Acts 10:16

This was done thrice— In order to confirm the matter: see Genesis 41:32.—Before we proceed in the history, it may not be amiss to reflect upon the propriety and decorum with which things were managed in erecting Christ's spiritual kingdom. The Lord Jesus Christ himself appeared to Saul, and granted the knowledge of the gospel to him by immediate revelation, because he was to be an apostle; but Cornelius was admonished by an angel to send for St. Peter, and hear him preach the Christian doctrine, because he was to open the door of faith to the Gentiles; and Cornelius was not designed for so high an office in the Christian church as Saul. Again, the angel who appeared to Cornelius, was not sent to preach the gospel to him, but only to order him to send for an apostle, who was one of the witnesses chosen of God to attest the truth of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and miracles, and upon those facts to found the Christian doctrine. And farther, St. Peter did not go of himself, and attempt the conversion of the uncircumcised Gentiles, even though the body of the Jews in Palestine who would embrace the gospel, were in general gathered in. If he had done so, he would have met with a more severe rebuke from the zealous Jewish Christians at Jerusalem, and could not have offered half so much for his own vindication: but as he did not go till he was sent for, and that in so extraordinary a manner, he maintained the apostolic dignity, and could allege the determination of heaven in his favour. And, finally, we may observe, that an angel was sent to Cornelius; but the Spirit of God himself spoke to St. Peter; not only as he bore a higher character in the church than Cornelius was to bear, but as he was to execute, a new and most extraordinary commission; for such that of beginning to call in the uncircumcised Gentiles certainly was.