und mind.

THE ESSENTIAL FAITH OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH.

The primitive Christian Church, gathered together in Jerusalem by the
command of Christ, and sanctified by the descent of the Holy Spirit,
consisted exclusively of Jews. The three thousand who were baptized on
that memorable occasion, the numbers which were daily added to the
Church, the multitude who were converted to Christianity during the next
fifteen years, were all Jews. In some cases, the process of conversion
was probably gradual; but in many, we know it was sudden, being caused
by the immediate and irresistible evidence of miracles. The change of
conviction which it was necessary to work in converting a Jew, was of a
nature which could be effected speedily and completely by the display
of one miraculous testimony. It was not a change in all, or any of his
views of Deity and Providence. He was not required to relinquish a
single article of religious belief which he had previously held under a
divine sanction. The fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion,--the
strict Unity of Jehovah,--he was authorized to retain. He was confirmed
in his dependence on all that the Prophets had spoken, in his
conceptions of the Divine attributes, and in his trust in Divine
Providence. The only question on which depended his adhering to the Old,
or embracing the New Dispensation, was, whether Jesus of Nazareth was or
was not the promised Messiah. As the Jews were bound by the requisitions
of their own law (Deut. xviii. 19) to receive implicitly whatever should
be taught in God's name by a divinely authorized prophet, their
reception of the doctrines of Christianity was a sure consequence of
their acknowledgement of the Messiah; and that their acknowledgement of
Jesus in that character was the only thing essential to make them
Christians we have consistent and abundant evidence in the whole
Scripture history. In the preaching of the Apostles to the people of
their own nation, we find no intimations of any needful change in their
conceptions of God, and of his mode of government. On the contrary, it
was because the Jews were already prepared for their reception of
Christianity by their belief in the Unity of God and the consistency of
his moral government, that they were the most immediately and the most
easily incorporated with the Christian church. For proof of this, we
refer to the whole of the discourse delivered by the Apostle Peter on
the day of Pentecost, and