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 and the unity of God, and their freedom from the polytheism, and idolatry, which prevailed in all other parts of the world; the Jews, to a man, plumed 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 peculiar people 26." 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 writings. Under various figures, he warns his nation of the approach of that time when they should find themselves disinherited, 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 27." 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, by disinheriting their own countrymen.

27 Gibbon, i. 453, quarto ed. He passes over the different intention of the Gospel, as if it required no explanation.

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 I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him 28" In the subsequent narrative, Peter clearly intimates, that he should not have ventured to receive 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 be

28 Acts, x. 34.

lieved 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 Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, thou wentest in to