[79] Calvin, in his commentary on Acts x. 12, has some excellent remarks on the scope and meaning of this vision. "I think that hereby is shown to Peter that the distinction which God hitherto made had now been removed. For as He had made a difference between animals; so by the choice of one nation for Himself, God showed that other nations were common and unclean. Now the distinction between animals being removed, He consequently shows that there is no longer any difference between men, and that the Jew does not differ from the Greek. Hence Peter is warned not to shrink from contact with the Gentiles as if they were unclean. There is no doubt but that God wished to encourage Peter to come boldly to Cornelius. Therefore, in order that he might be perfectly satisfied, God shows him as in a picture that the distinctions made by the law between clean and unclean had been abolished; whence he may conclude that the partition which had hitherto divided Jews from Gentiles was now overthrown. Now Paul teaches that this mystery had been hid from the ages that the Gentiles should be partakers with God's people and grafted into one body. Therefore Peter never would have dared to open the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven, unless God Himself had shown him that the wall had been removed and that entrance was free to all." He then goes on to consider the objection that St. Peter must have known of the call of the Gentiles from the words of Christ's commission to go and make disciples of all nations, and therefore this vision was unnecessary. "I answer that there was so much difficulty in the novelty of the whole state of affairs that the apostles could not at once grasp the position. They knew indeed in theory the prophecies and the precept of Christ about preaching to the Gentiles, but when they came to practice, struck by the awful novelty, they hesitated. Wherefore it is not wonderful that the Lord should confirm St. Peter's mind by a new sign." Calvin clearly recognised that the inspiration enjoyed by St. Peter did not remove his natural slowness of perception. The apostles were like the bulk of ordinary men, very slow to grasp the full meaning of a novel position or principle.
IV. The sacred historian next presents St. Peter at Cæsarea. The Apostle rose up obedient to the Divine communication, admitted the men who sought him, lodged them for the night, departed back the next day along the same road which they had followed, and arrived at Cæsarea on the fourth day from the original appearance to Cornelius; so that if the angel had been seen by the centurion on Saturday or the Sabbath the vision would have been seen at Joppa on the Lord's Day, and then on Tuesday St. Peter must have arrived at Cæsarea. St. Peter did not travel alone. He doubtless communicated the vision he had seen to the Church at Joppa at the evening hour of devotion, and determined to associate with himself six prominent members of that body in the fulfilment of his novel enterprise that they might be witnesses of God's actions and assistants to himself in the work of baptism and of teaching. As soon as the missionary party arrived at the house of Cornelius, they found a large party assembled to meet them, as Cornelius had called together his kinsmen and acquaintances to hear the message from heaven. Cornelius received St. Peter with an expression of such profound reverence, prostrating himself on the earth, that St. Peter reproved him: "But Peter raised him up, saying, Stand up: I myself also am a man." Cornelius, with his mind formed in a pagan mould and permeated with pagan associations and ideas, regarded Peter as a superhuman being, and worthy therefore of the reverence usually rendered to the Roman Emperor as the living embodiment of deity upon earth. He fell down and adored St. Peter, even as St. John adored the angel who revealed to him the mysteries of the unseen world (Rev. xxii. 8), till reminded by St. Peter that he was a mere human being like the centurion himself, full of human prejudices and narrow ideas which would have prevented him accepting the invitation of Cornelius if God Himself had not intervened. Cornelius then describes the circumstances of his vision and the angelic directions which he had received, ending by requesting St. Peter to announce the revelation of which he was the guardian. The Apostle then proceeds to deliver an address, of which we have recorded a mere synopsis alone; the original address must have been much longer. St. Peter begins the first sermon delivered to Gentiles by an assertion of the catholic nature of the Church, a truth which he only just now learned: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to Him": a passage which has been much misunderstood. People have thought that St. Peter proclaims by these words that it was no matter what religion a man professed, provided only he led a moral life and worked righteousness. His doctrine is of quite another type. He had already proclaimed to the Jews the exclusive claims of Christ as the door and gate of eternal life. In the fourth chapter and twelfth verse he had told the Council at Jerusalem that "in none other than Jesus Christ of Nazareth is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men wherein we must be saved." St. Peter had seen and heard nothing since which could have changed his views or made him think conscious faith in Jesus Christ utterly unimportant, as this method of interpretation, to which I refer, would teach. St. Peter's meaning is quite clear when we consider the circumstances amid which he stood. He had hitherto thought that the privilege of accepting the salvation offered was limited to the Jews. Now he had learned from Heaven itself that the offer of God's grace and mercy was free to all, and that wherever man was responding to the dictates of conscience and yielding assent to the guidance of the inner light with which every man was blessed, there God's supreme revelation was to be proclaimed and for them the doors of God's Church were to be opened wide.