the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[239] opened out, so as to be addressed indiscriminately to all classes. At first it is clear that the Gospel was preached only to Jews, and to proselytes in the strictest sense of that word, those, namely, who had submitted to the rite of circumcision, and conformed to the ritual law in all its extent. To this class many writers give the distinctive name of proselytes of righteousness. But besides these, there is said to have been another class, called ‘proselytes of the gate,’ who had formally abandoned polytheism and idolatry, but had not bound themselves by the restrictions of the Jewish ritual. Now, it is assumed by our author that Cornelius was a proselyte of this description, and, therefore, that at his conversion the door of the church was still not thrown wide open for the admission of all mankind. This second period of partial extension he supposes to terminate in the year 45, with the separation of Paul and Barnabas for a peculiar mission, as recorded in Acts XIII. 1. Then, according to him, really began the conversion of the heathen, of whom the first fruit was Sergius Paulus, the Roman governor of Cyprus; but the harvest of idolatrous Gentiles was for the first time brought into the church when the apostles openly declared their determination to turn to them from the Jews at Antioch, in Pisidia. From this time forward St. Paul so exercised his mission as to receive, by way of eminence, the distinctive title of Apostle of the Gentiles. But even now, our author conceives that this complete publication of the comprehensive scheme of their religion was unknown to the other apostles, and that it continued for four years longer without its being in the least degree suspected by any one at Jerusalem that any of the