Immediately after this exhibition, the Apostle, by the direction of the Spirit, went to the house of Cornelius, a devout Roman, whom God had chosen for a member of the Christian Church: of which Society that visionary Sheet was a figure, comprehending people of all nations, gathered from the four winds or quarters of the earth, and enclosed in white linen, to signify the Christian purity and righteousness.

When he was entered into the house of Cornelius, he observed to the people who were present, "Ye "know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man "that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one "of another nation: but God hath shewed me that "I should not call any man common or unclean.” Here we have an apostolical comment upon the sense of this vision. God had shewed him that he should call no living creatures unclean; but by these brutes of all kinds he understands men of all nations. And

t question he applied the vision to what the wisdom of God intended to express by it. The case was this: St. Peter, as a Jew, was bound to abstain from all those animals, the eating of which was prohibited by the Law of Moses. But God shewed him that he should no longer account these animals unclean. And what doth he understand by it? That he should no longer account the Heathens so: "God," says he, "hath shewed me that I should call no man common or unclean:" or to speak in other words borrowed from the Apostle, "God hath shewed me. "that a Jew is now at liberty to keep company or

come unto one of another nation;" which so long as the Mosaic distinction betwixt clean and unclean beasts was in force, it was not lawful for him to do: especially as Christ himself, in the beginning of his ministry, when the Jews were still entitled to the

pre-eminence given them by the law, had repeated the same rule to his Apostles--" Go not into the way "of the Gentiles-but go rather to the lost SHEEP "of the house of Israel*."

V. This Vision being founded upon the distinction now before us, and the sense of it being clear and unquestionable, we may proceed to make some use of it. Thus then let us argue; that if the liberty of feeding upon unclean creatures was offered to St. Peter as a sign of a communication now opened between the Jews and the Gentiles; it was the original intention of the contrary prohibition, to teach the Hebrews, that they should hold no Society with heathens and idolaters. For a liberty in one of these cases could not infer a liberty in the other, unless it hath been a truth known and acknowledged by those who understood the law, that a restraint in the one had always implied a restraint in the other. To say that animals pronounced unclean by the Law might now be eaten, was the same as to declare in other words, that the heathens might now be safely conversed with and preached to: therefore, when it was enjoined that these creatures should not be eaten, it was the same in effect as if it had been declared in so many words, that the people of God should avoid the conversation and manners of the heathens. Nothing can be plainer, than that the uncleanness ascribed to brute creatures is not their own; for they innocently follow their several instincts; the wolf when it devours the lamb, and the swine when it wallows in the mire. The instinct of the wolf is not cruelty but appetite. In man it would be otherwise, because one man does not want the blood of another. The tur

pitude of the swine is not moral but natural: it is as blameless as the scent of a dunghill: yet in these things they hold up to us a picture of bad men, who when they imitate the properties of certain brutes, depart from the dignity and purity of that state to which God called his chosen people. Therefore it was well observed by Tertullian, that "if any ill qua"lity is condemned in brute animals, certainly it is "much more condemned in man, who is a rational "creature"."

VI. This subject can never be misunderstood (at least, in its outlines) if it be considered, that nothing which goeth into a man can defile him; and that nothing is unclean in the sight of God but Sin. The powers of darkness are called unclean Spirits, and unclean Devils from their wickedness. So that if any thing is prohibited as unclean, we must understand it to be so only in a moral sense, with some respect or other to Sin.

VII. As there is nothing unclean with God but Sin: so is there nothing pure in his sight but obedience and holiness: which observation, when applied to the other part of our subject, will shew us why some animals were approved of and selected from the rest as proper to be eaten. For if unclean beasts expressed the immoral character of the unbelieving Gentiles, the clean ones must have agreed to the character of the Israelites: as when it is known that darkness is an image of the Devil, we need no other information that Light, its opposite, must be an emblem of God.

• Quando irrationale animal ob aliquid rejicitur, magis illud ipsum in eo qui rationalis est homine damnatuk Tertull. de Cib. Judaic.

VIII. Hitherto I have deduced the grounds and reasons of this distinction from such passages of scripture as do not literally interpret, but only imply an interpretation of it; though in so direct a manner, that no doubt can remain, but with readers who are either very ignorant or very much prepossessed. However, it is asserted in the plainest terms in the book of Leviticus itself, that the meaning of this law is such as I have supposed it to be. The words are these: "I am the Lord your God which have sepa"rated you from other people: ye shall therefore put

difference between clean beasts and unclean, and "between unclean fowls and clean; and ye shall not "make your souls abominable by beast or by fowl,

or by any manner of living thing that moveth upon "the ground, which I have separated from you as un"clean. And ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord

am holy which have severed you from other people, "that ye should be mine*." The substance of which in fewer words is this: God tells them, they should abstain from the eating of these unclean beasts, only to remind them of their own separation from unclean Gentiles: while, on the other hand, they were to partake of the clean, because they themselves were to be holy unto the Lord..

IX. It is time now to descend to the particulars of this Institution, and enquire, what animals are assigned to the two different classes above mentioned, and how their qualities, when morally understood, agree to the two different kinds of people they were intended to represent. A few creatures selected from the inhabitants of the Earth, the Air, and the Waters, will be sufficient for our purpose, because we may

* Lev. xx. 24.

form a judgment of all the rest from such a specimen. The propriety of a distinction between them will ap pear upon the first hearing of their names: for, if we review the xith Chapter of Leviticus, we find on the good and peaceable side, amongst the clean creatures, Oxen, Sheep, Goats, and Lambs; all fishes with fins and scales; all fowls, as Doves, Larks, and such like, which are unexceptionable in their manners, and lofty in their flight.

On the other side, there are dogs, swine, wolves, foxes, lions, tygers, moles, and serpents; eels and water-snakes; vultures, kites, ravens, owls, and bats.

All these, and many other creatures, so far as their instincts and properties are discovered to us, agree so well with the different sorts of men, to whom the Scripture hath given them an alliance, that none but the infinitely-wise Creator, who framed them for moral as well as natural purposes, could have distinguished and applied their several natures with so much simplicity, brevity, and propriety.

X. It is evident, upon a first inspection, that there is a wide difference between these two parties, with respect to their manners and ways of life: but we have here a more compendious method of distinguishing quadrupeds by certain external characters, expressive of their internal natures and instincts: those only being admitted into the Class of clean animals, which divide the hoof and chew the cud. In regard to these external characters, it might be sufficient for our present purpose to observe, that they are generally attended with a disposition tractable, harmless, and profitable. But I cannot help thinking, that the characters themselves are expressive of moral endowments: though unless they are interpreted with some degree of caution, it may be easy for us to fall into