TEXT. 27 To God, only wise, be glory, through Jesus Christ, for ever. Amen. PARAPHRASE. commandment of the everlasting God) to the gentiles of all nations, for the bringing them in, to the obedience 27 of the law of faith. To the only wise God be glory, through Jesus Christ, for ever, Amen. THE EPISTLE OF ST. PAUL TO THE EPHESIANS; WRIT IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 63, OF NERO IX. SYNOPSIS. OUR Saviour had, so openly and expressly, declared, tó his disciples, the destruction of the temple, that they could, by no means, doubt of it; nor of this consequence of it, viz. that the on, customs or rites of the mosaical law, as they are called, Acts vi. 14, and xxi. 21, were to cease with it. And this St. Stephen, by what is laid to his charge, Acts vi. 13, 14, seems to have taught. And upon this ground it might very well be, that the apostles and church of Jerusalem required no more of the convert gentiles, than the observance of such things as were sufficient to satisfy the jews, that they were not still heathens and idolaters. But, as for the rest of the mosaical rites, they required not the convert gentiles (to whom the mosaical law was not given) to observe them. This being a very natural and obvious consequence, which they could not but see, that if by the destruction of the temple and worship of the jews, those rites were speedily to be taken away, they were not observances necessary to the people of God, and of perpetual obligation. Thus far, it is plain, the other apostles were instructed, and satisfied of the freedom of the gentile converts from complying with the ritual law. But, whether it was revealed to them, with the same clearness as it was to St. Paul, that the jews |