that they could attend to nothing else: then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." If the cause above assigned for this rest be true, it may suggest to us useful matter of reflection. We see a people who could not be prevailed upon by motives of humanity or justice, to spare the lives or feelings of innocent men, who were faithfully discharging their duty to God, exposed in their own turn to somewhat like indignities and severities. Since the Babylonish captivity there was nothing which the Jews so much dreaded as falling again into the least appearance of idolatry, which they looked upon as the source of all their calamities so that even those addicted to almost every species of wickedness would rather sacrifice their lives than pollute the temple with any sort of image, especially if it were set up by way of adoration. Hence they took every possible method to prevent the profanation now intended, and at last with success. Should we not expect from such zeal for conscience and religion, some little charity towards others pleading a similar cause? there is no such disposition found amongst them. And grievous is it to think, that charges of the same nature may be brought against mankind at But large. The loudest declaimers for natural liberty have often proved insolent tyrants; the greatest sticklers for rights of conscience, very inquisitors. Even the disciples of the meek and humble Jesus were eager to command fire from Heaven, to consume those who would not receive their Lord. "But he turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of: for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Keep this rebuke ever in mind. And remember the bitter pangs which St. Paul suffered, for the wrongs done by him in ignorance; although at the time he thought his excessive zeal pleasing in the sight of God. Religion is a sacred covenant between God and the soul and an attempt to dissolve or change it by force or punishment, reviling or contempt, is equally absurd and wicked. Reason and Scripture are the only instruments of conviction allowed us. If these fail, our work is done. We must not, with profane cruelty, hand over a wretch to the secular arm, but commit him to the mercy of God; by whom alone he is to stand or fall; his righteous and eternal judge.. LECTURE VII. CHAPTER X. WHILE the churches had rest throughout all ་ Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, (as we have seen in the last lecture) the Apostles no doubt availed themselves of this happy occasion to preach the Gospel freely, and make converts to the Christian church. The history however is confined to St. Peter; of whom the latter part of the ninth chapter records, that he came down to the saints which dwelt at Lydda," where meeting a man named Eneas, who had kept his bed eight years, sick of the palsy, he healed him by a word. "And all that dwelt at Lydda, and Saron (a neighbouring town) saw him, and turned to the Lord." After this, at the particular desire of the disciples, he went to Joppa, a sea-port town of Palestine, south of Cesarea, and a few miles from Lydda ; where he raised to life a Christian woman, called Tabitha, or in Greek Dorcas, remarkable for piety and charity, who after her death had been washed, and laid in an upper chamber. This miracle also procured many believers throughout all Joppa. Here Peter remained sometime at the house of one Simon, a tanner. In the 10th chapter of the Acts, we have an account of the first particular call and admission of the Gentiles into the Church of Christ, in the person of Cornelius, a centurion of the band called Italian, stationed in Cesarea, for the government and good order of the province to which Judea was annexed. This Roman officer was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always."-Although bred an Heathen, he was not an idolator, but worshipped the one true God, and instructed his family in this first principle of all sound religion. By what means he had acquired those enlightened sentiments we are not told; but it is very probable, that the exalted descriptions of the Deity found in the Scriptures, (which had been long translated into the Greek tongue, and so communicated to a great part of the world) were his means of information. For no man of a clear understanding and unprejudiced mind, honest and sincere in a search after truth, could hesitate a moment about believing in one God, there represented as the maker of heaven and earth, all wise, all powerful, gracious, bountiful, and good," in whom we live and move and have our being," in preference to that rabble of divinities |