Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/349

Rh (Luke xix. 24, 25). "Unto you who have there shall be added; for he who hath, to him shall be given." (Mark iv. 24, 25). On the other hand, Cornelius was not then first sanctified, when "the fell on all them which heard the word," but when he beforetime "feared  with all his house, gave much alms to the people, and prayed to  alway." For through Him alone could he have prayed acceptably. He alone putteth the spirit of holy fear into man's heart. He was, then, as a Heathen, sanctified; but because the sanctification of a Heathen who feared, fell far short of the holiness following upon the Christian birth, , by a succession of visions, prepared the Centurion to "hear all the things commanded of ," and the Apostle to preach them: and the first-fruits of the Heathen world was one, whom had already, in a high measure, hallowed, that the pre-eminence of the kingdom of Heaven might be the more manifest, in that it was one universal kingdom, wherein all should receive remission of sins through the blood of , wherein not "the publicans and harlots" only might be cleansed and purified, but also "those who feared  and worked righteousness" might find their "acceptance." Cornelius was already, in a measure, sanctified; and therefore, who limits not His blessed workings, either to one nation, or to one kind of moral disposition, or of moral evil, but absorbs all the countless varieties of things in heaven and things in earth, animates them all, and fashioneth them "according to the working, whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself;" so He received into His universal kingdom all, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, wise or foolish, obedient or disobedient, whoever would now hear His voice and follow Him. And though His Gospel was, and is still, principally received in its fulness and its simplicity by "the foolish, and the weak, and the base things of the world, and things which are despised," yet has it shown its power in giving the true wisdom, and might, and nobleness to those who, in man's school, were already "wise, and mighty, and noble;" and as the first Jewish disciples of the of the world were those who already followed the austere and self-denying Baptist, the Virgin St. John, and St.