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Before the Christian dispensation, the j
world was divided into two grcai class¬
es — Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles
were all heathen — gross idolaters. Up
to this period Divine Devolution had j
been confined to the Jews. Xo com¬
mand was given to them to publish it
amongother nations. And consequent¬
ly they alone knew and worshipped the
true God. But the prophets, in lan¬
guage too plain to be mistaken, foretold
that the time would come when this
difference should no longer exist!; when
“ the middle wall of partition” which
separated Jews from heathen should be
broken down, and both be placed on a
common level. In accordance with these j
predictions, the birth of Christ was an- j
nounced by Angels to the shepherds as
“ good tidings of great joy which shall
be to all people” — and our Saviour said J
to his disciples, “ Go ye into all the i
world and preach the gospel to every .
creature.”
That the Jewish converts to Christi¬
anity, through ignorance of the nature
of Christ’s kingdom, did not at first ap¬
preciate the spirit of the Saviour’s com¬
mand we readily admit. Even Peter
did not fully understand this peculiari¬
ty of the gospel dispensation, till con¬
vinced by being scut to preach to the
heathen, Cornelius, (Acts, 10th Chap.)
This case, however, removed his scru¬
ples, and he exclaimed, “Of a truth I
perceive that God is no respecter of per¬
sons ; but in every nation, he that fear-
ctli him and worketh righteousness is
accepted of him.” Some of the breth¬
ren at Jerusalem objected to his proce¬
dure regarding Cornelius, and expostu¬
lated with him. But after hearing his
account of the matter, they too were
convinced and “ glorified God,” saj-iug,
“ Then hath God also to die Gentiles
granted repentance unto life.” (Acts
si. IS.)
Some may say, “ It is plain enough
that other people were to have the gos¬
pel upon the same terms with the Jews.
None but a Jew will deny this. But the
question with us is, did they have mis¬
sionaries in those days ? There lies the
difficulty.”
IV hat wo have said thus far is intend¬
ed to show that all those “ other peo¬
ple” who were to have the gospel as
freely ns the Jews were heathen, a fact
which many seem to forget when we
urge the duty of sending the gospel to
the heathen at the present day. This
point being established, we are ready
for the. question relative to missionaries,
and answer emphatically, they did have
missionaries in Apostolic times. The
idea that the missionary enterprise is a
new thing started by men in these lat¬
ter days, is a mistake. This we think
can be easily proved bv exhibiting the
plan adopted for the spread of the gos¬
pel in Apostolic times.
7
