[33] Acts 15:5-21. 5. "But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses.--And the Apostles and Elders came together for to consider of this matter.--And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the Gospel and believe.--And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as _he did_ unto us;--And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.--Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?--But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.--Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.--And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:--Simon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.--And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,--After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:--That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.--Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.--Wherefore my sentence is,--that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:--But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.--For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day." [34] After the word blood, the mention made of things strangled seems to have been rather for explanation than as a separate ordinance. Of strangling, instead of bleeding in the Jewish style,--what the effect would be, other than that of retaining blood, which the Mosaic ordinance required should be let out, is not very apparent. [35] Another observation there is that applies even to the Jews. By Moses were all these several things forbidden. True: but so were a vast multitude of other things, from, which (after the exceptions here in question) the prohibition is, by this decision, taken off. These things, still proposed to be prohibited, as often as they entered a synagogue, they would hear prohibited: but, so would they all those other things, which, by this decision, are left free.