siah now depends upon an elect remnant being brought to that effective belief in the doctrine of the kingdom, which will stir them up to pray fervently and incessantly, "Thy kingdom come."

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CHAPTER IX.

SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES.

Beseeching thee. . . . shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom."

NOTHING, perhaps, more clearly shews us how little we have of the mind of the Spirit, than the difficulty which attends the applicability of the quotations from the Old Testament in the New. If we knew the sense of the prophets, and understood the reasonings of the apostles, these passages, instead of being amongst the most difficult, ought to be the most luminous parts of Scripture; for we are in possession of an inspired comment upon an inspired text. I purpose, in the present chapter, to examine how the view which I have given, respecting the contingency of Christ's advent, bears upon the quotations by the apostles relative to the times of the Gentiles; for if Christ's

coming to reign was contingent upon the nation of the Jews accepting or rejecting him, it stands to reason that there would be an inconsistency in there being any distinct and explicit revelations respecting the Gentile dispensation which has intervened; and the evidence adduced from the quotations out of the Old Testament would be inferential, and by implication, rather than in the nature of direct proof. More especially is this opinion strengthened by the manner in which the apostle of the Gentiles speaks of the revelation given to him, concerning the mystery of the dispensation toward the Gentiles, as being "in other ages not made Eph. iii. 2known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.'

6.

The passage first in order, and probably in importance, which I shall take as an example, is the reasoning of St. James in Acts, xv. the apostolic council, relative to the admission of the Gentiles into the church; for there the peculiar character of this dispensation is directly discussed.

Ver. 5.

The question proposed was, whether the Gentiles could be admitted without circumcision; for during the former dispensation Ex. xii. 44- no stranger could enjoy the full privileges of the covenant, unless he were circumcised; but if circumcised, he was bound to keep

48.

Gal. v. 3.

the whole law; these were called " proselytes of the covenant:" others, called in Ex. xx. 10; Scripture "strangers within their gates,"

Deut. xiv.

29.

were bound to observe, as the Jews said, the seven precepts of Noah, of which the four stated in the Acts were the principal, and of which we can discover some Lev. xvii. mention as early as the days of Noah,—abstinence from blood, which was God's cove

10, 13.

16.

nant with all flesh upon the earth (this also Gen. ix. 4, includes "things strangled," because the blood was not poured out); also from idoEzek. xiv. latry, from which we learn in the prophets the strangers in Israel were bound to abstain; and "fornication," the law against which

7.

Mark, x. 6. was" from the beginning."

Acts, xxi.

20.

It does not appear extraordinary, that the Jewish converts, all "zealous for the law," should have questioned respecting the foot

ing upon which the Gentiles should be admitted; and the decision was not so simple as some Gentiles would now be led to suppose. The apostle of the circumcision commences by stating the fact of the Holy Ghost having been given to the Gentiles as Gentiles, and their having had the purification of the heart, that inward work of God, which the external purifications of the ceremonial law only typified. He therefore asked why they should put the yoke of the ceremonial law upon the Gentiles, when they believed that even the Jews themselves would be saved by grace through faith, even as the Gentiles. St. James subsequently declares that this statement of Simon Peter, respecting the election from among the Gentiles" of a people for his name," is consonant with the words of the prophets; and therefore his sentence is, that they trouble not the converted Gentiles with the yoke of the ceremonial law,—that is, that they need not become proselytes of the covenant. But it was fair so far to meet the Jewish prejudices, as that the Gentiles should be admitted as prose