effluence from Him who filleth all in all, as so many scattered rays from the Father of lights, powerless almost, or very limited beyond the bosom into which they had descended, because so scattered, yet still derived from Him "who divideth to every man severally as He will," and faint emblems of that concentrated glory which was to be shed upon the world through the Sun of righteousness.
The case of Cornelius is very remarkable in this respect, as indeed one should expect the calling of the father of the Gentile Church to have something peculiar, as well as that of the father of the first people of God. Two different points in his history have accordingly been seized upon, and made the Scriptural basis of distinct theories: his previous holiness—of the school-notion of grace of congruity—the descent of the Holy Ghost previous to his Baptism—of the separation of the grace of the Sacrament from the ordinance[1]. Each rests upon the same false assumption, that the works done by Cornelius were done in his own strength, "before" and independently of "the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit," (Art. 13); since otherwise there were no question, on the part of the Schoolmen, of "grace of congruity;" for as the prayers, the almsgiving, the fasting of Cornelius were the fruit of faith in God, and of the guidance of His Spirit, the imparting of "grace after grace" has nothing to do with the question of human fitness. It is but God's ordinary method of dealing with us, to proportion His subsequent gifts to the use which we have made of those before bestowed. "Take from him the pound and give it unto him who hath ten pounds. And they said unto him, Lord! he hath ten pounds. For I say unto you, that unto every one who hath shall be given."
- ↑ P. Martyr ad Rom. vi. "Nor are regeneration and renovation offered to us in Baptism, as though we had them not in any wise before. For it cannot be denied, that adult believers have justification also, before they are baptized." In proof whereof, he instances Abraham (Rom. iv.) and Cornelius (as, indeed, the case of Cornelius is brought forward by every one of this school, who would make the Sacraments into outward ordinances); and he himself hence infers, that by Baptism we are visibly (and only visibly) engrafted into the Church.
