CHAPLAIN TO THE LATE, AND PRESENT, VISCOUNT HILL, AND LATE VICAR OF STANTON, SALOP. LONDON: S. W. PARTRIDGE & Co., 9, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND SAML. HARRIS & Co., 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT, 1880. PREFACE. THE following discourses embrace the events which took place, as related in the Acts of the Apostles, between the death of Christ and Peter's preaching to Cornelius at Cæsarea, during which period the gospel was exclusively shut up to the Circumcision. That period, a period too much lost sight of, involved three years and a half, and Peter's preaching to Cornelius, his kinsmen and near friends, was illustrative of the meaning of the keys as given to him by Christ, he being singled out from the twelve Apostles to the special honour of being the first among them who should preach the gospel to the Gentiles, or the Uncircumcision. At the time pointed out in prophecy, and in accordance with Christ's selection of him for the purpose, a special direction was given to him by the Holy Spirit to go to Cornelius. In obedience to the Divine Command he went, and in preaching the gospel to Cornelius and his friends he unlocked the door of the kingdom of heaven to the Uncircumcised |