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66 gers to the commonwealth of Ifrael, and the "covenant of promife." St. Peter, therefore, diftinguishes them from Gentiles":" Having (fays he), your converfation honest among "the Gentiles," that is, the idolatrous Gentiles; "that whereas they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, "which they fhall behold, glorify God in the day of their vifitation. What What may farther ferve to fhew that Peter wrote to profelytes of the the gate, is, that when he preaches to Cornelius and his family, the firft-fruits of the profelytes of the gate, he fays, "of a truth

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I perceive that God is no refpecter of perfons, «but, in every nation, he that feareth him, " and worketh righteoufnefs, is accepted with "him." And in this epiftle he speaks in the fame ftrain; and if ye call on the Father, " "who, without refpect of perfons, judgeth according to every man's work, pafs the time "of your fojourning here in fear." And fo likewife he uses the very peculiar phrase here, which he uses concerning Cornelius and his family, "God giving them the Holy Ghost, "and purifying their hearts by faith,” (xaba (καθα ρίσας τὰς καρδίας αυτῶν,) alluding to the com miffion he had received from the Lord in a vifion, to go and preach peace to the profelytes of the gate, in these words, "what God

z Pet. ii. 12.

I Pet. i. 17.

a Acts x. 34, 35.
• Acts xv. 9.

"has

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has cleanfed" (or purified, xalápiσe), that "call not thou common or unclean "." And here," feeing ye feeing ye have purified your fouls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, fee "that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently" (Ex xabaçãs napdías); and 2 Pet. i. 9. to this purpose, he says,that " he that lack"eth thefe things," namely, the chriftian virtues he had been exhorting them to abound in ver. 5-9.)" is blind, and cannot" (it should be" will not") (uvwπálwv), "fee afar off, and "hath forgotten that he was purged," (or purified, or his purification, r xalagious)" from "his former fins." This expreffion feems to me to point to the profelytes of the gate; as "much as opening the eyes, and turning from "darkness to light, and from Satan unto God," does to the idolatrous Gentiles. Wherefore, from Peter's ufing the fame expreffions in this epiftle, as he does Acts x. and xv; one may naturally conclude, that he writes here. to the fame fort of perfons, that he preached to, Acts x; and fpoke of, Acts xv. And, to confirm my opinion the more, I would obferve that he uses an expreffion to them, at the end of this epiftle, that feems to be appropriated to the profelytes of the gate who believed f; " If "any man fuffer as a chriftian, &c." Now the disciples were firft called christians at

d. Acts x, 15.

• ■ Pet. i. 22. f Chap. iv., 16. Antioch

Antiochf; a church confifting chiefly, if not wholly, of profelytes of the gate; as I fhall make appear more fully in the Fourth Effay ; as I also shall what I apprehend was the reason of their taking that peculiar appellation, towards the end of this Effay. And what makes me lay the greater ftrefs on this expreffion" as a christian” is, that I do not remember any of the other apostles ever use it in any of their epiftles, either to believing Jews, or to the believers among the idolatrous Gentiles. And that the fecond epiftle was addressed to the fame with the firft, we learn from 2 Pet. iii. 1. Perhaps St Peter's writing to profelyted Gentiles, converted to chriftianity, may have been the reafon why he fent his letter by Silvanus or Silas; who used to travel over all these parts with St. Paul, converting the Gentiles, and confirming them; and why he gives him his Roman, and not his Jewish name (Silvanus, and not Silas) the name he himself ufes, when he writes to the Gentile believers.

If it be objected that Peter addreffes his epiftle παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς, &c. ; as James, one of the difciples of the circumcifion, addreffes his δώδεκα φυλαῖς ἐν τῇ διασπορᾷ, “ to the "twelve tribes difperfed;" I answer, that the Sacroga may be applyed to difperfed Gentiles,

• Acts xi. 26.

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1 Thef. i. 1. 2 Thes. i. 1.

as

as well as Jews: and is fo evidently John vii. 35. "And the Jews faid among themselves, "Whither will he go, that we shall not find "him? will he go unto the difperfed among "the Gentiles (it fhould be " to the difperfion " of the Gentiles")," and teach the Gentiles?" εις τὴν διασπορὼν τῶν Ἑλλήνων μέλλει πορεύος, διδάσκειν τὰς Ἕλληνας ; and not only the grammar fhews it ought to be rendered "the difperfion of the Gentiles," and not "the dispersed among the Gentiles," but the fentence that follows," and teach the Gentiles ?" and the Syriack version, the most accurate of any, renders it, "the difperfion of the profane," that is, the heathen," and teach the profane." And fo that excellent critic Caftalio renders it,"Num in difperfas Græcorum nationes

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difceffurus eft, docturufque Græcos?" And we read of the "difperfed children of God h," in opposition to the Jewish nation, ¿x úπÈę ἔθνες μόνον, ἀλλ ̓ ἵνα καὶ τὰ τέκνα ' Θεῖ τὰ διεσκορ πισμένα συναγάγω εἰς ἕν

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St. John, indeed, by exprefs direction " from him who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, and who walketh in the midst " of the golden candlesticks," writes to the feven churches of Afia. But it must be obferved, that, if thofe he writes to in those feven churches were Gentiles, yet it was long after the death of St. Paul and Barnabas,

John xi. 52. VOL. II.

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i Rev. ii. 1.

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their two apostles: the book of the Revelation having been written in the year 96, and Paul fuffered martyrdom an. 67. and Barnabas, in all likelihood, before that. Though I fhould rather incline to think, that what was written to the churches in thofe cities, was written to the believing Jews there only. At least that is pretty plain, in the case of the church of Pergamos, of Thyatira', which Grotius fays was compofed of Jews ", of Philadelphia"; and perhaps of Ephefus too. And if what he wrote to these four churches was written to believing Jews, we may well conclude that the other three epiftles were fo too. This, I think, may serve to remove this objection, if these epiftles were actually written to those seven churches, and are not to be understood in a myftical fenfe; as reprefenting the state of the chriftian church, in a future feptenary period, as fome very good judges have thought.

And as the apoftles of the circumcifion preached and wrote to Jews only, and Peter to the Jews or profelytes of the gate; fo Paul is fent to the idolatrous Gentiles, and chiefly preached and wrote to them: at least when he preached or wrote in the character of an apostle, after his becoming one. He is

k Rev. ii. 12. 14.
Grot. on Revel. ii. 18.
• Ibid. ii. 7.

1 Ver. 20.

'n Rev. iii.

fent

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