity which distinguished the Jews from all the rest of the world;—we cannot deny that the peculiarity existed; because the Jews are spoken of by such heathen writers as allude to them at all, as being no less singular and exclusive in their speculative creed than in their national worship.

In consequence of this marked difference from the nations by which they were surrounded; in consequence of their belief of the creation of the world by the true and living God, and their freedom from the polytheism and idolatry which prevailed in all other parts of the world; the Jews, to a man, prided themselves on their peculiar claim to the favour and protection of God: a privilege which their archives gave them reason to believe they had enjoyed for fifteen centuries. Other nations were distinguished by an appellation which implied inferiority, as Gentiles, the common herd of mankind: while they were "children of the covenant;" "a holy nation; a pecu

liar people."

And the internal evidence of all Jewish records proves how closely this conviction was interwoven among all the ideas and customs of the country, both civil and religious.

:

This, then, is another point, on which Jesus directly opposes the popular prepossession, instead of turning it to his advantage. He introduces a new and most contrary principle. He begins by warning his countrymen no longer to imagine themselves the favourites of Heaven, who were to enjoy a light which shone the brighter from the contrast of surrounding darkness. He was come to "enlighten the Gentiles" also. The religion, which God was now about to establish, was offered to his people Israel first; but not to Israel exclusively it was designed for all the nations of the earth, that they might become one fold under one Shepherd. How strange, and how unpopular as well as strange, would it sound in Jewish ears, to hear the promise of divine favour, instead of being limited to the posterity of Abraham, universally proposed to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile. And this new doctrine is not confined to a few detached passages; it pervades the whole ministry of Jesus; and forms the leading object, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, of many of those parables which so peculiarly distinguish the Christian

1 Acts iii. 25; Deut. xiv. 2.

writings. Under various figures, he warns his nation of the approach of that time when they should find themselves discarded, deprived of the peculiar glory of their history, and yielding the honour of the service of God to nations which they had hitherto despised for their idolatry.

It was extraordinary enough in Jewish impostors to think of converting other nations, from which they were separated by so broad a line. "The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the faith of Moses, had never been inculcated as a precept of the law; nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a voluntary duty." Such had never been the national practice; but on a sudden the practice of centuries is changed; the prejudice of centuries removed; and the individuals of this exclusive and unsocial people begin to convert other nations, and to disinherit their own countrymen. All national prejudices are strong; they are strongest when founded on religion; and if there is any truth in history, they were stronger among the Jews than among any other people. The authors of Christianity were alone without them.

And yet they were not without them. It appears from the history, that many remarkable circumstances wrought conviction on the mind of Peter, before he was brought to acknowledge, "Of a truth

1 Gibbon, ch. xv. He passes over the different intention of the Gospel, as if it required no explanation.

I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but

in

every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him.” In the subsequent narrative, Peter clearly intimates, that he should not have ventured to admit Gentiles into the religion which he was promulgating, if he had not received indisputable proof of the will of God concerning them. "While Peter yet spake, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished (as many as came with Peter), because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?"

If a sceptic refuses his assent to the particulars of this narrative, he cannot deny that the framers of it were aware of the difficulty which their liberal principles would occasion. It is constantly alluded to as forming a subject of dispute between the Jewish and Gentile proselytes; and causing a division among those who could only prevail, we should have supposed, by the most unanimous consent and agreement. "The apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jeru

1 Acts x. 34.

salem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them."1 He explained and defended his conduct. And when they were, at length, convinced by his narrative, the result strikes them as wholly unexpected and surprising, "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."

On the part of the majority of the Jews, who opposed the new religion, this admission of the Gentiles was all along an occasion of great hostility. The Jews, as a body, could not bear to be united with strangers in the same synagogue, to hear them instructed out of the same Scriptures, and encouraged by the same promises. This was as unpopular among them, as the abrogation of the Mosaic law. We are told, that "when they saw the multitudes, and that almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming."2 On another occasion, "the Jews which were of Asia stirred up all the people, crying, Men of Israel, help: this is the man that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.”

1 Acts xi. 1, &c.

2 Acts xiii. 45.

3 Acts xxi. 28