CORNELIUS THE CENTURION.

Ir the scriptural record says nothing of the previous history of Cornelius, yet enough is indirectly brought before us to make it sufficiently plain that he was by birth and education a Roman citizen and Gentile idolater. And while the name suggests the idea that he was of the Cornelian family, the narrative is itself not unfavourable to this supposition, since he is there described as "a centurion of the band called the Italian band," and as residing in the city of Cæsarea, the seat of the Roman government in Judæa.

The tenor of the record leaves us also in little doubt that he had continued to worship his country's idols up to the time of his arrival in Palestine; that, in that eastern region, his attention was turned to the Jewish religion, whose professed origin was centuries more ancient than even the Roman name; and that his inquiries (in spite of all plausible human reasonings and à priori speculations) resulted in the sincere conviction that the Jehovah of the despised and subject Jews was indeed the living and true God, the creator of heaven and earth.

At all events, before the period at which the sacred writer takes up the centurion's history, Cornelius had already, through the grace of God, become one of those of whom the Apostle testifies, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." The Book of Nature can never produce in us this conviction. It can raise in us conjecture, wishes, and even faint and uncertain hopes. It is only the Book of Revelation which, as a truly divine instrument fitted for that very purpose, can make us firm believers. When Peter was at Joppa, Cornelius had already made no slight progress in the right way. Already having forsaken the creed of his fathers (how difficult a step this is we may learn, when we look at the hesitation and shrinking of doubting Jews and Papists in our own day), Cornelius was become a conscientious believer in, and a devout and habitual worshipper of, the revealed God of Israel. Consistently with this faith and worship, the centurion of the Italian band was a liberal giver of alms (Acts x. 2) to those poor Jews who stood in need of his assistance. And, doubtless, if his aid had been required in a similar case, he would, to the utmost of his ability, have cheerfully followed the example of another centurion, of whom certain Jewish elders said to the Lord, "He loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue" (Luke vii. 5). How beautiful is the testimony of the inspired penman to this sincere and seeking Gentile (a testimony which may be accepted as bearing

the stamp of divine authority), that "he was a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house." The candid reader of the whole of this simple scriptural narrative will believe that it was not a vague deistical notion of an unknown God which had won the homage of Cornelius; but that it was no other than the revealed God of Abraham and of Israel who was feared and worshipped by him and his house. Such testimony may be considered as raising the godly Roman soldier, so far as sincerity of spirit in seeking after divine truth is concerned, fully to the level of such upright and inquiring Jews as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa.

We pause here a moment to contemplate the divinely delineated portrait of an earnest Gentile inquirer, residing in the immediate vicinity of the ordinances of Moses and the worship of the Jewish synagogue. "He 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." The last clause may fairly seem to include, in the present instance, not only the idea of earnest, daily, habitual prayer, and, when his secular duties permitted him, at the sixth and ninth hour, the special hours of Jewish prayer, but also the renunciation of all his former idolatrous objects of worship. He prayed to the revealed Jehovah of Israel always, and to Him only.

The reader's attention is now called to the more eventful portion of this Gentile's history, in which we, who are also Gentiles, may well feel a deep interest. Let us carefully notice how Cornelius, just before the appearance of the angel, is seeking the Most High not only by prayer, but also by the addition of fasting to his supplications. As we read, we can accept it as by no means improbable, that the devout and God-fearing Gentile was, on that memorable day, praying and fasting before the God of Israel with earnest reference to some special" object of thoughtful inquiry then engaging all the time and attention that he was able to devote to an absorbing theme, in which, as plainly appears from his conduct, light and aid were to be looked for rather from God than from men.

If we are disposed to regard this supposition with favour, we may proceed to ascertain how it was that, on this particular occasion, a merciful and gracious God answered the centurion's fasting and prayers: for we shall thus learn, with much probability, what the special blessing was, which he was apparently so

a Cornelius, in his confidential intercourse with the devout members of his household, could not fail to hear much of the history of Christ and his disciples. In Acts viii. 40 we read that Philip "passing from Azotus preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea."

desirous to obtain. Now the God of Israel, whom he was thus sincerely seeking according to the light vouchsafed to him through the Jewish Scriptures, was pleased to answer the earnest petitions of his Gentile servant in the following manner. He sent an angel to enjoin the suppliant immediately to summon Peter from Joppa, who would remove his perplexities: for he would tell him, on divine and unerring authority, what course to take, and "speak to him words whereby he and his house might be saved."

Now we are well aware that it was Peter's one great mission to preach the good tidings of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. Hence, thus to summon Peter from Joppa to Cæsarea, at the express command of Him whom Cornelius had been seeking by prayer and fasting, was nothing less than to send for an apostle of Christ, at the divine command and with the divine approbation (that apostle being thus explicitly recognized by the Most High as a heaven-inspired teacher), in order to be fully instructed by him in the way of eternal life through Jesus of Nazareth, as the only and all-sufficient Saviour of fallen and lost man. It is not easy then to avoid the inference, that the subject of anxious thought and inquiry to Cornelius (already as devout and sincere an Israelite as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa, so far, at least, as his religious creed and personal piety were concerned, and, doubtless, sharing with them in the belief of a promised Messiah), was neither more nor less than the all-important question which had for some time agitated Judæa, and by which his own mind was exercised,-" Is Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah promised to, and expected by, the descendants of Abraham?"

If we carefully reflect upon the particulars of this brief but striking narrative, there would seem to be little, if any, difficulty in receiving the view which has just been advanced. As the attention of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa had been arrested by the miracles and teaching of Jesus, and as they had thus been compelled, as honest inquirers, on the strength of such evidence, to believe that he could not but be a teacher sent from God, so would such a conscientious proselyte to the Jewish faith as Cornelius (that faith embracing the promise of the King Messiah) be deeply moved by what he must have frequently heard from trustworthy sources of the wonderful works, and hitherto unheard-of doctrines, of the apostles of the crucified Jesus. For in Jerusalem and throughout Judæa they had fearlessly proclaimed, as heralds sent by God, that Jesus of Nazareth, having been rejected, crucified and buried, had risen from the dead on the third day, according to his own prophetic assur

ance while yet living among them, had appeared to them several times during forty days, and had, finally, ascended in their presence into heaven. The single-hearted Gentile inquirer would also be told that, in confirmation of their strange doctrine of a crucified Messiah-of a Saviour of the world who had been nailed to a cross at Jerusalem, the infamous Roman gibbetthey had wrought numerous and extraordinary miracles openly, and in sight of all the people, which the chief priests and rulers could not deny, in the name, and as the disciples, of this rejected, crucified, and risen Jesus.

We do not here presume to offer from our own imagination a detailed account of the several steps through which the mind of Cornelius passed in his path from Roman idolatry to the acknowledgment and daily worship of the living and true God, as revealed to men in the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet we cannot refrain from touching upon one salient point in connection with this subject, of which the probability is so great that it would be most unfair to regard it as imaginative conjecture. For how can we suppose such an earnest inquirer to have continued wholly ignorant of some of the most important and prominent portions of the prophetic Scriptures, accessible as they had long been in the Septuagint Version to the Gentile nations? Nor can we reasonably refuse to believe that this pious centurion, with a far greater knowledge of the history of Jesus than the Ethiopian eunuch possessed when accosted by Philip, must in the course of his study of the Old Testament have discovered and dwelt with deep interest upon the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Nay, what can well be more reasonably and scripturally probable, in connection with this subject, than that, in the course of his endeavours to ascertain how the apostles of Jesus reconciled their marvellous teaching with the Scriptures, so long received and honoured as of divine origin by the Hebrew nation, Cornelius should learn that they confidently appealed, in support of their Master's claims, to this very portion of Isaiah's prophecies," which may thus have had a very important influence on the mind and conscience of Cornelius, and on the fasting and prayers in which the angel of God found him engaged. For we must

⚫ Can the devout believer in the Holy Scriptures carefully meditate on such passages as Luke xxiv. 26, 27, and 44, 47, and doubt that Jesus, on those occasions, appealed, among other prophetic Scriptures, to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, as to predictions relating to Himself? With what a wondrous panoply from the Old Testament must the disciples have been furnished by their Master, at those memorable interviews, for future evangelical warfare. This view will certainly not be weakened if we refer to Matt. viii. 17; Acts vii. 35; and to 1 Peter ii. 24. Probably much of what we have in the Epistle to the Hebrews had been previously delivered by Jesus himself after his resurrection.

NEW SERIES.-VOL. V., NO. IX.

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carefully bear in mind that Cornelius, as a sincere believer in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament, would shrink from accepting the religion of Jesus as of heavenly origin and divine authority, unless it could be shewn to be in harmony with the law and the prophets.

It does not appear a difficult task to realize to ourselves how the devout centurion, already a proselyte to the Jewish faith, would first listen to a strange and marvellous tale, and how awakened interest would lead him to seek further information. Having acquired an ample store of important facts, as he sought patiently and conscientiously to sift and weigh the evidence thus brought before him, do we not spontaneously think of him as reasoning with himself somewhat after the following manner?"Well authenticated and superhuman miracles of a benevolent and merciful character, wise and holy teaching, blamelessness of life, a frank and open appeal to Moses and the prophets, and patient endurance of cruel persecution on the part, both of the Master who was crucified, and of his followers who seem to glory in that Master's cross, may well challenge serious attention and inquiry at least from me. The Jewish religion, for which I have renounced the idolatry of my fathers, is intimately and essentially connected with direct miraculous interposition from the God of Israel. What is it, then, that these devoted followers of the crucified Jesus say in support of the marvellous doctrine, which heaven itself seems to confirm by miracles wrought, not in secret corners, where only partisans and credulous dupes are present, but in the light of day, and in the presence of malignant and watchful enemies? And, above all, how is such teaching consistent, not merely with one or two solitary passages selected here and there, but with the general tenor of the inspired writings of Moses and the prophets, as contained in that Book, which these Galilean teachers still profess to reverence, and appeal to, as comprising the revealed word and will of the Most High? For they declare with one voice, that Jesus came not to overthrow, but to confirm and fulfil, the law and the prophets."

We who have access to the Old Testament (and who, with Cornelius, regard it as containing that portion of the revelation of the divine will, which was given before the incarnation of Jesus Christ), and to the four Gospels, and to the Acts of the Apostles, find it not a difficult task to understand how the replies which this God-fearing and inquiring soldier would receive from time to time, would be such as very soon to constrain him to say with Agrippa, though with far more sincerity and earnestness :"Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."