RECONCILIATION OF THE PEOPLE OF

GOD BY CHRIST'S DEATH.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.-EPH. ii. 14-16.

You have heard the story of the enmity* between the Jew and the Gentile, how great and lasting it had been. You have also seen what Christ in his own person did work for the staying of it, both meritoriously and representatively on the cross, in the sacrifice of himself, and what force and efficacy that must needs have in the issue, to bring about their actual reconciliation, and to smother all enmity.

I come now to the actual accord, that the virtue of Christ's death did effect between those Jews and Gentiles in those primitive times, in the view of the apostles and Christians of that age, and which the apostle Paul himself saw brought to a great perfection when he writ this epistle.

And it is requisite we have our hearts and eyes intent upon it, as a token and sign, great and marvellous; these two works, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the mutual coalition of Jew and Gentile into one new man, being of all other the greatest miracle wrought under the New Testament, the most glorious fruit of Christ's death, and among the strongest evidences of the truth of Christian religion.

And that the greatness, together with the reality and truth thereof, may appear, it is necessary that I first shew, out of the records of the Acts of the Apostles, the enmity or distance that continued and remained in the new Christian Jews towards the poor Gentiles; for in the Jew, principally and originally, was the root of bitterness,' and most deeply seated; together with the sore mischiefs which might have further arisen from them, even to the danger of a perpetual hindrance of the Gentiles' conversion.

It may seem strange to hear, that the godly Jews, after they had received Christ, the promised Desire of all nations, as well as of themselves, yea, * Printed in the first volume of his works. Part III. [In vol II. of this edition. See note, p. 359 of that vol.-ED.]

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and the Holy Ghost likewise sent down from heaven by Christ, should yet retain so great a degree of distance, et simultas, towards the Gentiles, as we read and find was in them. It is a wonder, that their being filled with the Holy Ghost as with new wine, should not have sweetened their spirits, but that yet so great a must of the old vessel should yet remain unwrought out in them. But God himself takes time to work out long retained principles; and men may thence well learn so to do towards their brethren.

And the dangerous effects and consequents of the Jews' grudge against the Gentiles do make it yet more strange, and aggravate the evil of it. For, 1. It would have been (if it had not been removed) an eternal bar and obstacle unto the very calling and conversion of the Gentiles to the Christian faith, and the propagation of the gospel to them who were fellow-heirs of it, together with themselves; than which, what can be supposed of more mischief! But,

2. After that bar was taken out of the way, and the Gentiles were called and converted, there still continued such degrees and relics of this old tincture, as occasioned such actual violent and high division in the church between the then become Gentile Christian and the believing Jew, that all the apostles then living, with all their skill and powerful applications, could hardly cure and remove; which yet in the end was allayed, and both made one in the issue.

It is requisite for me, before I enter upon these heads, especially the first, to set forth, as in a brief map, those several degrees of spiritual latitudes and distance which these Gentiles lay in as to the apprehensions and calculations of the Jews. The Scriptures, in general, had termed them 'afar off,' both in the Old and New Testaments, which is spoken of them in respect of their incapacity and remoteness from Christ and the covenant of grace; whereas of the Jews, it is oppositely said, 'They that were nigh ;' of both which more afterwards. Now though all the Gentiles are said to be afar off, yet some were in further degrees of latitude than other; and the Jews accordingly in their spirits were less or more remote in converse with them.

I distinguish them into these four ranks or climates.

1. The first were Samaritans, who were indeed in place neighbours, but by their original extraction Gentiles, as you read in the book of Kings, who became inhabitants of the land of Canaan, and succeeded the ten tribes therein, after that the most of the ten tribes were carried captive. These also were circumcised, owned Moses's law, professed of themselves to seek the true God, and to sacrifice to him, as did the Jews, Ezra iv. 3; but were so corrupt in their observation thereof, and with such a mixture, that Christ says there was no salvation to be expected in their profession. Though they were nearer in place to the Jews, living in part of the holy land, yet from these the Jews were most alienated in their affections, and abhorred them, of all other Gentiles, as being nearer in the profession of the same religion, and yet so dissenting in the observation of it.

2. There were Gentiles who were become proselytes to the Jewish religion, that had joined themselves to the Lord, Isa. lvi. 6, had submitted to the whole ceremonial law, and to that end had received the seal of circumcision, having been first washed, or baptized; and these, though Gentiles, were yet to the native Jews as any other of their own nation. Now, as to such, there was no scruple in any Jew to converse with them; for they were accounted clean, and came as freely into the temple as themselves, and were called proselyti fæderis, proselytes of the covenant, Isa.

lvi. 6, where they are termed the strangers that join themselves to the Lord,' and take hold of the covenant.'

8. A third set were such Gentiles, who, though truly converted to the acknowledgment, fear, and worship of the true God, wrought righteousness according to the moral law, yet entertained not their circumcision, nor the observation of the rites of the law ceremonial, such as Cornelius, Acts x., and others, who under the term of devout men and women, as those Greeks, Acts xvii. 4, are distinguished from the Jews, Acts xiii. 16, 43. The like was Naaman, the Assyrian of old; and even those, not circumcised, nor obliging themselves to Moses's law, the Jews did reckon unclean. 4. A forth set were such as remained in their Gentilism, the idolaters of this world, as Paul calls them, which were the generality of all nations, which therefore the Jews did much more reckon unclean than the third sort.

This map or division of the Gentiles it is necessary to have in our eye, for the following discourse hath often reference to each of these sorts (as occasion shall be given to make mention of them), and by understanding this difference we the better shall discern the approaches God made by degrees into this great work of the Gentiles' conversion. Which difference of the Gentiles is by this commended to our regard and observation, that the Holy Ghost thought it a subject worthy to spend much of the book of the Acts upon.

These things premised, I am to present you with the history of the conversion of these Gentiles, even those whom the Jews esteemed more unclean; and that by these Jews themselves; and of the difficulties and bars that lay in the way thereof in the Jewish spirits, even after their own conversion to the faith of Christ, and how this wall of division mouldered, and by degrees was dissolved and levelled to the ground. The narrative of which is of great use to us in our dissension and distances (far less than these), to assure us that they may and will be, though by degrees, abolished.

The case between the converted Jews and the rest of the elect Gentiles to be converted, stood thus. The time was now come, which had been foretold, that the Gentiles should become the spouse of Christ; yea, and the ordination of God was, that the word, or means to convert them, was to go forth out of Zion to all the earth, and those of the Jewish nation (being such themselves converted) were to be instruments of their greater call, or the prophecies had not been fulfilled; and yet the nine first chapters of the Acts give us such a character of the patent constitution of the new converted Jews, yea, of the apostles themselves, as renders them not only far and backward, but wholly averted; yea, in conscience, kept off from the least endeavour after such a work. They stand bound up in their spirits, not so much as to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, though the Gentiles themselves should have sent to them, and have earnestly desired it of them, and like men confined to a circle, they dare not stir one foot that way. Peter, and the rest of the apostles, that with zeal and boldness dared the utmost of persecution to convert their own countrymen the Jews, or circumcised quornra of the Gentiles, were yet under such an awe and bondage of Jewish scruple, that in conscience they durst not converse with an uncircumcised Gentile, though it were to save his soul eternally.

And that which increaseth the wonder is, that though our Saviour at his ascension had given in commission, and in charge, and in express terms, to preach the gospel to all nations, and every creature under heaven, yet they were averse to any converser with the Gentiles: so

deeply had the tradition and enmity received from their forefathers prepossessed their spirits.

And I dare not affirm the reason of this to be, that the calling of the Gentiles was wholly an arcanum, hidden to them. For besides that even the Jews at this day understand and acknowledge this to have been prophesied of (as Beza, Acts ii. 39), to fall out in the days of the Messiah; and what the envious and hardened Jews acknowledge now, cannot be supposed hid from them then, especially from the apostles; our Lord also expressly foretold it, Mat. ix. 11, 12; John xii. 32, and giveth it clearly in his last commission; yea, it seems clear that Peter understood it (at least in the confused notion), by his interpretation of that promise, Joel ii., Acts ii. 17, 20, 21, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and it shall come to pass, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' Which promise, ver. 39, he declares to belong to them afar off, who, in their known language, were the Gentiles (to encourage the Jews the more to embrace it); and that by them afar off to be called the Gentiles are to be understood, the Old and New Testament gave in evidence both when they speak of their calling, as Peter there; so Isaiah in the Old, and not to go far from my text, the immediate foregoing 13th and following 17th verses of this chapter, You Gentiles, who were afar off, are made nigh:' and, ver. 15, ' He came and preached the word to them that were afar off' (you Gentiles), and you that are nigh;' but how that this should be effected in the end, as yet neither he nor any of his fellow-apostles knew the time when, nor yet had their consciences received any particular discharge or quietus est from those fore-mentioned Jewish principles, but lay still bound up thereby from so much as conversing familiarly with the Gentiles; and therefore were much more restrained from any industrious setting themselves to convert them, by preaching the gospel to them; much less baptizing them, or giving them the Holy Ghost, so as if they did understand so much, or that themselves were the men designed to this work; yet how these commands and laws of not converting the Gentiles, that lay upon them (as they yet thought from God), should be annulled, they were ignorant of. For this is certain, that the story of the Acts puts this averseness of theirs upon the remainder of that old enmity and principles of their Jewish religion, taken in by tradition from their fathers, which appears evidently in the instance of Peter, and other Jews, as also the practice of the rest of the disciples that were the most zealous of winning others to the knowledge of Christ. First, for Peter: The story in Acts x. informs us what chains they were he stood fettered with, which held him fast from giving consent to Cornelius, a Roman gentile (who yet was, in his religion, come half way to him, being a proselyte, a worshipper of the true God, only was not circumcised, nor had submitted himself to Moses's rites), until God himself released Peter, and knocked off those fetters, with saying from heaven, ver. 20, Arise, go, nothing doubting;' and if you will know what the scruple that made him doubtful was, himself expressing it, ver. 28, You know' (speaking afore his Jews), how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or to come unto one of another nation,' that was uncircumcised, as Cornelius was; for we read the quarrel was, Acts xi. 3, against Peter for this fault of his, that he went into men uncircumcised;' for else those proselytes of other nations that were circumcised, and submitted to the law, were accounted as native Jews, and called proselyti fœderis. 'But God immediately shewed me' (saith Peter thereupon), that I should not account any man common or unclean.' Those words, 'nothing doubting,'