also was poured out the gifts of the Holy Ghost: Can any one forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we ?, And when some of the sect of the Pharisees, who believed, thought it needful that the converted Gentiles should be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses, Peter rose up and said unto them, Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God made choice amongst us, that the Gentiles,' viz. Cornelius, and those here converted with him, by my mouth should hear the gospel, and believe. And God, who knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, and put no differrence between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.' So that both Jews and Gentiles, who believed Jesus to be the Messiah, received thereupon the seal of baptism; whereby they are owned to be his, and distinguished from unbelievers. From what is above said, we may observe, that this preaching Jesus to be the Messiah, is called the Word, and the Word of God; and believing it, receiving the Word of God.' And the Word of the Gospel. And so likewise in the history of the gospel, what Mark, iv. 14, 15, calls simply the Word, St. Luke calls the Word of God, Luke, viii. 11. And St. Matthew, xiii. 19, the Word of the Kingdom; which were, it seems, in the gospel writers synonymous terms, and are so to be understood by us.

40. But to go on: Acts, xiii. Paul preaches in the synagogue at Antioch, where he makes it his Acts, xv. 7.

Vide Acts, x. 36, 37; xi. 1, 19, 20.

business to convince the Jews, that God, according to his promise, had of the seed of David raised to Israel a Saviour, Jesus.' That he was he of whom the prophets wrote, i. e. the Messiah: and that as a demonstration of his being so, God had raised him from the dead. From whence he argues thus: We evangelize to you,' or bring you this gospel, how that the promise which was made to our fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, in that he hath raised up Jesus again;' as it is also written in the second Psalm, 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.' having gone on to prove him to be the Messiah, by his resurrection from the dead, he makes this conclusion: Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins; and by him all who believe, are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.' This is in this chapter called the word of God' over and over again. Compare verse 42 with 44, 46, 48, 49; and chapter xii. verse 24.

And

41. At Thessalonica, Paul, as his manner was, went into the synagogue, and three sabbath-days reasoned with the Jews out of the Scriptures; opening and alleging, that the Messiah must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is the Messiah. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas: but the Jews which believed not, set the city in an uproar.'' Can there be any thing plainer, than that the assenting

Acts, xvii.

to this proposition, that Jesus was the Messiah, was that which distinguished the believers from the unbelievers? For this was that alone which, three sabbaths, Paul endeavoured to convince them of, as the text tells us in direct words. From thence he went to Berea, and preached the same thing; and the Bereans are commended for searching the Scriptures, whether those things, i. e. which he had said, concerning Jesus's being the Messiah, were true or no.

42. The same doctrine we find him preaching at Corinth: And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.' And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews, that Jesus was the Messiah. And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean : from henceforth I will go unto the Greeks.'

2

43. Upon the like occasion he tells the Jews at Antioch, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing you put it off from you, we turn to the Gentiles.' It is plain here, St. Paul's charging their blood on their own heads, is for opposing this single truththat Jesus was the Messiah; that salvation or perdition depends upon believing or rejecting this one proposition. I mean, this is all is required to be believed by those who acknowledge but one eternal and invisible God, the Maker of heaven

Acts, xviii. 4, 6.

2 Ibid. xiii. 46.

and earth, as the Jews did. For that there is something more required to salvation, besides believing, we shall see hereafter. In the meantime, it is fit here on this occasion to take notice, that though the apostles, in their preaching to the Jews, and the devout, (as we translate the word ZɛCóμɛve', who were proselytes of the gate, and the worshippers of one eternal invisible God,) said nothing of the believing in this one true God, the Maker of heaven and earth; because it was needless to press this to those who believed and professed it already; (for to such, it is plain, were most of their discourses hitherto;) yet when they had to do with idolatrous heathens, who were not yet come to the knowledge of the one only true God; they began with that, as necessary to be believed; it being the foundation on which the other was built, and without which it could signify nothing.

44. Thus Paul, speaking to the idolatrous Lystrians, who would have sacrificed to him and Barnabas, says: 'We preach unto you, that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God, who made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein; who, in times past, suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.'

45. Thus also he proceeded with the idolatrous Athenians, Acts, xvii., telling them, upon occasion of the altar dedicated to the unknown God, 'Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you;

God, who made the world, and all things therein: seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.- -Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art, and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent; because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained: whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.' So that we see, where any thing more was necessary to be proposed to be believed, as there was to the heathen idolators, there the apostles were careful not to omit it.'

46. Paul, at Corinth, reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath-day, and testified to the Jews, that Jesus was the Messiah.2 And he continued there

How an author who writes in this reverential and pious strain, could ever have been accused of atheism, it is extremely difficult to conceive. Yet the Rev. John Edwards, the unworthy antagonist of Locke, accuses him of Socinianism, in which he finds " a tang of atheism." (Thoughts Concerning the Causes of Atheism, &c. p. 64.) Not to think as he thought on the doctrine of the Trinity seems, in his eyes, to have been akin to the worst impiety; though from that Letter of Constantine to Alexander and Arius, of which Hosius, bishop of Corduba was the bearer, and probably the author, the whole dispute appears to have been considered by the primitive Church as "a certain vain piece of a question, ill begun and more unadvisedly published; a question which no law or ecclesiastical canon defineth; a fruitless contention, the product of idle brains; a matter so nice, so obscure, so intricate, that it was neither to be explicated by the clergy, nor understood by the people."-Liberty of Prophesying. Sacred Classics, p. 62.-ED.

2 Acts, xviii.