So that St. Peter, astonished
as he was, was forced by his own conscience and reason to say, 'Can
any man forbid water, that these should not be baptised, who have
received the Holy Ghost as well as we' (Jews)? Then he commanded
them to be baptised in the name of the Lord.
And what was the lesson which God taught St. Peter by this? St.
Peter himself tells us; for he opened his mouth and said, 'Of a
truth I see that God is no respecter of persons; but in every
nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted
by him.'
Now, my dear friends, this is (as the Lord Jesus Christ tells us)
God's everlasting law, 'That he that hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have more abundantly; but from him that hath not, shall
be taken away even that which he seems to have.'
So it was, as I have just shewn you, with Cornelius; and so it was
with those wise men. They were worshippers (as is supposed) of the
one true God, though in a dim confused way: but they had learnt
enough of what true faith was, and of what true greatness was, too,
not to be staggered and fall into unbelief, when they saw the King
of the Jews, whom they had come so many hundred miles to see, laid,
not in a palace, but in a manger; and attended not by princesses and
noblewomen, but by a poor maiden, espoused to a carpenter.
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