of the best clues to the finding out the true sense and meaning of the Gospels and Acts, to consider them with a view to these periods, so it will be a great help to us in reading the Epistles, always to keep in view to which of these sorts of persons they were written; and particularly, that St. Paul wrote his Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, chiefly with a view to the idolatrous Gentiles, but now and then with a regard to the proselyted Gentiles; that St. Peter wrote to the proselyted Gentiles; and that the other apostles wrote to the Jews, at least those who wrote during the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul; and to observe the references which some passages in St. Paul's epistles have to the subdivision of the last period, which I shall speak more fully to by and by. These observations, and these alone, will, in my opinion, often afford us great assistance in Scripturecriticism, where it is very much wanted. Instances of this kind are the four Essays: the first being an account of the dispensation of the Spirit; the second, both of the dispensation of Jesus and of the Spirit; the third, the subdivision of the ministry of the Spirit; the fourth, the second subdivision of the ministry of the Spirit, and the unknown period of the third subdivision.

That I may not be misunderstood in what I have just now said of the different obligations the different sorts of people preached to were under, and of the different doctrine that was preached to them, I mean no more than this: that the Jews were under an obligation to observe all the laws of Moses, as the laws of their country; that the proselytes of the gate were obliged to observe some of those laws, as the terms on which they were entitled to some civil privileges when they were in Palestine; and that the rest of the Gentiles were entirely free from all of them. The sum of the doctrine that was preached in common to these three sorts of men was, that they could obtain justification and pardon, God's favour, acceptance, and eternal life, only on faith and repentance. The different doctrine that was preached to them according to these different obligations which they were under was, that a Jew ought to continue a Jew, and remain subject to all the laws of Moses; that a proselyte of the gate was to continue a proselyte of the gate, and subject only to those laws after his conversion that he was subject to before; and that the rest of the Gentiles remained entirely free from any of them but withal, that if the Jews hoped to obtain God's favour by observing the law; or if the proselytes of the gate subjected themselves to more of the laws of Moses after their con

version to Christianity than before; or if the other Gentiles subjected themselves to any after their conversion to Christianity, all these three sorts of men "subverted their own souls, sought justification by the works of the law, and made the death of Christ of no effect."

But to return. The first of these periods is from the year 33 to the year 41. The second is from the year 41 to the year 45. The third is from the year 45 to the year 70, the end of the Jewish age, or the destruction of the Jewish state and nation, which took away all the obligations the Jews were under to all the laws of Moses, and that the proselytes of the gate were under to some of them, and consequently destroyed the distinction of the three periods; all men being then bound only to faith and repentance, and a subjection to the laws of those countries where they lived.

It will be of some use to divide each of these three periods into their lesser periods, as I havė done in the Abstract of the Abstract. But it will be found absolutely necessary to subdivide the third period into three; namely, the period in which I endeavour to show that the gospel was preached to the idolatrous Gentiles, and that it was not known to be preached to them by any of the church of Jerusalem (which I apprehend to be from the year 45 to the year 49); the period in which, as I believe, it was

known to three of the apostles; namely, Peter, James, and John, and concealed from the rest of the church of Jerusalem (which I apprehend was from the year 49 to the year 58); and the period in which it was known to the whole church at Jerusalem, which I apprehend was from the year 58 to the year 70.

I propose this to the learned, with the diffidence that becomes a scheme so new as this, even in this knowing age. I own too, that it is not without some difficulty one can conceive how so great an event as the conversion of the idolatrous Gentiles, and the gospel that Paul and Barnabas preached to them, should be kept near four years from the knowledge of any of the Jewish apostles, and thirteen years from the rest of the church of Jerusalem. I confess this startled me extremely at first; yet, I think, if the following circumstances are considered, they will very much lessen, if not quite remove, the difficulty with my reader, as they have with me.

1st. That there were at that time no posts, nor any fixed stated way of correspondence, in the world.

2d. That there was then very little intelligence between the Jewish believers in distant places. We have a strong instance to this purpose in the case of Saul, who was not known so much as to be a disciple by the apostles, or

church of Jerusalem, three years after his conversion; ; nor then believed to be so, on his attempting to join himself to them, till they were certified of the miraculous event of his conversion by Barnabas.' This is altogether astonishing, considering how great a persecutor of the churches he had been; how much rest they all had on his conversion; how remarkable the conversion of a man so distinguished for learning, for zeal for the law, as well as fury against the Christians, must have been; what wonderful circumstances attended it (a voice and a light from heaven, a vision to Ananias and him, his being miraculously struck blind, restored to his sight, and filled with the Holy Ghost); preaching and disputing with great skill and success in the synagogues at so great a city as Damascus, afterwards in Arabia, and then again at Damascus; both of them in the neighbourhood of Palestine. How much easier is it to conceive how the conversion of the idolatrous Gentiles, so much more distant from Palestine, as the Lesser Asia, Macedonia, and Greece, might be concealed from all the church of Jerusalem four years, and from the body of it very near thirteen? especially when it is considered,

3d. That there was then no correspondence

I See Acts ix. 26. and Gal. i. 18.

2 Acts ix. 31.