SERMON XV.--THE JEWISH REBELLIONS



1 PETER ii. 11.

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from
fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

I think that you will understand the text, and indeed the whole of
St. Peter's first Epistle, better, if I explain to you somewhat the
state of the Eastern countries of the world in St. Peter's time. The
Romans, a short time before St. Peter was born, had conquered all the
nations round them, and brought them under law and regular
government. St. Peter now tells those to whom he wrote, that they
must obey the Roman governors and their laws, for the Lord's sake.
It was God's will and providence that the Romans should be masters of
the world at that time. Jesus Christ the Lord, the King of kings,
had so ordained it in his inscrutable wisdom; and they must submit to
it, not for fear of the Romans, but for the Lord's sake as the
servants of God, who believed that he was governing the world by his
Son Jesus Christ, and that he knew best how to govern it.

That was a hard lesson for them to learn; for they were Jews. This
epistle, as the words of it show plainly, was written for Jews; both
for those who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as the true King of
the Jews, and for those who ought to have believed in him, but did