matter, and none so abundant in instructing others in it, as Paul, the
because the children of Abraham, but the Gentiles by nature sinners and children of wrath, he tells them that even they were children of the devil.5
3. Though we should suppose the apostles not to have been thoroughly brought off from such notions, manners and language of the Jews, till after Christ's ascension; yet after the pouring out of the spirit on the day of Pentecost, or at least, after the calling of the Gentiles, begun in the conversion of Cornelius, they were fully indoctrinated in this matter, and effectually taught no longer to call the Gentiles unclean, as a note of distinction from the Jews (Acts 10:24), which was before any of the apostolic epistles were written.
4. Of all the apostles, none were more perfectly instructed in this matter, and none so abundant in instructing others in it, as Paul, the great Apostle of the Gentiles. He had abundance to do in this matter. None of the apostles had so much occasion to exert themselves against the forementioned notions and language of the Jews, in opposition of Jewish teachers, and Judaizing Christians, that strove to keep up the separation-wall between Jews and Gentiles, and to exalt the former, and set the latter at naught.
5. This Apostle does especially strive in this matter in this epistle to the Romans, above all his other writings; exerting himself in a most elaborate manner, and with his utmost skill and power to bring the Jewish Christians off from everything of this kind; endeavoring by all means, that there might no longer be in them any remains of these old notions they had been educated in, of such a great distinction between Jews and Gentiles, as were expressed in the names they used to distinguish them by, calling the Jews "holy," "children of Abraham," "friends," and "children of God," but the Gentiles "sinners," "unclean," "enemies," and the like. He makes it almost his