Hechos 9:29,30

Capítulo 4

SAUL Y SINAI

Hechos 9:29

Hemos prestado mucha atención a los incidentes de Damasco, porque la conversión de Saulo de Tarso está más estrechamente relacionada con la verdad y la autenticidad del cristianismo que cualquier otro evento, excepto los relacionados inmediatamente con la vida y el ministerio de nuestro Señor mismo. Sin embargo, en este capítulo nos esforzaremos por discutir las circunstancias restantes del mismo que los Hechos de los Apóstoles nos presentan.

I. Se nos dice en el versículo 17 ( Hechos 9:17 ), de la visita de Ananías a Saulo. Salió Ananías y entró en la casa; y poniendo sus manos sobre él, dijo: Hermano Saulo, el Señor, Jesús, que se te apareció en el camino por donde viniste, me ha enviado para que recobres la vista, y sea ​​lleno del Espíritu Santo.

"Esta conversación con Ananías es ampliada en gran medida por el mismo San Pablo en el relato que nos da en Hechos 22:1 , mientras que en su discurso a Agripa en el capítulo veintiséis omite por completo toda mención de Ananías, y parece presentar a nuestro Señor como la única persona que le habló y, sin embargo, no hay ninguna contradicción real.

San Pablo, de hecho, en este último discurso tiene la intención de presentar vívidamente ante Agripa la suma total de las revelaciones hechas por Cristo. Ignora, por tanto, a todos los agentes secundarios. Ananías fue el mensajero de Cristo. Sus palabras fueron simplemente las que Cristo puso en su boca. San Pablo va, por tanto, a la raíz del asunto y atribuye todo, ya sea dicho por nuestro Señor o por Ananías, sólo al primero, que fue, en verdad, el gran Inspirador de cada expresión, el verdadero Director de cada mínimo parte de esta importante transacción.

El noveno capítulo, por otro lado, divide la historia en sus partes componentes y nos muestra los diversos actores en la escena. Vemos al Señor Jesús presidiendo conscientemente sobre todo, revelándose ahora a esta persona y nuevamente a esa persona. Vemos por un momento detrás del velo que la Divina Providencia arroja sobre Sus hechos y los hechos de los hijos de los hombres. Vemos a Cristo revelándose ahora a Saulo y luego a Ananías, informándole al último de las revelaciones hechas al primero; así como posteriormente se reveló casi simultáneamente a Cornelio en Cesarea ya Simón Pedro en Jope, preparando el uno para el otro.

El Señor sugiere así una explicación de esos anhelos, aspiraciones y deseos espirituales simultáneos que a menudo encontramos inexplicablemente surgiendo en tierras lejanas y en corazones muy separados. Los sentimientos pueden parecer vagas aspiraciones y su coincidencia mera casualidad, pero los casos típicos de Saulo y Ananías, o de Cornelio y San Pedro, enseñan al creyente a ver en ellos la acción directa y el gobierno del Señor Jesucristo. volviendo el corazón de los padres hacia los hijos y de los desobedientes a la sabiduría de los justos.

Seguramente tenemos un ejemplo de tales operaciones simultáneas del Espíritu Divino, y eso en la escala más grande, en los anhelos del mundo por un Salvador en la época y tiempo en que vino nuestro Señor. Virgil lo era. luego predicando en tonos tan cristianos acerca del Salvador venidero a quien el mundo esperaba, que el gran poeta italiano Dante lo exime del infierno debido a su fe tenue pero real. Los Reyes Magos buscaban entonces a Cristo desde un país lejano; Caifás estaba profetizando acerca de un hombre que iba a morir por el pueblo de Dios.

La humanidad, en todo el mundo, anhelaba inconscientemente con un deseo divinamente inspirado por esa misma salvación que Dios estaba revelando entonces; así como, en el escenario más estrecho de Damasco o Cesarea, Jesucristo inspiró a Saulo y Cornelio con una necesidad divina y preparó a Ananías y Pedro para satisfacerla. John Keble, en su poema para el lunes de Pascua, ha captado e ilustrado bien este punto, tan lleno de consuelo y edificación, convirtiéndolo en una dirección práctica para la vida del espíritu humano:

"Aun así el curso de la oración, ¿quién sabe?

Brota en silencio donde quiere;

Se pierde de vista y fluye

Al principio un riachuelo solitario ".

No escuchado por todos menos por oídos de ángel,

El buen Cornelio se arrodilló solo,

Ni soñé sus oraciones y lágrimas

Podría ayudar a un mundo a deshacerse.

"Mientras tanto en su techo adosado,

El amado apóstol del Señor,

En silencioso pensamiento distante,

Porque la visión celestial se disparó ".

"El santo junto al océano oró,

El soldado en su glorieta elegida,

Donde todo su ojo examinó

Parecía sagrado en esa hora ".

"A cada desconocido la oración de su hermano,

Sin embargo, hermanos fieles en el amor más querido

¿Fueron ellos - y ahora comparten

Alegrías fraternales arriba ".

Ananías, guiado por la Divina Providencia, entra en presencia de Saulo, declara su misión, le impone las manos y le devuelve la vista. Sin embargo, Ananías tiene cuidado de negar todo mérito, en lo que a él respecta, en el asunto de este milagro. Su lenguaje es exactamente el mismo en tono que el de los apóstoles Pedro y Juan cuando sanaron al hombre impotente: "¿Por qué os maravilláis de este hombre? ¿O por qué fijáis vuestros ojos en nosotros, como si por nuestro propio poder o piedad nosotros ¿Lo había hecho andar? Por la fe en su nombre, su nombre hizo fuerte a este hombre ", fueron sus palabras al pueblo.

"En el nombre de Jesucristo de Nazaret, anda", fue su mandato al hombre mismo. Y así, en el caso de Ananías, atribuye el poder sanador solo a Jesucristo. "El Señor Jesús, que se te apareció", "me envió para que recobres la vista". La teología y la fe de la Iglesia en Damasco eran exactamente las mismas que las de los Apóstoles y la Iglesia en Jerusalén. ¡Y qué confirmación de la propia fe de Saulo debe haber sido este milagro! Entonces no era una visión pasajera, ni la fantasía de una imaginación acalorada lo que había experimentado; pero tenía la prueba real en su propia persona de su realidad objetiva, una demostración de que el poder de Jesús de Nazaret ordenaba todas las cosas, tanto en el cielo como en la tierra, sanando el cuerpo como podía iluminar el ojo espiritual.

II. Ananías le devolvió la vista a Saulo. Según el noveno de los Hechos, su misión se limitaba a este punto; pero, según el propio relato de San Pablo en el capítulo veintidós, hizo una comunicación mucho más larga al futuro Apóstol: "El Dios de nuestros padres te ha designado para conocer Su voluntad, y para ver al Justo, y para oye una voz de su boca, porque serás por él testigo a todos los hombres de lo que has visto y oído.

Y ahora, ¿por qué te detienes? Levántate, bautízate y lava tus pecados, invocando su nombre ". Ananías le predijo a Saulo su futura misión, su apostolado en todas las naciones y el hecho de que el Apóstol de los gentiles hallaría la raíz y el sustento de su obra. en la fuerza de la convicción personal con la que lo había dotado su conversión milagrosa. El conocimiento personal, el conocimiento individual de las cosas del mundo eterno, era entonces, como todavía lo es, la primera condición del trabajo exitoso de Jesucristo.

Puede haber poder intelectual, energía intensa, elocuencia trascendente, habilidad consumada; pero en el orden espiritual estas cosas no sirven de nada hasta que no se une a ellas ese sentido de fuerza celestial y realidad que imparte un conocimiento personal de las cosas invisibles. Entonces el corazón responde al corazón, y las grandes profundidades de la naturaleza del hombre responden y se abren a la voz y la enseñanza de quien habla como lo hizo San Pablo de lo que "había visto y oído".

Hay dos puntos en este discurso de Ananías, según lo informado por el mismo San Pablo, a los que debemos prestar especial atención. Ananías bautizó a Saulo y utilizó un lenguaje muy decidido sobre el tema, lenguaje del que algunos ahora se apartarían. Estos dos puntos encarnan una enseñanza importante. Ananías bautizó a Saulo aunque Cristo lo había llamado personalmente. Esto muestra la importancia que las Sagradas Escrituras conceden al bautismo, y también nos muestra algo de la naturaleza de la Sagrada Escritura misma.

San Lucas escribió los Hechos como una especie de continuación de su Evangelio, para dar cuenta a Teófilo del surgimiento y progreso del cristianismo hasta su época. San Lucas, al hacerlo, nos habla de la institución de la Eucaristía, pero no dice una palabra en su Evangelio sobre el nombramiento del bautismo. No registra la comisión bautismal, para lo cual debemos acudir a Mateo 28:19 , ni a Marco 16:16 .

Sin embargo, San Lucas tiene cuidado de informar el bautismo de los tres mil en el día de Pentecostés, de los samaritanos, del eunuco, y ahora de San Pablo, como después de Cornelio, de Lidia, del carcelero de Filipos y de los seguidores de Efeso de Juan el Bautista. Registra la universalidad del bautismo cristiano, y así demuestra su obligación; pero no nos da una pista del origen de este sacramento, ni lo remonta a ninguna palabra o mandamiento del Señor Jesucristo.

Evidentemente, tomó todas estas cosas como bastante conocidas y comprendidas, y simplemente describe la observancia de un sacramento que no necesitaba explicación de su parte. Los escritos de San Lucas tenían la intención de instruir a Teófilo en los hechos relacionados con la vida de nuestro Señor y las labores de ciertos individuos destacados entre Sus primeros seguidores; pero no pretenden, ni los otros Evangelios pretenden ser una historia exhaustiva del ministerio de nuestro Señor o de la práctica de la Iglesia primitiva; y su silencio no prueba necesariamente que en la Iglesia primitiva no se supiera ni se practicara mucho de lo que no tenían ocasión de hablar.

Las palabras de Ananías y la obediencia de Saulo nos muestran la importancia que el Espíritu Santo atribuía a este sacramento del bautismo. Aquí estaba un hombre a quien Cristo mismo se había aparecido personalmente, a quien Cristo había llamado personalmente, y a quien había hecho revelaciones continuas durante mucho tiempo de Su voluntad. Sin embargo, le instruyó por boca de Ananías a recibir el sacramento del bautismo. Sin duda, si algún hombre estuvo exento de someterse a lo que algunos estimarían la ordenanza externa, ¡fue este converso arrepentido y privilegiado! Pero no: para él, las palabras del mensajero de Dios son las mismas que para el pecador más humilde: "Levántate, bautízate y lava tus pecados".

"He conocido a hombres verdaderamente buenos que mostraron su falta de humildad espiritual, o tal vez debería decir más bien de pensamiento y reflexión espiritual, en esta dirección. He conocido a personas despertadas del letargo religioso y de la muerte por una enseñanza poderosa aunque unilateral. Dios ha bendecido tal enseñanza al despertar en ellos los primeros elementos de la vida espiritual, y luego se han detenido en seco, fueron llamados, como Saulo, en estado no bautizado.

Nunca antes habían recibido el sacramento de la regeneración de acuerdo con el nombramiento de Cristo, y cuando Cristo los despertó, pensaron que esta bendición primordial era suficiente y juzgaron innecesario obedecer los mandamientos completos de Cristo y estar unidos por el bautismo a Su Cuerpo, la Iglesia. Juzgaron, de hecho, que la bendición de la conversión los absorbía del sacramento de la responsabilidad; pero esa no era la opinión de la Iglesia primitiva.

La bendición de la conversión como en el caso de San Pablo, el descenso visible y audible del Espíritu Santo como en el caso de Cornelio, no obstaculizó la importancia ni prescindió de la necesidad del sacramento del bautismo, que era la puerta de admisión al Sociedad divina y a un nivel más alto en la vida divina que cualquier otro alcanzado hasta ahora. Las personas que actúan como esos individuos descarriados de los que hemos hablado se detienen en los primeros principios de la doctrina de Cristo, y no alcanzan ninguna de sus alturas, no sondean ninguna de sus profundidades, porque no doblegan su voluntad, y no aprenden. la dulzura y el poder involucrados en la humillación espiritual y en la humilde obediencia abnegada enseñada por el Maestro mismo cuando dijo: "Bienaventurados los pobres en espíritu, porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos".

El lenguaje, nuevamente, de Ananías sobre el bautismo suena extraño en algunos oídos, y sin embargo, la experiencia de los misioneros es una explicación suficiente. ¿Cuál es ese idioma? "Levántate, bautízate y lava tus pecados". Estas palabras suenan asombrosas para alguien acostumbrado a identificar el lavamiento del pecado con el ejercicio de la fe, y sin embargo, ahí están, y ningún método de exégesis servirá para hacerles decir algo más que esto, que el bautismo fue para Saulo el lavamiento. del pecado, de modo que si no aceptaba el bautismo, sus pecados no hubieran sido lavados.

Sin embargo, la experiencia de quienes trabajan en el campo misionero explica toda la dificultad. El bautismo es el acto de confesión abierta y reconocimiento de Cristo. El mismo San Pablo enseña la importancia absoluta de esta confesión: "Con el corazón se cree para justicia; con la boca se confiesa para salvación". Romanos 10:10 Aún se encuentran abundantemente conversos paganos que están dispuestos a aceptar la moralidad pura y la enseñanza sublime del cristianismo, que están dispuestos a creer y ver en Jesucristo la revelación suprema de Dios hecha a la raza humana, pero que son no están dispuestos a incurrir en pérdidas y persecución y prueba, por Su causa mediante la recepción del bautismo cristiano agreguen una confesión pública de su fe.

Pueden creer de corazón en la revelación de la justicia y, en consecuencia, pueden llevar una vida moral, pero no están dispuestos a hacer una confesión pública que los lleve a un estado de salvación. De hecho, están en la posición de Saulo de Tarso cuando oraba en la casa de Judas, pero no irán más lejos. No actuarán como él, no darán el paso decisivo, no se levantarán y serán bautizados y lavarán sus pecados, invocando el nombre de Jesucristo.

Y si Saulo de Tarso hubiera sido como ellos. y si hubiera actuado como ellos, podría haber recibido la visión y haberse convencido de la verdad de Jesucristo y de Su misión, pero sin embargo, su cobardía moral lo habría echado todo a perder, y Saulo habría permanecido en sus pecados, sin perdón, inaceptado, réprobo de Cristo, porque permaneció sin bautizar. El cristianismo, de hecho, es un pacto, y el perdón de los pecados es una de las bendiciones adjuntas a este pacto.

Hasta que los hombres no cumplan sus condiciones y realmente entren en el pacto, las bendiciones del pacto no se otorgan. El bautismo es la puerta de entrada al pacto de gracia, y hasta que los hombres entren humildemente por la puerta, no ejercen la fe verdadera. Pueden creer intelectualmente en la verdad y la realidad del cristianismo, pero, hasta que den el paso decisivo y obedezcan la ley de Cristo, no poseen esa verdadera fe del corazón que es la única que les permite, como Saulo de Tarso, obedecer a Cristo y, por tanto, obedecer a Cristo. entra en paz.

III. El siguiente paso dado por el Apóstol está igualmente claro: "Inmediatamente en las sinagogas proclamó a Jesús, que es el Hijo de Dios". Pero, aunque las palabras de los Hechos son bastante claras, no es tan fácil reconciliarlas con el propio relato de San Pablo, como se da en la Epístola a los Gálatas, Gálatas Gálatas 1:15 donde dice: "Cuando fue el beneplácito de Dios de revelar a su Hijo en mí, inmediatamente no consulté con carne y sangre, sino que me fui a Arabia, y de nuevo volví a Damasco.

"En el capítulo noveno de los Hechos encontramos la afirmación de que inmediatamente después de su bautismo predicó a Cristo en las sinagogas de Damasco, mientras que en su propia narrativa biográfica nos dice que inmediatamente después de su bautismo se fue a Arabia. ¿Cómo podemos reconciliarlos? Creemos que sí, y eso es muy simple. Reflexionemos primero sobre la historia tal como se cuenta en los Hechos.

San Lucas está dando una historia rápida, una revisión de la vida de la actividad pública de San Pablo. No está contando la historia de sus experiencias espirituales internas, sus conflictos, tentaciones, pruebas, revelaciones, como el mismo San Pablo las expuso. De hecho, no los conocía. San Lucas conocía simplemente la vida pública exterior de la que el hombre tiene conocimiento. No sabía nada, o muy poco, de la vida interior del Apóstol, conocido sólo por él y por Dios.

San Lucas, por tanto, nos habla de sus primeros trabajos en Damasco. El mismo San Pablo nos habla de ese trabajo temprano, pero también nos muestra cómo estaba preparado para ese trabajo al retirarse a Arabia. Ambos coinciden en el punto principal, sin embargo, y sitúan el escenario de sus primeros esfuerzos cristianos en el mismo lugar, Damasco, que en su previsión humana tenía destinado a sí mismo como el campo de su más amargo antagonismo con la fe del Crucificado.

Éste es un punto importante. San Lucas escribió su narrativa histórica veinticinco años más o menos después de la conversión de San Pablo. Es posible que haya visitado Damasco con frecuencia. La tradición hace de Antioquía, una ciudad del mismo distrito, su lugar de nacimiento. San Lucas debió haber tenido abundantes oportunidades de consultar a testigos que pudieran contar la historia de esos días memorables y pudieran describir el testimonio más temprano de San Pablo sobre sus nuevas convicciones.

Pero estos hombres solo conocieron a San Pablo cuando apareció en público. Es posible que hayan sabido muy poco de la historia interna de su vida, tal como la revela en su Epístola a los Gálatas cuando reivindica su autoridad y misión apostólica.

Veamos ahora si no podemos armonizar el relato autobiográfico de San Pablo en la Epístola con el relato del evangelista en los Hechos; recordando siempre, sin embargo, que un conocimiento imperfecto nunca se siente más completamente que en tales casos. Cuando intentamos armonizar un relato escrito desde el lado subjetivo por un individuo con una narrativa objetiva y exterior escrita por otro, somos como un hombre que mira un globo terráqueo y trata de asimilarlo todo de un vistazo.

Un lado debe estar oculto para él; y así, en este caso, se nos ocultan necesariamente muchas circunstancias que resolverían dificultades que ahora nos desconciertan por completo. Pero vayamos a nuestra tarea, en la que hemos obtenido mucha ayuda del comentario del obispo Lightfoot sobre Gálatas. San Pablo, se nos dice en Hechos 9:19 , recibió carne después de la visita de Ananías y fue fortalecido.

San Pablo nunca fue uno de esos grandes fanáticos que desprecian la comida y el cuidado del cuerpo. No había nada de gnóstico o maniqueo en él, lo que lo llevó a despreciar y descuidar el cuerpo que el Señor ha dado para ser el instrumento del alma. Reconoció, en todas las circunstancias, que para que el espíritu humano haga su trabajo y para que se promueva la gloria de Dios, el cuerpo humano debe ser sostenido con fuerza y ​​vigor.

Cuando estaba a bordo del barco y en peligro inminente de naufragio y muerte, y los hombres pensaban que deberían estar en sus oraciones, pensando solo en el próximo mundo, tomó pan y bendijo y puso a la tripulación y a los pasajeros por igual el ejemplo saludable de comer un comida abundante, y así mantener su cuerpo en la debida preparación para cualquier liberación que el Señor pudiera obrar por ellos; y así, también, en Damasco, su gozo espiritual y su paz sagrada y su profunda gratitud por su restauración a la vista no le impidieron prestar la debida atención a las necesidades de su cuerpo.

"Tomó alimento y se fortaleció". Y ahora llega la primera nota del tiempo. "Entonces Saulo estaba algunos días con los discípulos que estaban en Damasco. Y luego (ϵὐθέϛ) predicaba a Cristo en las sinagogas, que era el Hijo de Dios". San Pablo usa la misma expresión en Gálatas, donde, después de hablar de su conversión, dice: "Inmediatamente (ϵὐθέωϛ) no consulté con sangre y carne, sino que me fui a Arabia y volví de nuevo a Damasco.

"Ahora mi explicación, y no sólo la mía, sino la del obispo Lightfoot, es la siguiente. Después de que el nuevo converso descansó por un corto tiempo en Damasco, se retiró al desierto del Sinaí, donde permaneció durante varios meses, tal vez durante todo un tiempo. año.

Durante este período desapareció de la vista y el conocimiento de los hombres como si la tierra hubiera abierto su boca y se lo hubiera tragado. Luego regresó a Damasco y predicó con tal poder que los judíos tramaron un complot contra su vida, consiguiendo la ayuda del gobernador de su lado, para que hasta las puertas estuvieran vigiladas para que lo arrestaran. Sin embargo, escapó de sus manos gracias a la ayuda de sus conversos y subió a Jerusalén.

Pero aquí surge otra dificultad, Los Hechos nos dice que "cuando llegó Saulo a Jerusalén, trató de unirse a los discípulos; pero todos le temían y no creían que fuera discípulo", por lo que Bernabé, cumpliendo su oficio de mediación, explicación y consuelo, lo llevó y lo presentó a los Apóstoles; mientras que por otro lado en el primer capítulo de Gálatas St.

Paul himself speaks of his first visit to the Jerusalem Church thus: "Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and tarried with him fifteen days. But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." Now the difficulty consists in this. First, how could the disciples at Jerusalem have been suspicious of St. Paul, if at least a year and a half had elapsed since his conversion? for the Jewish method of counting time would not require three whole years to have elapsed since that event.

Secondly, how could Barnabas have brought him to the Apostles as the Acts states, if St. Paul himself says he saw none of them save Peter and James? As to the first difficulty, we acknowledge at once that it seems at first sight a very considerable one, and yet a little reflection will show that there are many explanations of it. If St. Paul kept quiet, as we believe he did, after his conversion and baptism, and departed into the solitudes of Arabia, and then upon his return to Damascus, perhaps after a year's retirement, began his aggressive work, there may not have been time for the Church at large to get knowledge of the facts.

Communication, again, may have been interrupted because of the contest between Herod and Aretas, in which Damascus played no small part. Communication may not have been possible between the two Churches. Then, again, the persecution raised by Saul himself seems to have practically extirpated the Jerusalem Church for a time. "They were all scattered abroad except the Apostles," is the account given of the Christian community at Jerusalem.

The terror of that persecution may have lasted many a long month. Numbers of the original members may never have ventured back again to the Holy City. The Jerusalem Church may have been a new formation largely composed of new converts who never had heard of a wondrous circumstance which had happened a year or two before to the high priest's delegate, which the Sanhedrin would doubtless desire to keep secret.

These and many other considerations offer themselves when we strive to throw ourselves back into the circumstances of the time and help to a solution of the first difficulty which we have indicated: Human life is such a complex thing that the strangest combinations may easily find place therein. In this particular case we are so ignorant of the facts, so many hypotheses offer themselves to account for the seeming inconsistencies, that we hesitate not to identify the visit to Jerusalem mentioned in the Acts with that recorded by St.

Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians. The second difficulty to which we have alluded is this, How could Barnabas have brought him to the Apostles, if St. Paul himself states that he saw none of the Apostles save Peter and James the Lord's brother? We must remember, however, that St. Luke and St. Paul wrote with two distinct objects. St. Paul, in the Galatians, wished to show the independence of his revelations as regards the Apostles of the circumcision, the Twelve technically so called.

Of these Apostles he saw not one, save St. Peter. St. Luke is giving a broad external account of the new convert's earliest religious history, and he tells us that on his first visit to the Holy City his conversion was acknowledged and guaranteed by the apostles, -not the Twelve merely, but the apostles, that is, the senior members of the Christian community, embracing not merely the original company chosen by Christ, but all the senior members of the Church, like Barnabas, James, and others who may have formed a supreme council to guide the affairs of the infant society.

The word apostle, in fact, is used very variously in the New Testament; sometimes in a limited sense as confined to the Twelve, sometimes in a wider and more general sense, embracing men like Barnabas, as in Hechos 14:4; Hechos 14:14; St.

James, the Lord's brother, as in 1 Corintios 15:7; Andronicus and Junias, as in Romanos 16:7, and many others. It is quite possible, then, that Barnabas may have brought Saul to the Apostolic council, and told there the tale of his conversion, though not one of the original Twelve was present save St. Peter.

We have now endeavoured to explain some of the difficulties which a comparison of St. Paul's own auto-biographical narrative with the Acts discloses. Let us look again at the retirement into Arabia. This retirement seems to us full of instruction and pregnant with meaning for the hidden as well as the practical life of the soul. St. Paul, as soon as he was baptised, retired into Arabia; and why, it may be asked, did he retire thither? Some of the ancient expositors, as St.

Chrysostom and St. Jerome, both of whom wrote about the same period, A.D. 400, thought that St. Paul retired into Arabia in order that he might preach to the Arabians. St. Chrysostom, for instance, comments thus: "See how fervent was his soul, he was eager to occupy lands yet untilled. He forthwith attacked a barbarous and savage people, choosing a life of conflict and of much toil." And the explanations of Hilary, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and OEcumenius, all of them ancient and acute expositors, are of exactly the same character.

Now this would have been a reversal of the Divine order in one important aspect. The power of the keys, the office of opening the kingdom of heaven to the Gentiles, had been committed to St. Peter by Jesus Christ. He had not as yet baptised Cornelius, and thus formally opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. If St. Paul had preached to the Arabians, he would have usurped St. Peter's place and function. We believe, on the other hand, that God led the converted persecutor into the deserts of Arabia for very different purposes. Let us note a few of them.

The Lord led Saul there for the purpose of quiet and retirement. The great commentators and expositors of the early Church, as we have already noted, used to call St. Paul by the special title of "Vas Electionis," the chosen vessel par excellence, chosen because surpassing in his gifts and graces and achievements all the other Apostles. Now it was with the "Vas Electionis" in the New Testament as with many of his types in the Old Testament.

When God would prepare Moses for his life's work in shepherding, ruling, and guiding His people through the deserts of Arabia, He first called him for many a long day into retirement to the Mount of Horeb and the solitudes of the Sinaitic desert. When God would strengthen and console the spirit depressed, wounded, and severely smitten, of his servant Elijah, He brought him to the same mysterious spot, and there restored his moral and spiritual tone, and equipped him with new strength for his warfare by the visions of the Almighty lovingly vouchsafed to him.

The Founder or Former of the Jewish Dispensation and the Reformer of the same Dispensation were prepared and sustained for their work amid the Solitudes of the Arabian deserts; and what more fitting place in which the "Vas Electionis," the chosen vessel of the New Dispensation, should be trained? What more suitable locality where the Lord Jesus should make those fuller and completer revelations of Christian doctrine and mystery which his soul needed, than there where lightning-blasted cliff and towering mountains all alike spoke of God and of His dealings with mankind in the mysterious ages of a long-departed past? The Lord thus taught St.

Paul, and through him teaches the Church of every age, the need of seasons of retirement and communion with God preparatory to and in close connection with any great work or scene of external activity, such as St. Paul was now entering upon. It is a lesson much needed by this age of ours when men are tempted to think so much of practical work which appears at once in evidence, making its presence felt in tangible results, and so very little of devotional work and spiritual retirement which cannot be estimated by any earthly standard or tabulated according to our modern methods.

Men are now inclined to think laborare est orare, and that active external work faithfully and vigorously rendered can take the place and supply the want of prayer and thought, of quiet study and devout meditation. Against such a tendency the Lord's dealings with St. Paul, yea more, the Divine dealings with and leadings of the eternal Son Himself, form a loud and speaking protest. The world was perishing and men were going down to the grave in darkness and Satan and sin were triumphing, and yet Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days, and Saul was brought out into the deserts of Arabia from amid the teeming crowds of Damascus that he might learn those secrets of the Divine life which are best communicated to those who wait upon God in patient prayer and holy retirement.

This is a lesson very necessary for this hot and fitful and feverish age of ours, when men are in such a hurry to have everything set right and every abuse destroyed all at once. Their haste is not after the Divine model, and their work cannot expect the stability and solidity we find in God's. The nineteenth-century extreme is reproved by St. Paul's retirement into Arabia. Man is, however, such a creature that if he avoids one extreme he generally tumbles into another.

And so it is in this matter. Men have been ready to push this matter of retirement into an extreme, and have considered that they were following St. Paul's example in retiring into Arabian and similar deserts and remaining there. But they have made a great mistake. St. Paul retired into Arabia for a while, and then "returned again unto Damascus." They have retired into the deserts and have remained there engaged in the one selfish task of saving their own souls, as they thought, by the exercises of prayer and meditation, apart from that life of active good works for the sake of others which constitutes another department of Christianity equally vital to the health of the soul.

The history of Eastern monasticism is marked from its earliest days by an eager desire to follow St. Paul in his retirement into Arabia, and an equal disinclination to return with him unto Damascus. And this characteristic, this intense devotion to a life of solitude, strangely enough passed over to our own Western islands and is a dominant feature of the monasticism which prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland in the days of Celtic Christianity.

The Syrian and Egyptian monks passed over to Lerins and Southern Gaul, whence their disciples came to England and Ireland, where they established themselves, bringing with them all their Eastern love of solitary deserts. This taste they perpetuated, as may be seen especially, on the western coast of Ireland, where the ruins of extensive monastic settlements still exist, testifying to this craving.

The last islands, for instance, which a traveller sees as he steams away from Cork to America, are called the Skelligs. They are ten miles west of the Kerry coast, and yet there on these rocks where a boat cannot land sometimes for months together the early monks of the fifth and sixth centuries established themselves as in a desert in the ocean. The topography of Ireland is full of evidences and witnesses of this desire to imitate the Apostle of the Gentiles in his Arabian retirement.

There are dozens of town lands-subdivisions of the. parishes-which are called deserts or diserts, because they constituted solitudes set apart for hermit life after the example of St. Paul in Arabia and John the Baptist in the deserts of Judaea. While, again, when we turn northwards along the western seaboard of Ireland, we shall find numerous islands like the Skelligs, Ardoilen or the High Island, off the coast of Connemara, and Innismurry off the Sligo coast, where hermit cells in the regular Egyptian and Syrian fashion were built, and still exist as they did a thousand years ago, testifying to the longing of the human mind for such complete solitude and close communion with God as Saul enjoyed when he departed from Damascus.

The monks of ancient times may have run into one extreme: well would it be for us if we could avoid the other, and learn to cultivate self-communion, meditation, self-examination, and that realisation of the eternal world which God grants to those who wait upon Him apart from the bustle and din and dust of earth, which clog the spiritual senses and dim the heavenly vision.

We can see many other reasons why Paul was led into Arabia. He was led there, for instance, that he might make a thorough scrutiny of his motives. Silence, separation, solitude, have a wondrous tendency to make a man honest with himself and humbly honest before his God. Saul might have been a hypocrite or a formalist elsewhere, where human eyes and jealous glances were bent upon him, but scarcely when there alone with Jehovah in the desert.

Again, Saul was led there that his soul might be ennobled and enlarged by the power of magnificent scenery, of high and hallowed associations. Mountain and cliff and flood, specially those which have been magnified and made honourable by grand memories such as must have crowded upon Saul's mind, have a marvellous effect, enlarging, widening, developing, upon a soul like Saul's, long cribbed, cabined, and confined within the rigorous bonds of Pharisaic religionism.

Saul, too, was led up into those mysterious regions away from the busy life and work, the pressing calls of Damascus, that he might speak a word in season to all, and especially to those young in the Christian life, who think in the first burst of their zeal and faith as if they had nothing to do but go in and possess the whole land. Saul did not set out at once to evangelise the masses of Damascus, or to waste the first weak beginnings of his spiritual life in striving to benefit or awaken others.

He was first led away into the deserts of Arabia, in order that there he might learn of the deep things of God and of the weak things of his own nature, and then, when God had developed his spiritual strength, He led him back to Damascus that he might testify out of the fulness of a heart which knew the secrets of the Most High. The teaching of Saul's example speaks loudly to us all. It was the same with Saul as with a greater than he.

The Eternal Son Himself was trained amid years and years of darkness and secrecy, and even after His baptism the day of His manifestation unto Israel was delayed yet a little. Jesus Christ was no novice when He came preaching. And Saul of Tarsus was no novice in the Christian life when he appeared as the Christian advocate in the synagogue of Damascus. Well would it have been for many a soul had this Divine example been more closely copied.

Again and again have the young and ignorant and inexperienced been encouraged to stand up as public teachers immediately after they have been seriously impressed. They have yielded to the unwise solicitation. The vanity of the human heart has seconded the foolish advice given to them, and they have tried to declare the deep things of God when as yet they have need of learning the very first principles of the doctrine of Christ.

Is it any wonder that such persons oftentimes make shipwreck of faith and a sound conscience? Truth is very large and wide and spacious, and requires much time and thought if it is to be assimilated; and even when truth is grasped in all its mighty fulness, then there are spiritual enemies within and without and spiritual pitfalls to be avoided which can be known only by experience. Woe is then to that man who is not assisted by grace and guided by Divine experience, and who knows not God and the powers of the world to come, and the devious paths of his own heart, as these things can only be known and learned as Saul of Tarsus knew and learned them in the deserts of Arabia.

There was marvellous wisdom contained in the brief apostolic law enacted for candidates for holy orders in words gathered from St. Paul's own personal history, "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil."

Chapter 5

THE FIRST GENTILE CONVERT.

Hechos 10:1

WE have now arrived at another crisis in the history of the early Church of Christ. The Day of Pentecost, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, the call of Cornelius, and the foundation of the Gentile Church of Antioch are, if we are to pick and choose amid the events related by St. Luke, the turning-points of the earliest ecclesiastical history. The conversion of St. Paul is placed by St. Luke before the conversion of Cornelius, and is closely connected with it.

Let us then inquire by what events St. Luke unites the two. German commentators of the modern school, who are nothing unless they are original, have not been willing to allow that St. Luke's narrative is continuous. They have assigned various dates to the conversion of Cornelius. Some have made it precede the conversion of St. Paul, others have fixed it to the time of Paul's sojourn in Arabia, and so on, without any other solid reasons than what their own fancies suggest.

I prefer, however, to think that St. Luke's narrative follows the great broad outlines of the Christian story, and sets forth the events of the time in a divinely ordered sequence. At any rate, I prefer to follow the course of events as the narrative suggests them, till l see some good reason to think otherwise. I do not think that the mere fact that the sacred writer states events in a certain order is a sufficient reason to think that the true order must have been quite a different one. Taking them in this light, they yield themselves very naturally to the work of an expositor. Let us reflect then upon that sequence as here set forth for us.

Saul of Tarsus went up to Jerusalem to confer with St. Peter, who had been hitherto the leading spirit of the apostolic conclave. He laboured in Jerusalem among the Hellenistic synagogues for some fifteen days. A conspiracy was then formed against his life. The Lord, ever watchful over His chosen servant, warned him to depart from Jerusalem, indicating to him as he prayed in the Temple the scope and sphere of his future work, saying, "Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles.

" see Hechos 22:21 The Christians of Jerusalem, having learned the designs of his enemies, conveyed Saul to Caesarea, the chief Roman port of Palestine, whence they despatched him to Cilicia, his native province, where he laboured in obscurity and quietness for some time. St. Peter may have been of the rescue party who saved Saul from the hands of his enemies, escorting him to Caesarea, and this circumstance may have led him to the western district of the country.

At any rate we find him soon after labouring in Western Palestine at some distance from Jerusalem. Philip the Evangelist had been over the same ground a short time previously, and St. Peter may have been sent forth by the mother Church to supervise his work and confer that formal imposition of hands which from the beginning has formed the completion of baptism, and seems to have been reserved to the Apostles or their immediate delegates.

Peter's visit to Western Palestine, to Lydda and Sharon and Joppa, may have been just like the visit he had paid some time previously, in company with St. John, to the city of Samaria, when he came for the first time in contact with Simon Magus. St. Luke gives us here a note of time, helping us to fix approximately the date of the formal admission of Cornelius and the Gentiles into the Church. He mentions that the Churches then enjoyed peace and quietness all through Palestine, enabling St.

Peter to go upon his work of preaching and supervision. It may perhaps strike some persons that this temporary peace must have been obtained through the conversion of Saul, the most active persecutor. But that event had happened more than two years before, in the spring of 37 A.D., and, far from diminishing, would probably have rather intensified the hostility of the Jewish hierarchy. It was now the autumn of the year 39, and a bitter spirit still lingered at Jerusalem, as Saul himself and the whole Church had just proved. External authorities, Jewish and Roman history, here step in to illustrate and confirm the sacred narrative.

The Emperor Caius Caligula, who ascended the throne of the empire about the time of Stephen's martyrdom, was a strange character. He was wholly self-willed, madly impious, utterly careless of human life, as indeed unregenerate mankind ever is. Christianity alone has taught the precious value of the individual human soul the awful importance of human life as the probation time for eternity, and has thereby ameliorated the harshness of human laws, the sternness of human rulers, ready to inflict capital punishment on any pretence whatsoever.

Caligula determined to establish the worship of himself throughout the world. He had no opposition to dread from the pagans, who were ready to adopt any creed or any cult, no matter how degrading, which their rulers prescribed. Caligula knew, however, that the Jews were more obstinate, because they alone were conscious that they possessed a Divine revelation. He issued orders, therefore, to Petronius, the Roman governor of Syria, Palestine, and the East, to erect his statue in Jerusalem and to compel the Jews to offer sacrifice thereto.

Josephus tells us of the opposition which the Jews offered to Caligula; how they abandoned their agricultural operations and assembled in thousands at different points, desiring Petronius to slay them at once, as they could never live if the Divine laws were so violated. The whole energies of the nation were for months concentrated on this one object, the repeal of the impious decree of Caligula, which they at last attained through their own determination and by the intervention of Herod Agrippa, who was then at Rome.

It was during this awful period of uncertainty and opposition that the infant Church enjoyed a brief period of repose and quiet growth, because the whole nation, from the high priest to the lowest beggar, had something else to think of than how to persecute a new sect that was as yet rigorously scrupulous in observing the law of Moses. During this period of repose from persecution St. Peter made his tour of inspection "throughout all parts," Samaria, Galilee, Judaea, terminating with Lydda, where he healed, or at least prayed for the healing of Æneas, and with Joppa, where his prayer was followed by the restoration of Tabitha or Dorcas, who has given a designation now widely applied to the assistance which devout women can give to their poorer sisters in Christ.

We thus see how God by the secret guidance of His Spirit, shaping his course by ways and roads known only to Himself, led St. Peter to the house of Simon the tanner, where he abode many days, waiting in patience to know God's mind and will which were soon to be opened out to him. We have now traced the line of events which connect the conversion of Saul of Tarsus with that of Cornelius the centurion of Caesarea.

Let us apply ourselves to the circumstances surrounding the latter event, which is of such vital importance to us Gentile Christians as having been the formal Divine proclamation to the Church and to the world that the mystery which had been hid for ages was now made manifest, and that the Gentiles were spiritually on an equality with the Jews. The Church was now about to burst the bonds which had restrained it for five years at least.

We stand by the birth of European Christendom and of modern civilisation. It is well, then, that we should learn and inwardly digest every, even the slightest, detail concerning such a transcendent and notable crisis. Let us take them briefly one by one as the sacred narrative reports them.

I. I note, then, in the first place that the time of this conversion was wisely and providentially chosen. The time was just about eight years after the Ascension and the foundation of the Church. Time enough therefore had elapsed for Christianity to take root among the Jews. This was most important. The gospel was first planted among the Jews, took form and life and shape, gained its initial impulse and direction among God's ancient people in order that the constitution, the discipline, and the worship of the Church might be framed on the ancient Jewish model and might be built up by men whose minds were cast in a conservative mould.

Not that we have the old law with its wearisome and burdensome ritual perpetuated in the Christian Church. That law was a yoke too heavy for man to bear. But, then, the highest and best elements of the old Jewish system have been perpetuated in the Church. There was in Judaism by God's own appointment a public ministry, a threefold public ministry too, exercised by the high priests, the priests, and the Levites.

There is in Christianity a threefold ministry exercised by bishops, presbyters or elders, and deacons. There were in Judaism public and consecrated sanctuaries, fixed liturgies, public reading of God's Word, a service of choral worship, hymns of joy and thanksgiving, the sacraments of Holy Communion and baptism in a rudimentary shape; all these were transferred from the old system that was passing away into the new system that was taking its place.

Had the Gentiles been admitted much earlier all this might not have so easily happened. Men do not easily change their habits. Habits, indeed, are chains which rivet themselves year by year with ever-increasing power round our natures; and the Jewish converts brought their habits of thought and worship into the Church of Christ, establishing there those institutions of prayer and worship, of sacramental communion and preaching which we still enjoy.

But we must observe, on the other hand, that, had the Gentiles been admitted a little later, the Church might have assumed too Jewish and Levitical an aspect. This pause of eight years, during which Jews alone formed the Church, is another instance of those delay's of the Lord which, whether they happen in public or in private life, are always found in the long run to be wise, blessed, and providential things, though for a time they may seem dark and mysterious, according to that ancient strain of the Psalmist, "Wait on the Lord and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, upon the Lord."

II. Again, the place where the Church burst its Jewish shell and emerged into full gospel freedom is noteworthy. It was at Caesarea. It is a great pity that people do not make more use of maps in their study of Holy Scripture. Sunday evenings are often a dull time in Christian households, and the bare mechanical reading of Scripture and of good books often only makes them duller. How much more lively, interesting, and instructive they would be were an attempt made to trace the journeys of the Apostles with a map, or to study the scenes where they laboured-Jerusalem, Caesarea, Damascus, Ephesus, Athens, and Rome-with some of the helps which modern scholarship and commercial enterprise now place within easy reach.

I can speak thus with the force of personal experience, for my own keen interest in this book which I am expounding dates from the Sunday evenings of boyhood thus spent, though without many of the aids which now lie within the reach of all. This is essentially the modern method of study, especially in matters historical. A modern investigator and explorer of Bible sites and lands has well expressed this truth when he said, "Topography is the foundation of history.

If we are ever to understand history, we must understand the places where that history was transacted." The celebrated historians, the late Mr. Freeman and Mr. Green, worked a revolution in English historical methods by teaching people that an indefatigable use of maps and a careful study of the physical features of any country are absolutely needful for a true conception of its history. In this respect at least secular history and sacred history are alike.

Without a careful study of the map we cannot understand God's dealings with the Church of Christ, as is manifest from the case of Caesarea at which we have arrived. The narratives of the Gospels and of the Acts will be confused, unintelligible, unless we understand that there were two Caesareas in Palestine, one never mentioned in the Gospels, the other never mentioned in the Acts. Caesarea Philippi was a celebrated city of Northeastern Palestine.

It was-when our Lord was within its borders that St. Peter made his celebrated confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," told of in Mateo 16:13. This is the only Caesarea of which we hear in the Gospels. It was an-inland town, built by the Herods in joint honour of themselves and of their patrons the Emperors of Rome, and bore all the traces of its origin.

It was decorated with a splendid pagan temple, was a thoroughly pagan town, and was therefore abhorred by every true Jew. There was another Caesarea, the great Roman port of Palestine and the capital, where the Roman governors resided. It was situated in the borders of Phoenicia, in a northwesterly direction from Jerusalem, with which it was connected by a fine military road. This Caesarea had been originally built by Herod the Great.

He spent twelve years at this undertaking, and succeeded in making it a splendid monument of the magnificence of his conceptions. The seaboard of Palestine is totally devoid to this day of safe harbours. Herod constructed a harbour at vase expense. Let us hear the story of its foundation in the very words of the Jewish historian. Josephus tells us that Herod, observing that Joppa and Dora are not fit for havens on account of the impetuous south winds which beat upon them, which, rolling the sands which come from the sea against the shores, do not admit of ships lying in their station; but the merchants are generally there forced to ride at their anchors in the sea itself.

So Herod endeavoured to rectify this inconvenience, and laid out such a compass toward the land as might be sufficient for a haven, wherein the great ships might lie in safety; and this he effected by letting down vast stones of above fifty feet in length, not less than eighteen in breadth and nine in depth, "into twenty fathoms deep." The Romans, when they took possession of Palestine, adopted and developed Herod's plans, and established Caesarea on the coast as the permanent residence of the procurator of Palestine.

And it was a wise policy. The Romans, like the English, had a genius for government. They fixed their provincial capitals upon or near the sea-coast that their communications might be ever kept open. Thus in our own case Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Capetown, Quebec, and Dublin are all seaport towns. And so in ancient times Antioch, Alexandria, Tarsus, Ephesus, Marseilles, Corinth, London, were all seaports and provincial Roman capitals as Caesarea was in Palestine.

And it was a very wise policy. The Jews were a fierce, bold, determined people when they revolted. If the seat of Roman rule had been fixed at Jerusalem, a rebellion might completely cut off all effective relief from the besieged garrison, which would never happen at Caesarea so long as the command of the sea was vested in the vast navies which the Roman State possessed. Caesarea was to a large extent a Gentile city, though within some seventy miles of Jerusalem.

It had a considerable Jewish population with their attendant synagogues, but the most prominent features were pagan temples, one of them serving for a lighthouse and beacon for the ships which crowded its harbour, together with a theatre and an amphitheatre, where scenes were daily enacted from which every sincere Jew must have shrunk with horror. Such was the place a most fitting place, Gentile, pagan, idolatrous to the very core and centre-where God chose to reveal Himself as Father of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews, and showed Christ's gospel as a light to lighten the Gentiles as well as the glory of His people Israel.

III. Then, again, the person chosen as the channel of this revelation is a striking character. He was "Cornelius by name, a centurion of the band called the Italian band." Here, then, we note first of all that Cornelius was a Roman soldier. Let us pause and reflect upon this. In no respect does the New Testament display more clearly its Divine origin than in the manner in which it rises superior to mere provincialism.

There are no narrow national prejudices about it like those which nowadays lead Englishmen to despise other nations, or those which in ancient times led a thoroughgoing Jew to look down with sovereign contempt on the Gentile world as mere dogs and outcasts. The New Testament taught that all men were equal and were brothers in blood, and thus laid the foundations of those modern conceptions which have well-nigh swept slavery from the face of civilised Christendom.

The New Testament and its teaching is the parent of that modern liberalism which now rules every circle, no matter what its political designation. In no respect does this universal catholic feeling of the New Testament display itself more clearly than in the pictures it presents to us of Roman military men. They are uniformly most favourable. Without one single exception the pictures drawn for us of every centurion and soldier mentioned in the books of the New Testament are bright with some element of good shining out conspicuously by way of favourable contrast, when brought side by side with the Jewish people, upon whom more abundant and more blessed privileges had been in vain lavished.

Let us just note a few instances which will illustrate our view. The soldiers sought John's baptism and humbly received John's penitential advice and direction when priests and scribes rejected the Lord's messenger. Lucas 3:14 A soldier and a centurion received Christ's commendation for the exercise of a faith surpassing in its range and spiritual perception any faith which the Master had found within the bounds and limits of Israel according to the flesh.

"Verily I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," were Christ's almost wondering words as He heard the confession of His Godlike nature, His Divine power involved in the centurion's prayer of humility, "I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed." cf. Mateo 8:5 So was it again with the centurion to whom the details of our Lord's execution were committed.

He too is painted in a favourable light. He had an open mind, willing to receive evidence. He received that evidence under the most unfavourable conditions. His mind was convinced of our Lord's mission and character, not by His triumphs, but by His apparent defeat. As the victim of Jewish malice and prejudice yielded up the ghost and committed His pure, unspotted soul to the hands of His Heavenly Father, then it was that, struck by the supernatural spirit of love and gentleness and forgiveness-those great forces of Christianity which never at any other time or in any other age have had their full and fair play-the centurion yielded the assent of his affections and of his intellect to the Divine mission of the suffering Saviour, and cried, "Truly this man was the Son of God.

" Mateo 27:54 So it was again with Julius the centurion, who courteously entreated St. Paul on his voyage as a prisoner to Rome; Hechos 27:3 and so again it was with Cornelius the centurion, of the band called the Italian band.

Now how comes this to pass? What a striking evidence of the workings and presence of the Divine Spirit in the writers of our sacred books we may find in this fact! The Roman soldiers were of course the symbols to a patriotic Jew of a hated foreign sway, of an idolatrous jurisdiction and rule. A Jew uninfluenced by supernatural grace, and unguided by Divine inspiration, would never have drawn such pictures of Roman centurions as the New Testament has handed down to us.

The picture, indeed, drawn by the opposition press of any country is not generally a favourable one when dealing with the persons and officials of the dominant party. But the Apostles-Jews though they were of narrow, provincial, prejudiced Galilee-had drunk deep of the spirit of the new religion. They recognised that Jesus Christ, the King of the kingdom of heaven, cared nothing about what form of government men lived under.

They knew that Christ ignored all differences of climate, age, sex, nationality, or employment. They felt that the only distinctions recognised in Christ's kingdom were spiritual distinctions, and therefore they recognised the soul of goodness wherever found. They welcomed the honest and true heart, no matter beneath what skin it beat, and found therefore in many of these Roman soldiers some of the ablest, the most devoted, and the most effective servants and teachers of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Verily the universal and catholic principles of the new religion which found their first formal proclamation in the age of Cornelius, met with an ample vindication and a full reward in the trophies won and the converts gained from such an unpromising source as the ranks, of the Roman army. This seems to me one reason for the favourable notices of the Roman soldiers in the New Testament. The Divine Spirit wished to impress upon mankind that birth, position, or employment has no influence upon a man's state in God's sight, and to prove by a number of typical examples that spiritual conditions and excellence alone avail to find favour with the Almighty.

Another reason, however, may be found for this fact. The Scriptures never make light of discipline or training. "Train up a child in the way he should go," is a Divine precept. St. Paul, in his Pastoral Epistles, lays down one great qualification for a bishop, that he should have this power of exercising discipline and rule at home as well as abroad: "For if he knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of God?" 1 Timoteo 3:5 By discipline, the discipline of Egypt and the wilderness, did God prepare His people for Canaan.

By the discipline of captivity and dispersion, by the discipline of Greek philosophy spreading novel intellectual ideas, by the discipline of Roman dominion executing mighty public works, carrying roads and intercommunication to the remotest and most barbarous nations, did God prepare the world for the revelation of His Son. By the discipline of life, by joy and sorrow, by strife and suffering, by parting and by loss, does God still prepare His faithful ones for the beatific vision of eternal beauty, for the rest and joy of everlasting peace.

And discipline worked out its usual results on these military men, even though it was only an imperfect and pagan discipline which these Roman soldiers received. Let us note carefully how this was. The world of unregenerate man at the time of our Lord's appearance had become utterly selfish. Discipline of every kind had been flung off. Self-restraint was practically unknown, and the devil and his works flourished in every circle, bringing forth the fruits of wickedness, uncleanness, and impurity in every direction.

The army was the only place or region where in those times any kind of discipline or self-restraint was practised. For no army can permit-even if it be an army of atheists-profligacy and drunkenness to rage, flaunting themselves beneath the very eye of the sun. And as the spiritual result we find that this small measure of pagan discipline acted as a preparation for Christianity, and became, under the Divine guidance, the means of fitting men like Cornelius of Caesarea for the reception of the gospel message of purity and peace.

But we observe that Cornelius the centurion had one special feature which made him peculiarly fitted to be God's instrument for opening the Christian faith to the Gentile world. The choice of Cornelius is marked by all that skill and prudence, that careful adaptation of means to ends which the Divine workmanship, whether in nature or in grace, ever displays. There were many Roman centurions stationed at Caesarea, yet none was chosen save Cornelius, and that because he was "a devout man who feared God with all his house, praying to God always, and giving much alms to the people.

" He feared Jehovah, he fasted, prayed, observed Jewish hours of devotion. His habits were much more those of a devout Jew than of a pagan soldier. He was popular with the Jewish people therefore, like another centurion of whom it was said by the Jewish officials themselves "he loveth our nation and hath built us a synagogue." The selection of Cornelius as the leader and firstfruits of the Gentiles unto God was eminently prudent and wise: God when He is working out His plans chooses His instruments carefully and skilfully.

He leaves nothing to chance. He does nothing imperfectly. Work done by God will repay the keenest scrutiny, the closest study, for it is the model of what every man's work in life ought as far as possible to be-earnest, wise, complete, perfect.

IV. Again, looking at the whole passage, we perceive therein illustrations of two important laws of the Divine life. We recognise in the case of Cornelius the working of that great principle of the kingdom of God often enunciated by the great Master: "To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly." "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine"; or, to put it in other language, that God always bestows more grace upon the man who diligently uses and improves the grace which he already possesses; a principle which indeed we see constantly exemplified in things pertaining to this world as well as in matters belonging to the spiritual life.

Thus it was with Cornelius. He was what was called among the Jews a proselyte of the gate. These proselytes were very numerous. They were a kind of fringe hanging upon the outskirts of the Jewish people. They were admirers of Jewish ideas, doctrines, and practices, but they were not incorporated with the Jewish nation nor bound by all their laws and ceremonial restraints. The Levitical Law was not imposed upon them, because they were not circumcised.

They were merely bound to worship the true God and observe certain moral precepts said to have been delivered to Noah. Such was Cornelius, whom the providence of God had led from Italy to Caesarea for this very purpose, to fulfil His purposes of mercy towards the Gentile world. His residence there had taught him the truth and beauty of the pure worship of Jehovah rendered by the Jews. He had learned, too, not only that God is, but that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

Cornelius had set himself, therefore, to the diligent discharge of all the duties of religion so far as he knew them. He was earnest and diligent in prayer, for he recognised himself as dependent upon an invisible God: He was liberal in alms, for he desired to show forth his gratitude for mercies daily received. And acting thus he met with the divinely appointed reward. Cornelius is favoured with a fuller revelation and a clearer guidance by the angel's mouth, who tells him to send and summon Peter from Joppa for this very purpose.

What an eminently practical lesson we may learn from God's dealings with this earliest Gentile convert! We learn from the Divine dealings with Cornelius that whosoever diligently improves the lower spiritual advantages which he possesses shall soon be admitted to higher and fuller blessings. It may well have been that God led him through successive stages and rewarded him under each. In distant Italy, when residing amid the abounding superstitions of that country, conscience was the only preacher, but there the sermons of that monitor were heard with reverence and obeyed with diligence.

Then God ordered the course of his life so that public duty summoned him to a distant land. Cornelius may have at the time counted his lot a hard one when despatched to Palestine as a centurion, for it was a province where, from the nature of the warfare there prevalent, there were abundant opportunities of death by assassination at the hands of the Zealots, and but few opportunities of distinction such as might be gained in border warfare with foreign enemies.

But the Lord was shaping his career as He shapes all our careers, with reference to our highest spiritual purposes. He led Cornelius, therefore, to a land and to a town where the pure worship of Jehovah was practised and the elevated morality of Judaism prevailed. Here, then, were new opportunities placed within the centurion's reach. And again the same spiritual diligence is displayed, and again the same law of spiritual development and enlarging blessing finds a place.

Cornelius is devout and liberal and Godfearing, and therefore a heavenly visitor directs his way to still fuller light and grander revelations, and Cornelius the centurion of the Italian band leads the Gentile hosts into the fulness of blessing, the true land flowing with milk and honey, found only in the dispensation of Jesus Christ and within the borders of the Church of God. This was God's course of dealing with the Roman centurion, and it is the course which the same loving dealing still pursues with human souls truly desirous of Divine guidance.

The Lord imparts one degree of light and knowledge and grace, but withholds higher degrees till full use has been made of the lower. He speaks to us at first in a whisper; but if we reverently hearken, there is a gradual deepening of the voice, till it is as audible in the crowd as it is in the solitude, and we are continually visited with the messages of the Eternal King. Now cannot these ideas be easily applied to our own individual cases? A young man, for instance, may be troubled with doubts and questions concerning certain portions of the Christian faith.

Some persons make such doubts an excuse for plunging into scenes of riot and dissipation, quenching the light which God has given them and making certain their own spiritual destruction. The case of Cornelius points out the true course which should in such a case be adopted. Men may be troubled with doubts concerning certain doctrines of revelation. But they have no doubt as to the dictates of conscience and the light which natural religion sheds upon the paths of morals and of life.

Let them then use the light they have. Let them diligently practise the will of God as it has been revealed. Let them be earnest in prayer, pure and reverent in life, honest and upright in business, and then in God's own time the doubts will vanish, the darkness will clear away, and the ancient promises will be fulfilled, "Light is sown for the righteous," "The path of the just shineth more and more unto the perfect day," "In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death."

But the example of Cornelius is of still wider application. The position of Cornelius was not a favourable one for the development of the religious life, and yet he rose superior to all its difficulties, and became thus an eminent example to all believers. Men may complain that they have but few spiritual advantages, and that their station in life is thickly strewn with difficulties, hindering the practices and duties of religion.

To such persons we would say, compare yourselves with Cornelius and the difficulties, external and internal, he had to overcome. Servants, for instance, may labour under great apparent disadvantages. Perhaps, if living in an irreligious family, they have few opportunities for prayer, public or private. Men of business are compelled to spend days and nights in the management of their affairs. Persons of commanding intellect or of high station have their own disadvantages, their own peculiar temptations, growing out of their very prosperity.

The case of Cornelius shows that each class can rise superior to their peculiar difficulties and grow in, the hidden life of the soul, if they but imitate his example as he grew from grace to grace, improving his scanty store till it grew into a fuller and ampler one, till it expanded into all the glory of Christian privilege, when Cornelius, like Peter, was enabled to rejoice in the knowledge and love of a risen and glorified Redeemer.