[80] The aim of Christianity was to strike at the essential evil of the human heart. One darling sin of man is ostentation. It was one special vice of society in the age of the Incarnation, as students of the history of that period know right well. Now the real objection to the Divine method of action about Christ's Resurrection is that it was not ostentatious. If the human scheme had been adopted, it would simply have encouraged and sanctioned the ostentation which already dominated the world. But the Divine rule ever is this, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation," and in the very method of its development Christianity has taught men humility and self-abasement.
The sacred narrative then tells us that "while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word." The brethren which came from Joppa, strict observers of the law of Moses as they were, beheld the external proofs of God's presence, and were amazed, "because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost," which is further explained by the words, "they heard the Gentiles speaking with tongues and magnifying God." The gift of the Holy Ghost takes the same and yet a different shape from that in which it was manifested on the Day of Pentecost. The gifts of tongues on the Day of Pentecost was manifested in a variety of languages, because there was a vast variety of tongues and nationalities then present at Jerusalem. But it would seem as if on this occasion the Holy Ghost and His gift of speech displayed itself in sacred song and holy praise: "They heard them speak with tongues and magnify God." Greek was practically the one tongue of all those who were present. The new converts had been inhabitants for years of Cæsarea which was now one of the most thoroughly Greek towns in Palestine, so that the gift of tongues as displayed on this occasion must have been of somewhat different character from that exercised on the Day of Pentecost, when a vast variety of nations heard the company of the disciples and apostles speaking in their own languages. There is another difference too between the original outpouring of the Holy Ghost and this repetition of the gift. The Holy Ghost on the first occasion was poured out upon the preachers of the word to qualify them to preach to the people. The Holy Ghost on the second occasion was poured out upon the persons to whom the word was preached to sanction and confirm the call of the Gentiles. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are confined to no rank or order. They are displayed as the common property of all Christian people, and indicate the freedom and the plenteousness wherewith God's blessings shall be dispensed under the new covenant which was taking the place of the old Levitical Law.
And then comes the last touch which the narrative puts to the whole story: "Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." What a corrective we here find of those ultra-spiritual views which make shipwreck of faith! We have known intelligent men speak as if the apostles laid no stress upon holy baptism, and valued it not one whit as compared with the interior gift of the Holy Ghost. We have known intelligent members of the Society of Friends who could not see that the apostles taught the necessity for what they call water baptism. For both these classes of objectors these words of St. Peter, this incident in the story of Cornelius have an important lesson. They prove the absolute necessity in the apostolic estimation of the rite of Holy Baptism as perpetually practised in the Church of God. For surely if ever the washing of water in the name of the Holy Trinity could have been dispensed with, it was in the case of men upon whom God had just poured the supernatural gift of the Holy Ghost; and yet even in their case the divinely appointed sacrament of entrance into the sacred society could not be dispensed with. They were baptized with water in the sacred name, and then, cherishing that sweet sense of duty fulfilled and obedience rendered and spiritual peace and joy possessed which God bestows upon His elect people, they entered into that fuller knowledge and richer grace, that feast of spiritual fat things which St. Peter could impart, as he told them from his own personal knowledge of the life and teaching of Christ Jesus. It is no wonder that the history of this critical event should terminate with these words: "Then prayed they him to tarry certain days,"[81] expressing their keen desire to drink more deeply of the well of life thus lately opened to their fainting souls.