upon you no greater burden” [85:3] than the restrictions which are presently enumerated.  But it is to be observed that this is the language of “the elders brethren,” as well as of the apostles, so that it must have been used by many who made no pretensions to inspiration; and it is apparent from the context that the council here merely reproduces an argument against the Judaizers which had been always felt to be irresistible.  The Gentiles had received the Spirit “by the hearing of faith,” [86:1] and not by the ordinance of circumcision; and hence it was contended that the Holy Ghost himself had decided the question.  Peter, therefore, says to the meeting held at Jerusalem—­“God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.  Now, therefore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers, nor we, were able to bear?” [86:2] He had employed the same reasoning long before, in defence of the baptism of Cornelius and his friends.  “The Holy Ghost,” said he, “fell on them....  Forasmuch, then, as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,—­what was I that I could withstand God?” [86:3] When, then, the members of the council here declared, “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,” [86:4] they thus simply intimated that they were shut up to the arrangement which they now announced—­that God himself, by imparting His Spirit to those who had not received the rite of circumcision, had already settled the controversy—­and that, as it had seemed good to the Holy Ghost not to impose the ceremonial law upon the Gentiles, so it also seemed good to “the apostles and elders brethren.”

But whilst the abundant outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentiles demonstrated that they could be sanctified and saved without circumcision, and whilst the Most High had thus proclaimed their freedom from the yoke of the Jewish ritual, it is plain that, in regard to this point, as well as other matters noticed in the letter, the writers speak as the accredited interpreters of the will of Jehovah.  They state that it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them to require the converts from paganism “to abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication.” [87:1] And yet, without any special revelation, they might have felt themselves warranted to give such instructions in such language, for surely they were at liberty to say that the Holy Ghost had interdicted fornication; and, as the expounders of the doctrine of Christian expediency, [87:2] their views may have been so clear that they could speak with equal confidence as to the duty of the disciples under present circumstances to abstain from blood, and from things strangled, and from meats offered to idols.  If they possessed “the full assurance