who imagine, that the decree was either applicable to the Proselytes of the Gate only, or of perpetual obligation to all future Gentile converts. Neither of these was exactly the case; as particularly appears from the writings and conduct of St. Paul. How far compliance is necessary to remove offence in things not forbidden by the laws of God or man, he has sufficiently explained. "I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably, destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. For the kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and and joy, in the Holy Ghost'."

peace,

When the Jewish polity came to an end by the destruction of Jerusalem, the decree of this Council could be of no further validity; and where there is no nation of Jews, the use of blood is an indifferent thing. But I agree in the opinion of a learned writer, that " should a considerable number of Jews be now kept out of the Christian Church by that alone, it would still be the duty of those Christians among whom they dwelt, to forbear the use of it, on the principles stated by the Apostle, 1 Cor. viii2." "For meat destroy not the work of God; all things indeed are pure, but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence "."

2 Doddridge's Lect. 192.

1 Rom, xiv. 14, &c.

3 Rom. xiv. 20.

With respect to the nature of those things which are forbidden by the decree, they are understood to represent the whole of what have been called the seven precepts of Noah, and enjoined the Jewish Proselytes. As the Scriptures are silent concerning these precepts, we may be so too. But the four injunctions here recited, evidently allude to such parts of general conduct as would offend the Jews, and led directly to that idolatry, which they now professed to have forsaken.

66

The reason is plain and needs no comment, why they were commanded to abstain from pollutions of idols. Abstinence from blood, and things strangled, which retained the blood, were enjoined by the Levitical law, probably because the use of them tended to promote a savageness of nature; not merely perhaps as eating blood according to the words of the injunction, but according to the scope of the expression flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat';" that is, thou shalt not eat a limb cut from a living animal with the blood and life in it. The moral of which will then be," I will not permit you to use cruelty towards the brute creatures, for that will lead you cruelty towards one another, and to murder men?." Nor will there be any doubt of the propriety of joining with those legal abstinences a prohibition of fornication, though in itself a moral offence. If it were not morally wrong to eat blood, or of things strangled, they might still lead to the commission of a moral offence. Savage natures require restraint.

1 Gen. ix. 4.

2

Benson, Vol. ii. p. 69.

to

But fornication was both a moral crime, and tended to promote idolatrous rites amongst those to whom this decree was directed. In heathen countries, the impurities of idol worship are too well known; and for this reason, both in the Old and New Testaments, fornication and idolatry are frequently joined in the same prohibition. Indeed they are often put for each other, and the Gentiles are continually charged with this double transgression. The Church of Thyatira, in the book of Revelation, is threatened because she permitted "that woman, Jezebel, to seduce the servants of God to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols1." Let us avoid both, by following the Apostle's advice. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, which know not God." And in another passage the Apostle is still more explicit, where no sophistry of man can alter the expression. -"Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Let him, then, who dreads the punishment of idolatry, be equally afraid of God's judgement against impurity of every kind.

If the word, which we translate fornication, be still further considered, we shall find another sense, which some have imagined to be the true interpre2 1 Thess. iv. 3, &c.

Rev. ii. 20. 31 Cor. vi. 9.

tation in this place, namely, marriages within those degrees of consanguinity and affinity, which were prohibited by the Mosaic law. Should this interpretation be adopted, it will still be found, that there is the greatest propriety in joining together these apparently discordant injunctions, and that nothing is without a sound and convincing reason, which we are taught in the word of God.

The decree being settled, it was determined to promulge it in the most solemn manner; to those Churches especially, where the disputation had arisen. For this purpose not only Paul and Barnabas were deputed, (to the integrity of whose characters the Council bears the greatest attestation), but, as they might be thought interested in the question, two other brethren, Judas and Silas (or Silvanus) were commissioned also to accompany them on their return to Antioch, and corroborate by word of mouth the resolution of the Church assembled at Jerusalem.

The Epistle which they carried contained the whole scope of the conference and the decree, with this censure of those who had excited the question, that they had troubled them with words, subverting their souls by enjoining those who were incorporated into the body of Christ's Church, to practise the ceremonial part of the Mosaic law. The dangerous addition of human works of any kind as a motive for our justification, though they are by no means excluded as an expression of it, would totally overturn the fabric of Christianity, "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircum

cision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free, but Christ is all and in all 1."

The authority of the decree is also established in the Epistle which was directed to the Gentile Churches. "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us."—Not that the opinion of the Council could give any additional authority to the determination of the Holy Spirit of God, which might justly bring upon them the charge of blasphemy and presumption: but the expression in this place applies to what had been before advanced in the deliberation of the Assembly; that as the Holy Ghost, in the case of Cornelius, had declared, that "the middle wall of partition 2" was broken down between the Jews and the Gentiles, and that the latter, could be received within the pale of Christianity without the rite of circumcision, and as it had also been intimated by the prophet Amos, that the Gentiles should seek after the Lord, so the Apostles thought it right to found their judgment on the infallible dictates of the Holy Spirit. "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us;" to us guided by the Holy Ghost.

The Council being dissolved, Paul and Barnabas with Judas and Silas, bear the tidings to the Church at Antioch. When they had read the Epistle, they rejoiced for the consolation it had afforded them, by freeing them from the bondage of the ceremonial law, and explicitly declaring the important doctrine of justification.