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Thus, under the influence of heavenly power, and with the divine
co-operation, the doctrine of the Saviour, like the rays of the
sun, quickly illumined the whole world; and straightway, in
accordance with the divine Scriptures, the voice of the inspired
evangelists and apostles went forth through all the earth, and their
words to the end of the world.
In every city and village, churches were quickly established, filled
with multitudes of people like a replenished threshing-floor. And
those whose minds, in consequence of errors which had descended to them
from their forefathers, were fettered by the ancient disease of
idolatrous superstition, were, by the power of Christ operating
through the teaching and the wonderful works of his disciples, set
free, as it were, from terrible masters, and found a release from the
most cruel bondage. They renounced with abhorrence every species of
demoniacal polytheism, and confessed that there was only one God, the
creator of all things, and him they honored with the rites of true
piety, through the inspired and rational worship which has been planted
by our Saviour among men.
But the divine grace being now poured out upon the rest of the nations
Cornelius, of C'sarea in Palestine, with his whole house, through
a divine revelation and the agency of Peter, first received faith in
Christ; and after him a multitude of other Greeks in Antioch, to
whom those who were scattered by the persecution of Stephen had
preached the Gospel. When the church of Antioch was now increasing
and abounding, and a multitude of prophets from Jerusalem were on the
ground, among them Barnabas and Paul and in addition many other
brethren, the name of Christians first sprang up there, as from a
fresh and life-giving fountain. And Agabus, one of the prophets who
was with them, uttered a prophecy concerning the famine which was about
to take place, and Paul and Barnabas were sent to relieve the
necessities of the brethren.
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