and conferred on them the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit. We find him afterwards at Lydda, healing Eneas, who had been eight years confined to his bed by palsy; and at Joppa raising Tabitha from the dead.

He who had opened the gate of the kingdom of heaven to the Jews, was called on also, in the case of the Centurion Cornelius and his family, to open the same gate to the Gentiles. In consequence of a divine mission, he preached to them the Gospel, and while he was preaching it, "the Lord gave testimony to the word of his grace," and shed forth on them abundantly the Holy Ghost.

On his return to Jerusalem, he was cast into prison by order of Herod-Agrippa, with the intention of his being speedily publicly put to death, but was miraculously delivered by an angel.

At the meeting of what is ordinarily termed the council or synod of Jerusalem, Peter asserted strongly the freedom of believing Gentiles from all obligation to observe the law of Moses, and urged the circumstance of the conversion of Cornelius and his family, as an irrefragable proof of the doctrine which he taught. Some time after this, being at Antioch, he acted on this liberal principle, by maintaining an unrestricted freedom of intercourse with the converted Gentiles, till a fear of offending some Jewish Christians, zealous for the law, induced him, from a mistaken notion of expediency, to "withdraw himself." This inconsistent rather than unprincipled conduct, drew on him the honest reproof of the Apostle Paul, who in a very convincing manner shows that he was now contradicting by action what he had asserted in words, and building up again what he had destroyed.

We have no further account of the Apostle Peter in the New Testament. A careful attention to the hints met with in authentic Church history, has led the best informed writers to believe, that, having returned to Judea from Antioch, he remained at Jerusalem for some years, and that he then returned to Antioch or Syria, and from thence visited

those provinces mentioned in the inscription of this Epistle, and formed an acquaintance with those Churches for whose edification his two Epistles were intended. On leaving these parts, he probably went into the Parthian Empire, where he appears to have been labouring when the Epistle was written. The remaining history of the Apostle is involved in obscurity. It is not impossible that he went to Rome after Paul had left it for the last time; and there, now an old man, sealed his testimony with his blood, and obtained the crown of martyrdom, being put to death by the order of the inhuman Nero. It is storied that he was crucified with his head downward-himself observing with characteristic affection and humility, "that he was unworthy of the honour of being crucified in the same way as his Master was." The observation savours so much more of the morbid piety of what is called ancient Christianity, than of simple apostolic humility, as to go far to discredit the story. It seems certain, however, that he was crucified, and that thus was the enigmatic prophecy of our Lord explained by its fulfilment, in which he signified by what death Peter should glorify God -John xxi. 18-19, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me."

Such is a short outline of the more important facts known in reference to the venerable writer of this Epistle.d

Peter describes himself as an Apostle of Jesus Christ. The word apostle signifies a person sent by another, a messenger. The term is in the New Testament generally employed as the descriptive appellation of a comparatively small class of men, to whom Jesus Christ entrusted the organization of his Church, and the dissemination of his religion among mankind. At an early period of his ministry

d For the authorities of the above statement, see note D.

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"he ordained twelve" of his disciples, "that they should be with him." These he named apostles. Some time afterwards, "he gave to them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of disease;" and "he sent them to preach the kingdom of God." To them he gave "the keys of the kingdom of God," and constituted them princes over the Spiritual Israel, that people whom God was to take from among "the Jews and the Gentiles for his name." Previously to his death he promised them the Holy Spirit, to fit them to be the founders and governors of the Christian Church. After his resurrection, he solemnly confirmed their call, saying, "As the Father hath sent me, so send I you;" and gave them a commission to "preach the gospel to every creature." 5 After his ascension, he, on the day of Pentecost, communicated to them those supernatural gifts which were necessary to the performance of the high functions he had commissioned them to perform; and in the exercise of these gifts, they, in the Gospel history, and in their Epistles, with the Apocalypse, gave a complete view of the will of their Master, in reference to that new order of things of which he was the author. They "had the mind of Christ." They spoke "the wisdom of God in a mystery." That mystery "God revealed to them by his Spirit," and they spoke it "not in words, which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." They were "ambassadors for Christ," and besought men "in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God." They authoritatively taught the doctrine and law of the Lord; they organized Churches, and required them to "keep the traditions," i. e. the doctrine and ordinances "delivered to them."

The characteristic features of the apostles as official men were, that they had seen the Lord, and been eye and ear

'Mark iii. 14; Matt. x. 1-5; Mark vi. 7; Luke vi. 13; ix. 1.

2 Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30.

3 John xiv. 16, 17, 26; xv. 26, 27; xvi. 7-15.

4 Καθώς απεσταλκε με ο Πάλης, καγω πέμτω υμας.

5 John xx. 21-23; Matt. xviii. 18-20.

6 Acts ii.; 1 Cor. ii. 16; ii. 7, 10, 13; 2 Cor. v. 20; 1 Cor. xi.

witnesses of what they testified to the world;1 that they had been called and chosen immediately by Christ; that they were infallibly inspired to declare his doctrine and laws;3 that they possessed the power of working miracles; and that their commission was strictly speaking catholic, extending to the whole Church,-to the whole world."

It must be obvious, from this scriptural account of the apostolical office, that the apostles had-could have, in the strict sense of the term-no successors. Their qualifications were supernatural, and their work once performed, remains in the infallible record of the New Testament for the advantage of the Church and the world in all future ages. They are the only authoritative teachers of Christian doctrine and law. All official men in Christian Churches can legitimately claim no higher place than that of expounders of the doctrines, and administrators of the laws, found in their writings. Few things have been more injurious to the cause of Christianity, than the assumption, on the part of ordinary office-bearers in the Church, of the peculiar prerogatives of "the holy Apostles of our Lord Jesus." Much that is said of the latter is not at all applicable to the former, and much that admits of being applied, can be so, in accordance with truth, only in a very secondary and extenuated sense.

To this, the highest and holiest office ever held by mere man, the author of this Epistle had been called by his Master; and it would appear that in the exercise of its important functions his labours were chiefly, though not exclusively, devoted to his "brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh." Though there is no ground for the assertion, that Peter was the Prince of the Apostles, or had even a perma

1 John xv. 27; Acts i. 21, 22; 1 Cor. xv. 8; ix. 1; Acts xxii. 14, 15.

2 Luke vi. 13; Gal. i. 1.

3 John xvi. 13; 1 Cor. ii. 10; Gal. i. 11, 12; John xiv. 26.

'Mark xvi. 20; Acts ii. 43; 1 Cor. xii. 8-11; 2 Cor. xii. 12.

52 Cor. xi. 28; Acts xvi. 4; 1 Cor. v. 3-6; 2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. 10.

* Vide Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, Lect. v.; Kitto's Cyclopædia of Bib. Lit. vol. i. p. 179, &c.

7 Gal. ii. 8, 9.

nent presidency among them, yet there can be no doubt he stood very high in the estimation of his brethren-was among those who "seemed to be pillars,"" the very chiefest apostles."

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II. OF THOSE TO WHOM THE EPISTLE IS ADDRESSED.

The persons to whom the Epistle is addressed, come next to be considered. They are described first, generally, as "elect," or chosen, and then, particularly, both as to their external circumstances and to their spiritual state and character. With regard to the former, they are "the strangers scattered abroad, throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." With regard to the latter, they are "elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, through sanctification of the Spirit, to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

It has been, and is, a question among expositors, who are the class of persons to whom this Epistle is addressed. It is plainly addressed to Christians, and to Christians resident in the countries specified; but, according to one class of interpreters, it is addressed to the Jewish converts resident in these regions; by another class, it is considered as addressed to the Gentile converts resident there; by a third class, it is considered as addressed to those who are called "proselytes of the gate,"-persons by birth Gentiles, but who had embraced Judaism, and had afterwards been converted to Christianity.

As

We apprehend that the true view of the matter is, that the Epistle was addressed to the converts generally, whether Jews or Gentiles, residing in the countries mentioned. a majority of these were Jews, this circumstance, along with the fact that Peter was a Jew, and the Apostle of the Circumcision, sufficiently accounts for the fact, that the circumstances and duties of the persons addressed are so frequently, I had almost said so uniformly, spoken of, in

1 Gal. ii. 9; 2 Cor. xi. 5.