PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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^he g0U0^halb l^ibr^rg of Exposition. 
 
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 THE LIFE OF DAVID AS REFLECTED IN HIS PSALMS. 
 
 By the Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D., Manchester. 
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 ADAM, NOAH, AND ABRAHAM: Readings in the Book of 
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 By the Rev. Joseph Parker, D.D., London. Author of 
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 ISAAC, JACOB, AND JOSEPH. 
 
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 THE SPEECHES OF THE HOLY APOSTLES. 
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 THE GALILEAN GOSPEL. 
 
 By the Rev. Professor A. B. Bruce, D.D., Glasgow. 
 
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 THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD. 
 
 By the Rev. Professor Laidlaw, D.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 
 
 By the Rev. G. S. Barrett, B.A., Norwich. 
 
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 The Rev. HENRY ALLON, D.D., London. 
 
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 The Rev. DONALD ERASER, D.D., London. 
 
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^bc 1bou0eboK> Xibrar? of lEyposition, 
 
 THE SPEECHES OF THE HOLY 
 APOSTLES. 
 
THE SPEECHES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HOLY APOSTLES. 
 
 DONALD ERASER, D.D. 
 
 NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. 
 1882. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION . ... I 
 
 I. ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN AT' JERU- 
 
 SALEM 7 
 
 II. ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON THE 
 
 DAY OF PENTECOST .... 20 
 
 III. ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE IN SOLOMON^S 
 
 PORCH 41 
 
 IV. ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM . . 59 
 
 V. ST PETER AT CiESAREA TO A GENTILE 
 
 COMPANY 74 
 
 VI. ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS AT 
 
 JERUSALEM .95 
 
 VII. ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH IN THE 
 
 SYNAGOGUE II 3 
 
 VMI. ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE AS- 
 SEMBLY AT JERUSALEM . . . 129 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. )'AGE 
 
 IX. ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS . . 1 49 
 
 X. ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS AT MILETUS 1 67 
 
 XI. ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM . 1 86 
 
 XII. ST PAUL AT CiESAREA TO FELIX . . 202 
 
 XIIL ST PAUL AT C^ESAREA TO AGRIPPA . 220 
 
 XIV. ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME . . . 239 
 
 CONCLUSION . .... 256 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE book entitled "Acts of the Apostles " 
 reports words as well as deeds. Indeed, 
 the words of the Apostles were acts of brave 
 testimony that the Church must ever hold in 
 grateful remembrance. Words ! only words ! 
 yet they shook the world. The sword in the 
 hand has never gained such victories as the 
 sword of the mouth. It was the only sword 
 ever employed by the Lord Jesus Christ. He 
 bore witness to the truth. He spoke words 
 instinct with spirit and life. Simon Peter, 
 indeed, seemed to attach some importance to 
 " two swords " on the night of his Master's 
 arrest, and actually drew one of them to defend 
 Jesus. But the Lord calmly said — ** Put up 
 again thy sword into its place ; " and never 
 more do we hear of that Apostle touching 
 " carnal weapons." He had what was far 
 better — a tongue set of fire from heaven. 
 
 Our holy religion now rests on the word 
 A 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 written, but it was with the word spoken, viva 
 voce, that it began. The house of Israel was 
 moulded by what Moses and the prophets 
 " spake " anterior to any record of their words 
 in Books of the Old Testament ; and in like 
 manner the Church was founded and guided 
 by word of mouth from Jesus and the Apostles 
 many years before any book of the New Testa- 
 ment was composed. 
 
 To St Luke we are indebted for a report of 
 oral addresses delivered by Apostolic lips on 
 critical occasions. No doubt they are in most, 
 if not in all, cases given in an abridged form, 
 not in extenso; but the question is raised 
 whether, even as abridgements, they are to be 
 held authentic and read as representing speeches 
 which were actually made. A startling and 
 even shocking question to those who have never 
 admitted into their minds the idea that the 
 sacred books could be influenced, so far as the 
 human composition of them is concerned, by the 
 literary fashions of the times in which they were 
 written. But intelligent readers who can dis- 
 tinguish between Divine inspiration and literary 
 construction, know that every ancient as well as 
 every modern book bears some stamp of its own 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 literary period ; and, therefore, that it is a per- 
 fectly reasonable question, whether St Luke con- 
 formed to the fashion of the ancient historians 
 in writing out speeches for the chief personages 
 in his history. From Thucydides downwards 
 the Greek and Latin annalists and historians 
 freely drew on their rhetorical imagination, and 
 put characteristic speeches as they thought 
 proper into the mouths of eminent men. Must 
 we think that St Luke adorned his treatise in the 
 same manner ? or may we rely on his having 
 abstained from rhetorical invention, and having 
 taken pains to ascertain and record exactly 
 what the Apostle spoke } 
 
 Our persuasion is that we may so rely on the 
 authenticity of the speeches in the Book of 
 Acts. We think so mainly for the following 
 reason : — St Luke had already written for Theo- 
 philus a memoir of Jesus Christ, and therein 
 had reported many of the Saviour's words, and 
 even discourses of considerable length. It is 
 impossible to imagine that the EvangeHst com- 
 posed those sayings and ascribed them to Jesus. 
 He could not have composed them if he had 
 tried, for they were such words *' as never man 
 spake." He would not have composed them if 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 he could ; he had too much reverence to devise 
 utterances for the Son of God. We feel quite 
 sure that the words and discourses attributed to 
 our Lord in the third gospel are honestly re- 
 ported from the best sources of information open 
 to the Evangelist — the memory, perhaps the 
 written memoranda, of those who heard the 
 Saviour speak. This habit of reporting speeches 
 was therefore formed by St Luke in composing 
 his first treatise ; and it is reasonable to suppose 
 that he carried it into his second treatise also. 
 It was constructed throughout in the same spirit 
 of literary conscientiousness and reverence. The 
 earlier speeches which are given — those of St 
 Peter and St Stephen — could be recovered from 
 those who heard them, and who probably wrote 
 them down at the time of their delivery. That 
 of Stephen St Paul heard and never forgot. 
 Then the later speeches in the book — those of 
 St Paul himself — the historian could, without 
 much difficulty, obtain in an authentic form, for 
 he was much with the Apostle as an intimate 
 and trusted friend. 
 
 In some instances the report is confessedly 
 incomplete ; as on the day of Pentecost, when 
 St Peter's address is given up to a certain 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 point, and then wc are simply told that " with 
 many other words he testified and exhorted 
 them." In other cases the speech ends ab- 
 ruptly, being cut short by the arrest of the 
 speaker or a tumult in the audience. Take, as 
 examples, St Peter's address in Solomon's 
 Porch, and that of St Paul on the stairs above 
 the Court of the Temple. When the speaker 
 was heard without interruption the length of 
 the address was determined by the occasion. 
 Speeches in self-defence were judiciously short. 
 Discourses of an expository and didactic char- 
 acter were judiciously long. The greatness of 
 the theme deserved, and the large scope of the 
 argument drawn by the Apostles from ancient 
 Scripture required, that time should not be 
 grudged. So St Paul continued his speech at 
 Troas until midnight, and held the attention of 
 the Jews at Rome " from morning till evening." 
 The tone of all the speeches combines fear- 
 lessness and reverence. Fearlessness became 
 the speakers as champions of a world-subduing 
 faith. Reverence became them as messengers 
 charged with a heavenly communication to 
 mankind, and guided by the same Spirit that 
 moved the ancient prophets. They were 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 *' serious in a serious cause." To rhetorical 
 skill or finish the speeches make no claim, yet 
 they are never unskilful or awkward. As ex- 
 temporaneous addresses delivered by Jews and 
 Galileans they do not offer themselves for com- 
 parison with the carefully constructed orations 
 of the Greek and Roman masters of eloquence ; 
 yet some of them, e.g., St Paul's address at 
 Athens, and his speech before Agrippa, tried 
 by any just standard of criticism, will be pro- 
 nounced oratorical masterpieces. 
 
 The Apostles, indeed, had a transcendant 
 qualification, and one that never failed in an 
 emergency. A heavenly wisdom ordered their 
 thoughts and arranged their words. A heavenly 
 fire, kindling their intellect and heart, glowed 
 upon their lips. It was not so much they who 
 spoke, as the Holy Ghost. 
 
I. 
 
 ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 ** And in these days Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, 
 and said (and there was a multitude of persons gathered to- 
 gether, about a hundred and twenty). Brethren, it was needful 
 that the scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost 
 spake before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was 
 guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered among 
 us, and received his portion in this ministry. (Now this man 
 obtained a field with the reward of his iniquity ; and falling 
 headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels 
 giished out. And it became known to all the dwellers at Jeru- 
 salem ; insomuch that in their language that field was called 
 Akeldama, that is, The field of blood.) For it is written in 
 the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be made desolate, and 
 let no man dwell therein ; and His office let another take. Of 
 the men therefore which have companied with us all the time 
 that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning 
 from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received up 
 from us, of these must one become a witness with us of his 
 resurrection." — Acts i. 15-22. 
 
 THE place was an upper chamber in Jeru- 
 salem. The time fell in the interval be- 
 tween the ascension of Christ and the descent 
 of the Holy Spirit. The audience consisted of 
 about one hundred and twenty, who acknow- 
 
8 ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN 
 
 ledged Jesus as the Christ. Devout women, 
 including the Blessed Mother of our Lord, may 
 also have been present ; but, if so, according to 
 Eastern custom, they were not counted. This 
 audience was in a high condition of spiritual 
 receptivity, having been for several days occu- 
 pied in united prayer, waiting for that power 
 from on high which their Master had promised. 
 The speaker was Simon Peter, the leading 
 spirit among the apostles, to whom all were 
 ready to concede the right of initiation, though 
 no one ascribed to him, — nor did he ever claim, 
 — a right of supremacy. 
 
 Cut off by their faith in the Crucified One 
 from the confidence and sympathy of the 
 general population, those disciples drew the 
 closer to one another in brotherly love. They 
 are described as "the brethren," and the apostle 
 addressed them by that name — no mere formal 
 phrase at such a time, but one that meant much, 
 and touched a chord of feeling in every heart. 
 
 Then the speaker plunged at once into his 
 theme, dwelt on the sad death of Judas, the 
 traitor, and developed a proposal which the 
 occasion seemed to him to justify and require. 
 In this, however, he showed no peremptoriness, 
 
AT JERUSALEM. 9 
 
 but laid before the brethren the grounds on 
 which his proposal rested, and asked for their 
 concurrence. 
 
 The number of the apostles had been twelve, 
 evidently to correspond with the number of the 
 tribes of Israel. The Lord Jesus had spoken 
 of them as destined to sit on twelve thrones, 
 judging the twelve tribes of Israel. St Peter 
 pointed to the fact that this number of com- 
 pleteness was now broken by the fall of Judas ; 
 and yet he thought not so much of the vacant 
 throne as of the deficient witness. He had well 
 learned the last lesson which the Master had 
 impressed on the disciples before his ascension, 
 that the power about to come upon them was 
 not to lift them up at once into places of dignity 
 in a kingdom restored to Israel, but to fit them 
 for bearing witness to Him " in Jerusalem, and 
 in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth." No longer insisting on his 
 own preconceptions, as in former days, St Peter 
 meekly followed the indication of his Lord's 
 will ; and, therefore, it was to the necessity, not 
 so much of filling the twelfth throne in the 
 future kingdom, as of completing the band of 
 apostolic witnesses for immediate service, that 
 
lO ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN 
 
 he called the attention of the assembled 
 brethren. 
 
 The speech was confined to the one point, 
 and was, therefore, brief and practical. Indeed, 
 it was even more brief than the ordinary Eng- 
 
 ^lish bible indicates, if we take the details of the 
 suicide of Judas, in the i8th and 19th verses, 
 to be no part of the speech, but a parenthetic 
 explanation inserted by the historian St Luke. 
 The Revised Version adopts this view, and has 
 enclosed those verses within marks of paren- 
 thesis. In this the revisers have perhaps ex- 
 ceeded their proper function as translators, but 
 we incline to think that they are right. It does 
 not seem at all natural for one speaking in the 
 city of Jerusalem to tell how Judas bought a 
 field and how he died — matters which must 
 have been perfectly well known to his audi- 
 ence ; to talk of "the dwellers at Jerusalem " as 
 if he were a hundred miles away ; and to 
 translate the word aceldama to hearers who 
 must have understood it as well as himself 
 But it was quite natural and very proper for 
 St Luke to furnish such explanations to his 
 
 \ friend Theophilus. 
 
 Let us set down in order what we find most 
 
AT JERUSALEM. 1 1 
 
 worthy of consideration in the first apostolic 
 speech. 
 
 I . The becoming spirit in wJiich the traitor is 
 referred to. — There is no breath of angry pas- 
 sion, no excited protestation of horror at his 
 crime, or of exultation over his dreadful end, 
 no confident placing of Judas with Lucifer in 
 lowest hell. Simon Peter remembered that he 
 had himself played an unworthy part on the 
 night of his Master's arrest and trial ; and 
 though his fault had been a denial through 
 weakness — not a crime of deliberate betrayal 
 for the sake of a contemptible bribe, as was 
 the case with Judas, — yet the apostle was so 
 far admonished and subdued by the recollec- 
 tion of his own misconduct, and of the flight 
 of his colleagues, as to put away all harshness 
 in speaking even of the miserable traitor. " He 
 was guide to them that took Jesus." " He was 
 numbered among us, and received his portion 
 {KXrjpog, lot) in this ministry." This lot he for- 
 feited for filthy lucre's sake. " He fell away 
 that he might go to his own place." 
 
 Enough. The case was too grievous and 
 tragical for many words. He is not the wisest 
 or the best man who hurls the hardest words 
 
12 ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN 
 
 at sinners; and he is not the most judicious 
 servant of Christ who metes out to his fallen 
 fellow-servant the most rigorous condemnation. 
 St Peter in no wise palliated the crime of Judas. 
 He knew that it would have been better for 
 that man to have never been born. But he 
 cast no execration on his memory, as the Jews 
 have thrown stones with curses on the grave of 
 Absalom, the ungrateful assailant of Christ's 
 great ancestor. Judas had gone to his own 
 place, said the apostle, with a sigh rather than 
 a frown. It was the Lord alone who could 
 judge him, and ought to judge him. What 
 need that men should add their many stripes 
 of censure, or cast their stones of angry in- 
 crimination! 
 
 2. The manner of accoiintiiig for events con- 
 nected with the death of Christ.—St Peter had 
 learned this from the Lord himself. Both be- 
 fore His betrayal and after His resurrection, 
 Jesus had impressed on the disciples His ob- 
 ligation to suffer at Jerusalem, on the ground 
 that He must accomplish the Divine counsel 
 of redemption, and fulfil the intimations of 
 ancient scripture regarding the Messiah, His 
 sorrow and His victory. The apostle Peter 
 
AT JERUSALEM. I 3 
 
 at one time could not admit this into his mind, 
 and tried to dissuade the Master from going up 
 to Jerusalem to finish His course. But now he 
 saw the whole matter from the Lord's point of 
 view, and in the same light looked at the 
 treason of Judas as a link in the chain of 
 events which fulfilled the high purpose of 
 God. This consideration did not palliate the 
 traitor's guilt any more than it excused the 
 chief priests who bribed the infatuated man ; 
 but it accounted to the christian company for 
 such a crime being permitted to occur, and to 
 succeed in its object. 
 
 In the first sentence of the speech David is 
 mentioned as the prophet by whose mouth the 
 Holy Ghost had spoken from ancient days 
 " concerning Judas.'' Quotations are then 
 given from the book of Psalms; the servant 
 following herein the example of the Master, 
 who cited the 41st Psalm on the night in 
 which he was betrayed, in allusion to the in- 
 gratitude and treachery of Judas Iscariot.* In 
 the sorrow of King David was shadowed forth 
 
 * See John xiii. 18. Mark the significant omission of the 
 words "whom I trusted," which are found in the original 
 passage, Ps. xli. 9. 
 
14 ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN 
 
 the deeper sorrow of Christ ; and in the treason 
 of Ahithophel and his despairing death were 
 shadowed forth the treason and despairing 
 death of the Fallen Apostle. Guided by this, 
 St Peter quoted two other Psalms of the same 
 cast with the 41st. They are the 69th and 
 109th. From the former, he inferred the utter 
 rejection of Judas. From the latter, he argued 
 that the charge committed to Judas as one of 
 the twelve should now be transferred to another. 
 Our minds may perceive little need for quota- 
 tions and arguments from prophetic odes in such 
 a matter. The proposal to fill up a vacant 
 place may seem to us to have quite sufficient 
 support in considerations of practical expedi- 
 ency. But we must judge the speech by the 
 position of the speaker and his audience. They 
 were at a juncture which made every indication 
 of their duty from ancient Scripture most im- 
 portant and precious. Knowing that their Lord 
 had at all hazards fulfilled the Scriptures, and 
 realising their close relation to Him, they were 
 bound to be careful that they too, in continuing 
 the witness to Him on the earth, fulfilled the 
 Scriptures. They also must have foreseen that 
 they would be stigmatised as sectaries and 
 
AT JERUSALEM. I 5 
 
 renegades by the Jewish authorities ; and there- 
 fore they were bound to make it sure that they 
 were not departing from those sacred oracles 
 which were the glory of their nation, but were 
 obeying, according to those oracles, the will of 
 the God of Israel. 
 
 3. The view Jure given of the qualifications of 
 an Apostle. — He must have been of the company 
 who followed Jesus, and must have seen Him 
 after He had risen, so as to testify to the truth 
 of His resurrection. These conditions surely 
 preclude any continuance of the apostolic office 
 beyond the first century, and any restoration of 
 the Apostolate in modern times. In a secondary 
 sense it is fair enough to speak of Patrick as the 
 apostle of Ireland, Boniface as the apostle of 
 Germany, Ansgar as the apostle of Scandinavia; 
 but in the strict sense of the term there are no 
 successors of the original apostles. They were a 
 band of witnesses on whose well accredited per- 
 sonal testimony to Jesus Christ the Church was 
 built : as is indicated in the vision of the Holy 
 City — " The wall of the city had twelve founda- 
 tions, and, on them, twelve names of the twelve 
 Apostles of the Lamb." * 
 
 * Rev. xxi. 14. 
 
lb ST PETER TO THE BRETPIREN 
 
 Paul of Tarsus was subsequently made an 
 apostle. He had not been of the company with 
 Jesus in Galilee and Judea, but he saw the 
 ascended Lord that he might witness, not on 
 hearsay, but on personal knowledge, to the fact 
 of His having risen from the dead. Some, 
 indeed, have maintained that St Peter and the 
 other apostles, with the hundred and twenty 
 brethren, all mistook the path of duty on this 
 occasion, and improperly raised Matthias to the 
 apostolate. It is alleged that their conduct was 
 precipitate, and that if they had patiently waited, 
 they would have discovered that the Lord 
 intended the twelfth place to be occupied by 
 Paul. In support of this, it is pointed out that 
 there is no record of any apostolic work done 
 by Matthias, whereas Paul showed all the signs 
 of a great apostle. 
 
 With this view we have no sympathy, and 
 cannot admit that it has any ground of proba- 
 bility in its favour. It seems to us almost a 
 preposterous suggestion that the very first act 
 of the Christians at Jerusalem, and that a unani- 
 mous act, determined on after much prayer and 
 searching of the Scriptures, was a presumptuous 
 mistake. This is unlikely, and almost incredible 
 
AT JERUSALEM. I 7 
 
 ill itself ; and happily there is not the slightest 
 hint in the New Testament that any such error 
 was'committed. Then it is most unreasonable 
 to base any argument on the non-mention of 
 the acts of Matthias in St Luke's history ; for 
 in that respect he is in the same position with 
 Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, 
 and Simon ■^the zealot — six undoubted apostles, 
 of whose acts the New Testament affords no 
 record. What then was the position of St 
 Paul ? • In nothing was he *' behind the very 
 chiefest apostles ; " but he was not one of the 
 twelve apostles of the circumcision, who are to 
 judge the twelve tribes of Israel. His was a 
 separate appointment as apostle to the Gen- 
 tiles ; and in that capacity he accomplished his 
 work, and will enter into his reward. 
 
 After each of the apostolic speeches, St Luke 
 tells us something of the effect produced on the 
 audience. In the present case prompt action 
 was taken in accordance with St Peter's advice. 
 Two brethren, who possessed the necessaiy 
 qualifications, were put forward ; but no vote 
 was taken in the assembly, as between two 
 candidates. The decision was taken by lot, 
 
15 ST PETER TO THE BRETHREN 
 
 according to an Old Testament method of 
 appeal to Jehovah. This has been accounted 
 for on the supposition that the meeting was in 
 much doubt as to which of these honoured 
 brethren ought to be preferred ; but we would 
 rather trace it to a conviction in the minds of 
 all who were present, that an apostle required 
 to be designated by the Lord Jesus Himself 
 Apostolate could not be conferred by the 
 Church on whomsoever it pleased, as could the 
 permanent offices afterwards instituted, viz., the 
 Presbyter-Episcopate and the Diaconate. There 
 was no scruple about " looking out " and ordain- 
 ing deacons, or choosing and ordaining elders ; 
 but the twelfth apostle could be chosen and 
 appointed only by the Lord, who had chosen 
 and appointed the other eleven. The expres- 
 sion " be ordained " in the Authorised Version 
 (verse 22) is quite inaccurate. All that the 
 apostle said was that " one must become a wit- 
 ness " of the resurrection of Christ. Ordination 
 to the apostolate by Church authority there 
 could not be, any more than there could be 
 ordination to the function of a prophet. In 
 accordance with this principle, we afterwards 
 find St Paul solicitous to have it understood in 
 all churches that he had received grace and 
 
AT JERUSALEM. J 9 
 
 apostleship not from men, but from Jesus Christ 
 the Lord. He begins several of his epistles by 
 describing himself as " an apostle of Christ Jesus 
 through the will of God." 
 
 Matthias, then, was not ordained, but simply 
 "numbered with the eleven apostles," being 
 recognised from that day forward as clothed 
 with the same authority from the Lord Jesus 
 with which they were invested. And now all 
 things were ready. The twelve living stones 
 were laid in order in the foundation of the 
 Church — Peter, the Rock-man, being first in the 
 rank : and the time was at hand when Christ 
 should build thereon that Church against which 
 the gates of Hades cannot prevail. The twelve 
 witnesses of His resurrection were ready to open 
 their testimony so soon as they should receive 
 the promised Power. Till the descent of the 
 Power from on high, there was no more speak- 
 ing. It was a time to pray and to wait. The 
 initial organisation was complete. The twelve 
 apostles, the brethren, and the devout women 
 were together, and of one accord. One thing 
 only they lacked. But it was everything if 
 they hoped to succeed. It was that vitalising 
 energy of the Holy Ghost without which all 
 ecclesiastical organisation is weak indeed. 
 
II. 
 
 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON THE 
 DAY OF PENTECOST. 
 
 "But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, 
 and spake forth unto them, saying, Ye men of Judaea, and all 
 ye that dw^ell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and give 
 ear unto my words. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose ; 
 seeing it is but the third hour of the day ; but this is that which 
 hath been spoken by the prophet Joel : And it shall be in the 
 last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all 
 flesh : and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and 
 your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
 dreams : Yea and on my servants and on my handmaidens in 
 those days will I pour forth of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 
 And I will shew wonders in the heaven above, and signs on the 
 earth beneath ; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke : the sun 
 shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before 
 the day of the Lord come, that great and notable day : And it 
 shall be, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall 
 be saved. Ye men of Israel, hear these words : Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, a man approved of God unto you by mighty works and 
 wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, 
 even as ye yourselves know ; him, being delivered up by the de- 
 terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of 
 lawless men did crucify and slay : whom God raised up, having 
 loosed the pangs of death : because it was not possible that he 
 should be holden of it. For David saith concerning him, * I 
 beheld the Lord always before my face ; for he is on my right 
 hand, that I should not be moved : Therefore my heart was 
 
ST PETER ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 2 I 
 
 glad, and my tongue rejoiced ; moreover my flesh also shall 
 dwell in hope : because thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades, 
 neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption. Thou 
 madest known unto me the ways of life ; thou shalt make me 
 full of gladness with thy countenance.' Brethren, I may say 
 unto you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was 
 buried, and his tomb is with us unto this day. Being therefore 
 a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to 
 him, that of the fruit of his loins he would set one upon his 
 throne ; he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the 
 Christ, that neither was he left in Hades, nor did his flesh see 
 corruption. This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are 
 witnesses. Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, 
 and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy 
 Ghost, he hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear. 
 For David ascended not into the heavens : but he saith himself. 
 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I 
 make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. Let all the 
 house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God hath made 
 him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. 
 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, 
 and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles. Brethren, what 
 shall we do ? And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be 
 baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the 
 remission of your sins ; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost. For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to 
 all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call 
 unto him. And with many other words he testified and ex- 
 horted them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked genera- 
 tion."— Acts ii. 14-40. 
 
 WE are struck first with the calmness, then 
 with the concentrated force of this ad- 
 dress. How difficult the task which St Peter 
 undertook ! He had to speak on the spur of 
 
2 2 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 the moment, and in the midst of a scene of 
 great agitation; for the little band of Christians, 
 a hundred and twenty in number, was sur- 
 rounded by a vast throng of Jews and Prose- 
 lytes, native and foreign, excited as only an 
 Eastern crowd can be. The sight of such a 
 surging multitude, with their loud hum of 
 amazement, not unmingled with ominous cries 
 of mockery, might well have daunted, or at 
 least disconcerted the Galilean fisherman. It 
 is no easy thing for the most practised orator 
 to catch the ear, and hold the attention of a 
 confused crowd, unfavourably disposed to the 
 cause he seeks to advocate. Shakespeare 
 means us to recognise consummate skill in Mark 
 Antony's handling of the Roman citizens at 
 Caesar's funeral ; but he used flattering words, 
 and he spoke in order to rouse the people 
 against the assassins of Caesar, not against 
 themselves. The speaker on the day of Pente- 
 cost had to address the crowd at Jerusalem on 
 a theme which could not be welcome to them, 
 and to stir their consciences to self-condemna- 
 tion. Yet we see no trace of hesitation, no 
 symptom of embarrassment. The speech was 
 as well conceived and compacted as if it had 
 
THE DAY OFU'ENTECOST. 23 
 
 been premeditated for weeks. It contrived not 
 to irritate but to arrest and pierce the soul. It 
 soothed the tumult of unfriendly excitement, 
 and stirred a tumult of convicted conscience. 
 
 An opening for the apostolic address was 
 made by the rude jeering of some persons in 
 the crowd as to the source of that ardour which 
 glowed in the faces and uttered itself in the 
 words of the hundred and twenty brethren. 
 Probably these were home born Jews, who, not 
 recognising the languages spoken as did the 
 foreign Jews and Proselytes, began to mock 
 and say, " These men are full of new wine." 
 On this, Peter stood up with the other eleven 
 apostles, and these appear to have continued 
 standing during the address to indicate that 
 what their leader spoke was to be taken as 
 spoken by all. It was the speech not so much 
 of one apostle as of the twelve. 
 
 The charge of intoxication was easily dis- 
 posed of It was a fair specimen of the capa- 
 city of carnal men to judge those who are 
 spiritual. But St Peter brushed it away with a 
 sentence. It was enough to point out that it 
 was but the third hour of the day. What Jew 
 would have drunk wine at all on such a morning 
 
24 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 as the Pentecost, and before the morning sacri- 
 fice had been offered ! And even if one or two 
 could have been found so lost to shame, how 
 absurd to allege that here were one hundred 
 and twenty of such shameless persons, all care- 
 fully gathered together in a group ! Even the 
 heathen reckoned it disreputable to drink strong 
 wines in the morning. A passage in Cicero has 
 been pointed out, in which the revelry at An- 
 tony's villa is described as beginning so early 
 as nine o'clock — ab hora tertia; but this was re- 
 garded as the foolish excess of debauchees. 
 
 This reference to the hour sufficed to show 
 the extreme improbability and utter unreason- 
 ableness of the charge of intoxication made by 
 the mockers in the crowd. But the complete 
 refutation of it was furnished by the whole tone 
 and tenor of St Peter's address, which was calm 
 and well considered to a marvel. It showed 
 that he and his companions were certainly " not 
 filled with wine, wherein is excess." 
 
 They were "filled with the Spirit." The 
 apostle gave this as the true explanation of 
 that sudden fervour, and proceeded at once to 
 illustrate and support his statement by a felici- 
 tous quotation from one of the ancient prophets. 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 25 
 
 He knew well that in order to convince either 
 one person or many it is necessary to proceed 
 on some common ground, and the common 
 ground for his purpose was Holy Scripture. 
 No one in that multitude, however prejudiced 
 or impatient, could object to the citation from 
 Joel. Every one felt bound to listen while St 
 Peter quoted from memory a fine passage from 
 that venerable prophet. 
 
 It predicted an outpouring of the Spirit of 
 God at some future date. In Joel we read 
 " afterwards." St Peter quoted it thus, " In 
 the last days," as pointing to the age or dis- 
 pensation which was then opening, and which is 
 to close with the second advent of Christ. The 
 prophet said that the effusion of the Spirit 
 would be "upon all flesh." Doubtless he 
 thought, and the apostle also thought of all 
 flesh of Israel — all ages and both sexes — sons 
 and daughters, old men and youths, men- 
 servants and maidens. We know that the 
 Spirit was to fall on the Gentiles also, and 
 Simon Peter soon learned this, but at Caesarea, 
 not at Jerusalem. What he saw and taught on 
 the day of Pentecost was the beginning of a 
 fulfilment of Joel's prophecy in the descent of 
 
26 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 the Holy Ghost on men and women of Israel. 
 It was the sign of a new era. It was the in- 
 auguration of a time, the length of which no 
 man could define, but certainly ending with a 
 " great and terrible day of the Lord." 
 
 Such was the exordium of St Peter's speech. 
 We can see the mockers silenced, some of them 
 at all events, let us hope, ashamed. We can 
 see surprised and anxious faces turned on the 
 band of apostles, as their spokesman, so aptly 
 quoting Scripture, announced that the scene 
 before them was no mere casual phenomenon, 
 but was due to a Divine visitation predicted by 
 one of the earliest prophets. The crowd ceased 
 to sway and shout, listening to the calm, clear, 
 strong statement which carried with it such a 
 ring of certainty. 
 
 Then the speaker, pursuing his advantage, 
 addressed himself to the theme which occupied 
 his own heart and the hearts of all his col- 
 leagues. The Spirit had come upon them, not 
 that they might speak of Him, but that they 
 might preach Christ, and preach with power. 
 Accordingly, after his introductory expla- 
 nation to avert prejudice, St Peter began to 
 speak to the multitude regarding Jesus, who 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 2/ 
 
 had been crucified some weeks before, at the 
 time of the Passover. He declared that Jesus 
 had been raised from the dead and exalted to 
 heaven ; and sought to establish by quotations 
 from the Holy Writings which all the Jews and 
 Proselytes professed to reverence, that this 
 Jesus was both Lord and Messiah. It was a 
 very difficult thing to do, and full of risk to the 
 apostles and all their little company ; but St 
 Peter accomplished it with what we have 
 already described as a combination of calm- 
 ness and force, amply proving that the Spirit 
 now resting on him and his brethren was no 
 Pythonic phrenzy, but the " Spirit of power 
 and love and a sound mind." 
 
 In the speeches of the apostles we shall often 
 find a striking resemblance to the manner of 
 their Lord in this respect, that they never 
 dragged in their great theme abruptly or awk- 
 wardly, but introduced it with a happy art, 
 finding their starting-point in some saying 
 addressed to them, or some quotation from the 
 Old Testament which they had made. Thus, 
 in the present instance, St Peter found a start- 
 ing-point for preaching Jesus in the concluding 
 words of the passage he had cited from Joel, 
 
28 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 "Whosoever should call on the name of the 
 Lord shall be saved." Who was the Lord, 
 whose "great and notable day" should termi- 
 nate the dispensation of the Spirit ? St Peter 
 and his colleagues were prepared to say and 
 prove that it was no other than Jesus of 
 Nazareth who had so recently been rejected 
 and crucified. And then for the first time the 
 flagrancy of their treatment of Jesus was 
 charged on the conscience of the Jewish people ; 
 while, for the first time also, the fulness of the 
 Gospel was made known to them as a procla- 
 mation of the Saviour in His humiliation and 
 exaltation, and an assurance of salvation 
 through faith in His name. 
 
 Alike in manner and matter, the speech was 
 admirable. There was consummate tact in 
 advancing under the shelter of quotations from 
 the Old Testament, which the audience was 
 bound to receive with deference, and then leap- 
 ing out, as from under cover, at the right 
 moment, with bold unsparing language that 
 cut their consciences like a sword. And all 
 the while, as to the substance of the address, 
 the speaker turned neither to the right hand 
 nor to the left, lingered over no side issues or 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 29 
 
 subsidiary points, but bent all his energy on the 
 establishment by infallible proofs of his one 
 main proposition, that Jesus was Lord and 
 Christ. 
 
 All who were present had heard of this Jesus. 
 Most, if not all, of them had seen Him. Not a 
 few of them had joined in the cry, " Crucify 
 Him ! '* That passionate demand for His 
 death had not been, however, a really sponta- 
 neous cry of the people. It had been stirred 
 up by the ruling classes to glut their malice. 
 And now that a little time had passed, and hot 
 blood had been allowed to cool, there must 
 have been sore misgivings in the hearts of many 
 of the citizens, as well as of the visitors to 
 Jerusalem, regarding the justice of that hasty 
 crucifixion of the Prophet from Galilee. The 
 apostle soon dispersed those misgivings. He 
 reminded his hearers of " the mighty works 
 and wonders and signs " by which God had 
 accredited His Prophet. He appealed to the 
 multitude as to their own knowledge of those 
 things ; and their silence intimated that they 
 could not and did not dispute the fact that 
 many signs of a great Prophet of God had 
 appeared in Jesus. 
 
30 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 Having gained the point, St Peter proceeded 
 to show who the Prophet Jesus was, by refer- 
 ence to His (i) death, (2) resurrection, and (3) 
 ascension. He was the Christ. 
 
 I. The Crucifixion of the Prophet was fresh 
 in every memory. Was this fatal to a claim of 
 Messiahship .? The time had been when Simon 
 Peter would himself have said so ; but now he 
 saw otherwise, and stood there prepared to 
 show that the condemnation of Jesus to igno- 
 minious death, far from telling adversely, formed 
 an essential part of the proof that He was 
 indeed the Christ. It was in God's purpose 
 that the Christ should " suffer many things, and 
 be killed," and it was predicted in the ancient 
 oracles. Jewish teachers had turned away 
 their eyes from every indication of a suffering 
 Messiah, and Igoked only on the intimations of 
 His power and glory. But none the less were 
 those intimations contained in the Book of 
 God, none the less was their fulfilment secured 
 by His " determinate counsel." Therefore was 
 Jesus delivered into the hands of those who 
 hated Him ; and they, pursuing their own en- 
 vious and cruel purpose, crucified Him by the 
 hand of " men without the law " — the heathen 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 3 I 
 
 Roman soldiers. But it was really on the Jews 
 and their children that the blood of the Just One 
 lay. St Peter regarded the multitude before 
 him as all accessory to the great crime, and 
 had the courage to say, face to face with the 
 crowd, " Ye did crucify and slay." 
 
 2. Then, in a breath, holding his audience 
 still and subdued under the power of his words, 
 the speaker announced a fact which gave a new 
 turn to the whole history in the Resurrection of 
 the Crucified One. " Whom God raised up, 
 having loosed the pangs of death." This, in- 
 deed, had been announced in Jerusalem imme- 
 diately after the Sabbath of the Passover ; but 
 a counter story had been set afloat by the rulers 
 to the effect that the disciples of Jesus had 
 secretly abstracted His body from the tomb. 
 These conflicting rumours had left "the whole 
 matter in a haze of doubt. And now, for the 
 first time, the assertion that God had raised up 
 Jesus was made plainly and publicly in the 
 hearing of thousands of Jews. 
 
 But, before adducing witnesses to prove the 
 resurrection, St Peter referred again to the Old 
 Testament. With a fine skill which the Holy 
 Ghost had taught him, he prepared the Jews for 
 
32 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 receiving evidence in support of the fact, by 
 showing that it was an event far from incredible, 
 since it had been clearly foretold in one of the 
 prophetic Psalms. He quoted the i6th Psalm, 
 as previously he had quoted Joel, from the 
 Greek version, and pointed out that David had 
 spoken of one who should emerge from Hades, 
 and that, too, so soon after death, that his flesh 
 had seen or suffered no corruption. This could 
 not refer to King David himself, for he was dead 
 and buried, and there at Jerusalem was his un- 
 disturbed^sepulchre. The apostle maintained 
 that the Psalm referred to the Christ, and meant 
 that He, having died and been buried, should, 
 through resurrection, find for Himself, and open 
 to others, the path of life. 
 
 Of course this did not prove that Jesus was 
 that Christ. But, if it could be proved that 
 Jesus had risen soon after His death and burial, 
 His fulfilment of this oracle would go far to 
 place it beyond doubt that He was the very 
 Messiah, the hope of Israel. 
 
 And then the proof was adduced. Pointing 
 to the apostles who stood beside him, and per- 
 haps to the rest of the Christian company also, 
 St Peter said boldly and decisively, " This Jesus 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 33 
 
 did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.'' 
 They who stood there in face of the multitude, 
 giving such testimony at risk of their lives, had 
 seen Jesus ahve after He had been buried : and 
 therefore He must have been raised up. They 
 had spoken to Him and eaten in His presence ; 
 and some of them who could scarcely believe it 
 true, had been at pains to verify the fact, and 
 were convinced of it. How could any fact of 
 the kind have better attestation ? Those wit- 
 nesses were men of intelligence and character. 
 They knew their Master's person well and inti- 
 mately, and might be trusted to identify Him. 
 They knew that He had died to bear witness 
 to the truth, and could not be so perverse as to 
 think that they could promote His glory by 
 publishing a lie. They had not themselves ex- 
 pected His resurrection, and so could not have 
 been deluded by strong anticipation, or made 
 eager desire father to the thought. Moreover, 
 the evidence which they relied on was not con- 
 fined to one appearance which might possibly 
 be resolved into a dream or hallucination. They 
 saw the Lord at different times and places. 
 Now one or two saw him, now several, now 
 
 hundreds at once, during a space of nearly six 
 C 
 
34 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 weeks. There never has been, there is not now, 
 any way of setting aside such testimony, except 
 the way of maintaining that no evidence what- 
 ever can prove such a prodigy. Acknowledge 
 that God may and can raise the dead if He 
 pleases, and that such resurrection is capable of 
 proof on the part of those who have seen the 
 risen one, and you must allow that it is abso- 
 lutely certain that God raised up Jesus at Jeru- 
 salem. Jesus, therefore, was the Christ whose 
 delivery from Hades David prophesied. 
 
 3. The argument had to be carried one step 
 further ; and the speaker, who evidently studied 
 compactness of statement, not knowing how 
 long the crowd might continue to listen, pro- 
 ceeded at once to say, not merely that the 
 crucified Jesus was raised up, but also that the 
 risen Jesus was exalted by the right hand of 
 God. So far as their eyes could testify to such 
 a fact, the apostles might have said of this also — 
 "We are witnesses," for they had seen their 
 Master taken up from the earth, till a cloud 
 received Him out of their sight. 
 
 On this point, too, St Peter found support 
 in the Old Testament. It had been foretold 
 that One who was entitled to be addressed as 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 35 
 
 Lord should ascend and sit at the right hand of 
 God. The reference was to the iioth Psalm, 
 "Jehovah said to Adonai." Every one knew 
 who was meant by Jehovah : but who was 
 Adonai ? David could not have meant himself, 
 for he was not his own Lord ; far less could he 
 have given such a title to any conqueror among 
 the kings of the earth. The spirit had inspired 
 him to sing thus of the Lord Christ who has left 
 this world and gone to the Father, and is set 
 down with the Father on His throne. 
 
 But how could it be shown that Jesus had so 
 ascended, and was therefore at this point also 
 proved to be the Christ } The apostles could 
 not and did not say that they had seen Him 
 in heaven. They had stood gazing up into the 
 sky till they could discern His rising form no 
 more. The proof of His ascension was before 
 the eyes of the multitude then and there. On 
 the followers of Jesus, and on them only, had 
 descended the new energy from heaven, which 
 they affirmed to be the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. This was what Jesus of Nazareth had 
 promised to send to them from the Father; 
 and the great event of the day was evidence 
 that He had ascended to the right hand of God, 
 
2,6 ST PETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 and had received of the Father this blessing 
 now so copiously poured forth on His assembled 
 disciples and friends. 
 
 Thus the proof was completed at every point. 
 There was no declamation in St Peter's address 
 but compact statement and close reasoning, 
 leading up to the conclusion that God had 
 made the crucified Jesus both Lord and Christ. 
 It pierced the souls of the multitude with a tre- 
 mendous force of conviction. And now the 
 little band of Christians, with awed and grate- 
 ful hearts, beheld the crowd no longer mock- 
 ing, but subdued, ashamed, conscience-stricken. 
 Pricked in their hearts, many cried out — " What 
 shall we do } " The dreadful deed you speak 
 of is done and cannot be undone ! Is there any 
 thing possible to us still ^ Or is this crime past 
 remedy ? 
 
 A welcome interruption to the speaker! It 
 showed St Peter that he had struck the right 
 chord, and that the Holy^ Spirit was speaking 
 through him to the people. It enabled him to 
 follow up his address with a very pointed applica- 
 tion of its truth, and a very earnest appeal to all 
 who heard him. They could not undo their 
 own act of ingratitude and cruelty to the Holy 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 37 
 
 One. The only reversal of that act which was 
 possible had been effected already by the opera- 
 tion of God in raising up Jesus from the dead. 
 But this they might do, and should do without 
 delay — turn to Him whom they had rejected, 
 honour Him whom they had despised, and ob- 
 tain through His name the same blessing as 
 had fallen on the Christian company before 
 them. They should repent and be baptized. 
 Not improbably some of them had been par- 
 takers of John's baptism unto repentance ; but 
 their conduct had shown that they were far 
 from righteousness. Therefore they were now 
 called to a deeper repentance and a more power- 
 ful baptism. 
 
 " Repeiitr — It was not enough to be pricked 
 in heart, uneasy, perplexed, alarmed. Re- 
 pentance is more than vexation with one's self, 
 or even poignant sorrow. The apostle bade 
 the Jewish multitude reconsider the whole 
 matter in which they had blindly followed the 
 lead of the priests and elders, and so change 
 their minds regarding the Nazarene, and con- 
 sequently change their attitude towards Him 
 and His cause. 
 
 ^^ And be baptised every one of yon nnto the 
 remission of sins T — This implied that they should 
 
2,S ST TETER TO THE MULTITUDE ON 
 
 believe, and confess their faith — for faith is 
 always allied with repentance unto life, and is 
 the instrument of forgiveness. Those who sin- 
 cerely repented of their rejection of Jesus, must 
 now believe in Him as the Christ ; and in token 
 thereof were called to join the company of His 
 followers by openly receiving that baptism into 
 the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost, which, before His ascension, He had 
 authorised His apostles to administer. 
 
 The consequence of this would be, that they 
 would obtain not only pardon of their grievous 
 sin against the Lord, but the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost ; for the promise of this blessing was to 
 their nation first — to them and their posterity — 
 though also, God be praised, to the Gentiles — 
 " as many as the Lord our God shall call." 
 
 Then followed other words of exhortation, 
 not reported. It is always the expository and 
 argumentative substance of a discourse that is 
 best worth preserving — not the hortatory. But 
 St Luke sums up the appeal in these words — 
 " Save yourselves from this crooked generation." 
 This epithet the Lord Jesus had more than 
 once applied to the Jewish people ; and now 
 the apostle saw in the light of His Master's 
 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 39 
 
 rejection and death, how true was the charge which 
 it expressed. Their whole behaviour to Jesus 
 showed them wrong-headed and perverse. The 
 best thing that a man of that generation could 
 do for himself was to escape from it, to renounce 
 hostility to Jesus of Nazareth, and join the new 
 fellowship which was actuated by quite another 
 spirit, for it had the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Such was the speech or preaching of St Peter 
 on the day of Pentecost ; and the result was 
 glorious. The fisher of men let down a good 
 net into the deep, and caught a great draught 
 — drew to the shore of faith and peace three 
 thousand souls. He wrought no miracle to 
 astonish and impress them. It was better that 
 no sign or prodigy performed by the apostles 
 should interfere with the direct and solemn 
 application of truth to the conscience on that 
 eventful day. He performed no ceremony. 
 The notion of a Christianity that trusts to cere- 
 monial and celebration was quite foreign to the 
 apostolic conception. The speaker prevailed 
 by the word of his testimony. The three 
 thousand felt the power of the truth and yielded 
 to it — the Spirit' of the Lord disposing and en- 
 
40 ST PETER OX THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 
 
 abling them so to do. Thus they repented, 
 believed, were baptised, were pardoned, were 
 quickened to newness of life. 
 
 In one day ! The day of the Jews' harvest 
 home became a day of the ingathering of those 
 who were to be " a kind of first fruits of God's 
 creatures," and the manifestation of the power 
 of Jesus Christ, now Lord of the harvest, to 
 encourage and reward His labourers. It was 
 the typical and significant day of our dispen- 
 sation, a day which should not stand alone, but 
 should be expected to repeat itself again and 
 again. True, there cannot be a second or a 
 third descent of the Holy Spirit, any more than 
 there can be a second or a third incarnation of 
 the Son. But the Church should ask and look 
 for a continuance of the mighty working of the 
 Holy Ghost, and so for conversions by thou- 
 sands. The Church wants no other means of 
 increase than those by which it was founded — 
 (i) the fire of the Holy Ghost, and (2) the testi- 
 mony of anointed witnesses in sound speech 
 that cannot be gainsaid, testifying to Jesus, the 
 Saviour, that He is the Christ of Israel, and the 
 Lord of all. 
 
III. 
 
 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE IN SOLOMON S 
 PORCH. 
 
 "And as he held Peter and John, all the people ran together 
 unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly won- 
 dering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, 
 Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this man ? or why fasten 
 ye your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness 
 we had made him to walk ? The God of Abraham, and of 
 Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his 
 Servant Jesus ; whom ye delivered up and denied before the 
 face of Pilate, when he had determined to release him. But ye 
 denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer 
 to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life ; whom 
 God raised from the dead ; whereof we are witnesses. And 
 by faith in his name hath his name made this man strong, 
 whom ye behold and know : yea, the faith which is through 
 him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence 
 of you all. And now, brethren, I wot that in ignorance ye 
 did it, as did also your rulers. But the things which God 
 fore-shewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ 
 should suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and turn 
 again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may 
 come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord ; and 
 that he may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, 
 even Jesus : whom the heaven must receive until the times of re- 
 storation of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his 
 holy prophets which have been since the world began. Moses 
 indeed said, A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you 
 
42 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 from among your brethren, like unto me ; to him shall ye 
 hearken in all things whatsoever he shall speak unto you. And 
 it shall be, that every soul, which shall not hearken to that 
 prophet, shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. 
 Yea and all the prophets from Samuel and them that followed 
 after, as many as have spoken, they also told of these days. 
 Ye are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which 
 God made with your fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy 
 seed shall all the famiUes of the earth be blessed. Unto you 
 first God, having raised up his Servant, sent him to bless you, 
 in turning away every one of you from your iniquities." — 
 Acts iii. 1 1-26. 
 
 T N many respects this speech resembles that 
 -^ of the same apostle on the day of Pente- 
 cost. It was delivered to an excited crowd, 
 and on an occasion which rose suddenly. Yet 
 it is well conceived and well compacted, and 
 indicates a speaker self-possessed, or, what is 
 even better, possessed and guided by the spirit 
 of wisdom and of power. It has a tone quite as 
 deep as that of the previous speech, with which 
 we compare it, and even a further reach of 
 thought. 
 
 On the former occasion, St Peter had the 
 eleven apostles standing beside him, as joining 
 in the testimony. In this instance he had with 
 him only the apostle John, his special friend, 
 whose silent but courageous sympathy sustained 
 and fortified his spirit. To show that there 
 
IN SOLOMON S PORCH. 43 
 
 were two witnesses to Jesus Christ, though only 
 one speaker, St Peter spoke in the plural. 
 " Why fasten you your eyes upon us .? " Of 
 the Prince of Life " we are witnesses." 
 
 Not only was the address now before us 
 similar in style and manner to that which had 
 been delivered on the day of Pentecost ; but, 
 when we study the matter, we find that, though 
 the latter speech was no mere repetition of the 
 former in respect of thought, it followed exactly 
 the same track. 
 
 I. An explanatory introdnction. — On a former 
 occasion St Peter found his " door of utter- 
 ance " through a foolish and malicious gibe 
 which had been cast at the christian company, 
 ascribing their spiritual enthusiasm to the ex- 
 citement of wine bibbers. In the present in- 
 stance, he found it through a mistaken admira- 
 tion exhibited towards him and his colleagues 
 by the bystanders, who attributed the healing 
 of the cripple at the temple to their power or 
 holiness. The apostles earnestly disclaimed the 
 wonder-working faculty. St Peter had been 
 careful to say to the lame man, " In the name 
 of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." 
 He now explained to the people that the power 
 
44 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 dwelt in Jesus Christ, and was called into exer- 
 cise on earth by faith in His name. 
 
 The man on whom the cure was wrought had 
 probably lain by that door of the temple for 
 many months, if not years, for he was laid there 
 daily to ask alms. If so, he must have often 
 seen Jesus and the disciples as they went in 
 and out ; and yet he obtained no healing, be- 
 cause he had no faith in the power of the 
 Prophet of Nazareth to raise him up. But, 
 on this day, the faith of the two apostles drew 
 forth power from the Lord ; and the cripple 
 also, assisted by the words of St Peter, and 
 encouraged by the grasp of his right hand, 
 believed, and rose to his feet. So the glory 
 of this act of healing was due to Jesus only ; 
 and St Peter laid this down as an excellent 
 starting point for further discourse about the 
 w^onder-working Jesus. 
 
 At the same time he was careful to put the 
 fact beyond cavil or question. The man who 
 had been cured so suddenly was no stranger, 
 but one whom all the people knew. The cure 
 was complete, for he now had "this perfect 
 soundness." And all who stood by were 
 claimed as witnesses, for the thing was done 
 
IN SOLOMON S PORCH. 45 
 
 " in presence of you all.'' What an advantage 
 the appeal to the spectators gave to the apostles 
 in their subsequent defence before the Sanhe- 
 drim, the next chapter will show. 
 
 2. A declaration conceming Jesus as fulfilling 
 the Script 2 ires of the Old Testament. — In the 
 former address, the apostle had gone back in 
 his quotations to the Psalms and the book of 
 Joel ; in this he went back to the patriarchs, 
 and cited the words of Moses, and appealed to 
 all the prophets, from Samuel downwards. So 
 doing, he faithfully expressed the mind of his 
 Master, who did not wrench away his Jewish 
 and Galilean disciples from the reverence which 
 was due to the Scriptures that their fathers 
 honoured, but built all His claims and doc- 
 trines on those Scriptures, and showed that the 
 psalmists and prophets had prepared the way 
 for Him, and the patriarch Abraham had re- 
 joiced to see His day. 
 
 Such is the course which must always be 
 followed in teaching Christianity to a Jew. 
 The utmost pains must be taken to remove 
 the impression that a son of Abraham who 
 acknowledges Jesus as .the Christ apostatises 
 to a new religion, and deserts the faith of the 
 
46 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 patriarchs and prophets of Israel. And it must 
 be held and proved that the Jew who becomes 
 a Christian follows the faith of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob far more closely than a Jew who is 
 not a Christian, and pays a more intelligent 
 homage to Moses, and Samuel, and all the 
 prophets. 
 
 St Peter maintained that it was the God of 
 the patriarchs, the Portion of Israel, who had 
 sent Jesus to bless His people ; and described 
 Jesus as the Servant of Jehovah — a title given 
 to the Messiah in the latter part of the book of 
 Isaiah. But how could this be ? How could it 
 be credited that the rulers and religious leaders 
 of the people had been fatally mistaken about 
 this Jesus, and only a few men and women from 
 Galilee had known Him } The apostle felt that 
 he had to meet the difficulty : and he met it by 
 saying that the people of Jerusalem and their 
 rulers sinned in ignorance when they rejected 
 Jesus, and that this ignorance did not contra- 
 dict but rather fulfilled ancient oracles which 
 foretold that the Christ of God must suffer. 
 He appealed to his audience in regard to the 
 character and life of Jesus, that these were in 
 no respect unworthy of One who should be the 
 
IN SOLOMON S PORCH. 47 
 
 Servant of the God of their fathers. He had 
 done nothing worthy of death. On the con- 
 trary, He was the Holy and Righteous One, 
 and they had deeply sinned, though sinned in 
 ignorance, when they extorted from the Roman 
 governor sentence of death against Him, pre- 
 ferring as an object of clemency such a criminal 
 as Barabbas. One was Prince of Life ; the 
 other a destroyer of life ; and they chose the 
 latter. Jesus, who came to save men's lives, 
 had his own taken away ; while Barabbas, who 
 had violently taken away life, had his own 
 spared. 
 
 It is of some importance to observe that such 
 a vindication of Jesus before a multitude in 
 Jerusalem was possible so soon after His cruci- 
 fixion. Holy and blameless indeed must His 
 life have been, else some one surely would have 
 disputed the claim so boldly advanced in His 
 behalf, and would have alleged some fault or 
 moral defect to show that He was not so very 
 pure or righteous. Depreciation of lofty char- 
 acters is sweet to baser natures. How can we 
 account for the fact that no one challenged the 
 apostle's words in praise of Jesus, except on the 
 ground that the knowledge and conscience of 
 
48 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 all admitted them to be absolutely true. We 
 have already said that before the day of Pente- 
 cost there must have been strong and painful 
 misgivings among the people of Jerusalem as to 
 the justice of the crucifixion of the Galilean 
 Prophet at the recent feast of the Passover, and 
 what occurred at Pentecost must have seriously 
 increased those misgivings. Had it not been 
 for these, the apostle could scarcely have so 
 plainly stigmatised the crucifixion as a national 
 crime without raising a tumult of anger. 
 
 At the same time, he showed that this mal- 
 treatment of the Servant of God in no degree 
 invalidated His Messianic position, but rather 
 confirmed it. He was the prophet foretold by 
 Moses. He was the glory of that race of Abra- 
 ham in whom all the families of the earth were 
 to be blessed. But He must needs be rejected 
 and slain. " The things which God foreshadowed 
 by the mouth of all the prophets, that the 
 Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled." 
 
 3. A 71 announcement of the exaltation of 
 Jesus. — In this respect also, St Peter closely 
 followed his own Pentecostal speech. The time 
 had not yet come for teaching the sacrificial 
 character of the Lord's death, or the redemptive 
 
IN SOLOMONS PORCH. 49 
 
 virtue of His blood. Probably the conceptions 
 of such truth formed by the apostles themselves 
 were still vague and indefinite. They referred 
 to His suffering, not in order to glory in the 
 cross as did St Paul at a later period, but to 
 point out that the suffering was the necessary 
 prelude to His exaltation, and that the rejection 
 of their Master by the rulers and people at Jeru- 
 salem was no indication that He had been 
 rejected by God ; nay, that such sentence of 
 rejection had been divinely reversed by the 
 restoration of Jesus from the dead, and His 
 elevation to heavenly power and dignity. 
 
 The people of Jerusalem were not asked to 
 believe this without proof. Of the resurrection 
 of Jesus the apostles tendered themselves as 
 witnesses. There stood Peter and John, who 
 had seen the empty tomb, and had looked upon 
 and conversed with the Lord after He had 
 risen. They were willing to be questioned and 
 cross-questioned on the facts. And they were 
 prepared, at whatever risk to themselves, to 
 affirm the resurrection as a thing of which they 
 were absolutely sure. Of the elevation of their 
 risen Lord to power and glory in heaven they 
 could not testify, further than say that they 
 D 
 
50 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 had seen Him ascend from the earth till lost to 
 view among the clouds. But the healing of the 
 cripple on that day through faith in the name 
 of Jesus tended to prove both that the Saviour 
 lived, and that He was clothed with power. It 
 was not a dead Prince or Lord, but a living 
 and a mighty One who had wrought the instant 
 cure. 
 
 The meanings which underlie the crucifixion, 
 resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and 
 the results which issue from these facts, may be 
 more fully developed in modern teaching than 
 in the first addresses of apostolic preachers ; 
 but the facts themselves must retain their place 
 as central in all Christian testimony. It is a 
 vain imagination that the statement of such 
 facts has been superfluous or fallen out of date, 
 and that the power of Christianity now consists 
 solely in its inculcation of a pure morality, and 
 an unselfish ideal of life. It has such a lesson 
 to teach, such a pattern to display, in Jesus of 
 Nazareth ; but surely it is necessary to explain 
 who He was, and whither He has gone. It also 
 enforces its lesson, and the imitation of its pat- 
 tern, by motives more powerful than any other 
 religion supplies. It lays on the hearts of 
 
IN Solomon's porch. 51 
 
 Christians the constraining love and moral 
 authority of Jesus Christ ; but, for the full 
 action of such motives on the will, it is neces- 
 sary to show that Jesus Christ died, and why 
 He died— that He rose, and why He rose. So, 
 in order to reach the moral effect which is so 
 much desiderated, we must continue to relate 
 the facts which formed the staple of the earliest 
 Christian preaching, that Jesus died and rose 
 again, that He suffered and so entered into 
 glory. 
 
 4. A call to repentance in order to remis- 
 sion of sins. — This too was after the pattern 
 already set in the speech on the day of Pente- 
 cost. " Repent ! for ye have done evil ! Change 
 your minds concerning the deed done at the 
 Passover, and concerning Him whom ye then 
 denied and slew ! And turn ye ! for in reject- 
 ing this Jesus ye have departed from the God 
 of your fathers, and refused Him of whom 
 Moses and all the prophets testified." Stier 
 tersely explains the two terms which were 
 used, in these words: — "Repentance is the nega- 
 tive element, the penitent aversion to the by- 
 gone wickedness through an acknowledgment 
 of what is right. Conversion is the positive 
 
52 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 element, a believing turning to the future good 
 through confidence in mercy." '^ 
 
 Pressing on the consciences of his hearers the 
 fearful wrong that they had done, the apostle 
 showed a kindly wisdom in admitting at the 
 same time all that could be urged in their 
 behalf. It was true that in ignorance they had 
 done it. The Jewish multitude had no clear 
 conception of the heavenly origin and dignity 
 of Jesus. The Roman officers and soldiers had 
 no conception at all. They all had acted capri- 
 ciously and cruelly ; but they had not wittingly 
 rejected and crucified the Messiah. Thus they 
 had committed not a presumptuous sin, but a 
 sin of ignorance. And the apostle encouraged 
 the Jews to repent of it, by a promise that their 
 sin would then be pardoned. He used the 
 expression " blotted out," with allusion appar- 
 ently to the ancient mode of writing on tablets 
 covered with wax. If the scribe wished to 
 obliterate any part of the record, he had but to 
 invert the stylus in his hand, smooth the soft 
 wax, and remove all trace of the writing. So, 
 if the people would repent of their deed, and 
 turn to God, He would obliterate the hand- 
 
 * Slier on the Words of the Apostles, in loc. 
 
IN SOLOMONS rORCIT. 53 
 
 writing which was against them, blot out the 
 record of their sin. It was meant, not that God 
 would cover their sins with the virtue of their 
 repentance, but that, on their repentance. He 
 would cover and expunge their sin for His own 
 name's sake. 
 
 No man can really cover his own sin. No 
 angel can blot it out. Sterne wrote as a senti- 
 mentalist, not a divine, when he described the 
 recording angel as he wrote down a profane 
 expression, dropping a tear upon the word, and 
 blotting it out for ever. The Lord sends angels 
 on His errands of mercy and of judgment, but 
 when forgiveness is to be bestowed, He takes it 
 as His own prerogative. " I, even I, am He 
 that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine 
 own sake, and will not remember thy sin." 
 
 5. A glimpse of times of restitution. — At this 
 point the second speech to the people went far 
 beyond the first. Possibly the apostle gave 
 some such glimpse into the future on the day of 
 Pentecost ; but the reporter thought it enough 
 to state that "with many other words he testified 
 and exhorted them, saying, Save yourselves 
 from this crooked generation." On that great 
 occasion all attention was absorbed in guiding 
 
54- ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 to the Saviour, and baptising the thousands 
 whose hearts had been pricked. But now that 
 a second opportunity was given to him, St Peter 
 more distinctly indicated the hope for the future 
 which cheered his own spirit and the hearts of 
 his apostolic brethren. 
 
 The Authorised Version has an unfortunate 
 rendering — " When the times of refreshing shall 
 come " (v. 19). This seems to put off the for- 
 giveness of sin to some distant period, whereas 
 pardon is immediate on repentance and faith. 
 The Revised Version has it correctly — "That 
 so there may come seasons of refreshing from 
 the presence of the Lord." 
 
 The mention of " seasons of refreshing " 
 (v. 19), and " times of restoration " (v. 21) recals 
 the words which passed between the Lord Jesus 
 and His apostles before the ascension. They 
 asked whether He would at that time restore 
 the kingdom to Israel. In reply He told them 
 that it was not for them to know the times and 
 the seasons. The power they were about to re- 
 ceive would qualify them to do the work wanted 
 in their own age — to witness to Him far and 
 near. Then, when He had ascended, **two 
 men in white apparel " assured them that the 
 
IN SOLOMONS PORCH. 55 
 
 Lord would in like manner return from heaven. 
 No doubt the apostles expected that He would 
 soon return. 
 
 We must remember that Simon Peter was 
 speaking on Jewish ground to a Jewish audi- 
 ence. His mind dwelt on the hope of Israel as 
 set forth in the Scriptures of the prophets, from 
 Samuel downwards. They foretold a time when 
 the land should have rest, and, after long vicis- 
 situde and oppression, the people should sit at 
 peace. No doubt the prophets wrote of favour 
 to the Gentiles also ; but as yet St Peter knew 
 not the purpose of God concerning the union of 
 Jews and Gentiles in one Church ; nor had he a 
 clear conception of that inheritance laid up in 
 heaven, of which he afterwards wrote in his first 
 epistle. His mind was occupied with the 
 restoration of the kingdom to Israel, and the 
 accomplishment in Palestine of all the things 
 
 Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, 
 Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp. 
 
 It was the apostle's conviction that the 
 happy age for Israel would be introduced by 
 the return of the Lord Jesus from heaven ; and 
 therefore he preached that the men of Israel 
 should turn to the Lord whom they had re- 
 
56 ST PETER TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 jected, in order that He might soon descend 
 from heaven, and institute His kingdom of 
 peace. While He had been with them they 
 had not known Him, and therefore had for- 
 feited the things which belonged to their peace. 
 Now that He was withdrawn from them let 
 them turn to Him whom they had pierced, that 
 so He might the sooner return and make all 
 things new, and the Messianic age, so long fore- 
 told and hoped for, would at once begin. 
 
 So the apostle spoke according to the light 
 which he then possessed. He was quite un- 
 aware of the length of time which was to elapse 
 before the Saviour's return. In the last chapter 
 of his second epistle — the last thing we have 
 from him — we see how he thought of the second 
 advent after many years. He then perceived 
 that the Lord tarried, not with reference to the 
 Jews merely, but for the sake of all mankind, 
 '* wishing, not that any should perish, but that 
 all should come to repentance." He also came 
 to know that larger hope of which St Paul 
 wrote — the hope of a restoration of all things in 
 earth and heaven, and Christ as the glorious 
 Head. But though his thoughts needed widen- 
 ing, the Apostle Peter was quite correct in sub- 
 
IN SOLOMON S PORCH. 57 
 
 stance in the language he addressed to the 
 people of Jerusalem. And the lesson is good 
 for Gentile Christians as well as Jews, viz., that 
 the way to prepare and hasten the coming of 
 the Son of Man is to repent of our sins against 
 Him, and pray to Him, '' Come, Lord Jesus ; 
 come quickly ! " Then when He has come He 
 will bring in the reign of righteousness and 
 peace, of which we have heard so much from 
 the sweet harp of prophecy. 
 
 St Peter was still preaching Christ to his 
 audience, and explaining to them that God had 
 sent His Servant first to them, the men of Israel, 
 with the benevolent purpose of turning them 
 away from their iniquities, when he was roughly 
 interrupted by the Jewish authorities. He was 
 arrested along with his companion, St John, in 
 order to answer to the Sanhedrim for such 
 public teaching. But the preaching was not 
 without great reward. "Many of them that 
 heard the word believed, and the number of the 
 men came to be about five thousand." 
 
 A modern preacher of Christ may not be 
 stopped by violent hands, but he may be unex- 
 pectedly silenced by disabling disease, or may 
 
58 ST PETER IN Solomon's porch. 
 
 have one, or at most two, great opportunities as 
 Peter had in Jerusalem, and never have so wide 
 a door of usefulness again. Let him on every 
 occasion, great or small, so " redeem the oppor- 
 tunity," and speak the truth so plainly and so 
 earnestly, that, at what time soever his voice 
 may be silenced, the word of the Lord may still 
 '* have free course." 
 
IV. 
 
 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 " Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them. Ye 
 rulers of the people, and elders, if we this day are examined 
 concerning a good deed done to an impotent man, by what 
 means this man is made whole ; be it known unto you all, and 
 to all the people of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ of 
 Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, 
 even in Him doth this man stand here before you whole. He is 
 the stone which was set at nought of you the builders, which was 
 made the head of the corner. And in none other is there sal- 
 vation : for neither is there any other name under heaven, 
 that is given among men, wherein we must be saved." — Acts 
 iv. 8-12. 
 
 WHEN arrested by the temple guard, the 
 Apostles Peter and John were obliged 
 to spend a night " in ward," pending their 
 arraignment before the Jewish Council in the 
 morning. How vividly must it have recalled 
 to their minds the night, then so recent, when 
 their Master was seized by the guard, and after 
 a sleepless night, was brought before the Council 
 in the early morning, and pronounced worthy 
 of death ! At that time they were not able to 
 
6o ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 drink of His cup or be baptised with His bap- 
 tism: but now they were able. Out of weak- 
 ness they were made strong, and showed a glo- 
 rious example to all who in after times should 
 be called to suffer as Christians. They took 
 their places in the very front of the long histo- 
 rical procession of confessors and martyrs for 
 the Lord Jesus. 
 
 When the morning came, the Sanhedrim as- 
 sembled in force. The high-priestly family was 
 there, headed by the aged Annas. It was he 
 who, with his son-in-law Caiaphas, had been 
 most responsible for the condemnation of Jesus; 
 and the sight of these two men in their places 
 of authority might well have struck a chill to 
 the hearts of the two followers of Jesus. The 
 two great sects of the period were represented 
 in the Council, and, however they differed from 
 each other, were equally hostile to the name of 
 the Prophet of Nazareth. The Sadducees, to 
 which sect the priests belonged, were especially 
 incensed at the preaching of our Lord's resur- 
 rection from the dead, because it contradicted 
 one of their leading tenets. The Pharisees, if 
 they did not occupy the highest seats, were 
 the more numerous party, and though they 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 6 I 
 
 admitted the possibility of a resurrection, had 
 their own reasons for refusing to believe that 
 Jesus had risen, and were determined to sup- 
 press the testimony to that effect, which was 
 making such a stir in Jerusalem. They had 
 felt the sharp edge of our Lord's warnings and 
 reproofs, had bitterly resented His teaching, 
 had repeatedly sought to seize Him, being 
 prevented only by fear of the multitude who 
 regarded Him as a prophet, and had been the 
 most active in planning and accomplishing His 
 capture in the garden of Gethsemane. There- 
 fore, while the Sadducees were annoyed at the 
 apostolic witness to the risen Jesus, the Pha- 
 risees were vexed that the crucified Jesus, whose 
 rejection they had so anxiously contrived, should 
 be preached and honoured in the very courts of 
 the Temple. 
 
 Brought into the presence of this High Court, 
 the two apostles were interrogated upon the 
 healing of the cripple on the previous day. 
 The fact of the cure could not well be disputed, 
 for the man who was healed entered the council 
 chamber, and stood with the apostles, a witness 
 not to be shaken ; but the prejudice in the 
 minds of the councillors was shown in their 
 
62 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 avoidance of any acknowledgment of the act 
 of healing, merely using the phrase, " Ye have 
 done this." They also betrayed their hostile 
 feeling to the prisoners, by affecting to take 
 them for sorcerers or diviners, who had wrought 
 a cure, real or apparent, by some magical incanta- 
 tion — " By what power, or in what name, have 
 ye done this.'*" The object apparently was to 
 entrap the prisoners into an admission that they 
 had practised divination in the name of another 
 than Jehovah, in which case tljey might be 
 sentenced to be stoned to death. 
 
 It was in answer to such an inquiry, and with 
 full cognisance of such a deadly peril, that 
 Simon Peter spoke for his companion and him- 
 self. And what a speech ! How admirably 
 compact, and nobly courageous ! Remember 
 that but a few weeks or months before, this 
 man had been so alarmed at the imputa- 
 tion of being a follower of Jesus, as to deny 
 Him even with oaths ; and now see him stand, 
 calm and intrepid, before the whole Sanhedrim, 
 and speak even to the Chief Priests of what 
 they were least willing to hear. The change in 
 the man cannot be otherwise accounted for 
 than by the fact which the historian affirms, 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 63 
 
 that Peter was "filled with the Holy Ghost." So 
 was accomplished the Master's promise, " I will 
 give you a mouth and wisdom which all your 
 adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to 
 gainsay." 
 
 This speech of St Peter, being not only short, 
 but also very clear and direct, does not require 
 much exposition. 
 
 The apostle asked for what reason he and 
 his colleague were thus seized and interrogated. 
 With what error or offence were they charged ? 
 Was this judicial inquiry all about a good deed 
 done to an impotent man ? What fault in that > 
 Must one ask leave of the Council before doing 
 a kindness to a poor son of Israel ? And why 
 such vague language about the deed ? St Peter 
 brought it out roundly and distinctly, whether 
 the Council liked it or no, that the cripple was 
 undoubtedly healed. Twice he said it, " This 
 man is made whole.'' " This man stands here 
 before you whole." 
 
 Thus about the thing which had been done, 
 there must be no mistake. The only question 
 that could be raised was in reference to the 
 healing power ; and the apostle proceeded to 
 show that this was no magical charm or divina- 
 
64 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 tion. He had spoken to the cripple in the 
 name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth ; and the 
 healing power had issued from that Holy One 
 whom the priests and rulers of the Jews fool- 
 ishly imagined that they had for ever disgraced 
 and destroyed. One can see the frown gather- 
 ing on their faces, and the light of love and 
 courage brightening the countenances of the two 
 apostles at the mention of the name of Him 
 whom that very Council had so recently con- 
 demned. 
 
 Not knowing how long he might be permitted 
 to speak, St Peter packed into the space of one 
 or two sentences, and spoke promptly, what he 
 had to say to the Council regarding the sin of 
 rejecting Jesus, and God's sublime reversal of 
 the unjust sentence by raising up the rejected 
 and crucified One to be Prince and Saviour. 
 He had already gone over this ground in a 
 more deliberate manner in his two speeches to 
 the multitude ; but now for the first time he 
 had the opportunity to make this statement to 
 the very persons who had played the chief part 
 in the great crime committed at the Passover — 
 who had plotted against the life of Jesus, bribed 
 Judas to betray Him, pretended to find Him 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHKDRIM. 65 
 
 guilty of blasphemy, and then sent Him to 
 Pilate on a charge of high treason, and insisted 
 on His being crucified. 
 
 That the crucifixion was of their procuring, 
 though carried out by the Roman authorities, 
 those Sanhedrists could not deny, and did 
 not care to deny. But St Peter indicated an 
 aspect of the case, which, if true, was very 
 serious for them. They had professed to act 
 as men zealous for the honour of God, and 
 shocked at the blasphemous claims put forward 
 by the Prophet of Nazareth, who, as they 
 alleged, was no prophet, but a deceiver of the 
 people. But if God had accepted Him whom 
 they had rejected, and raised up Him whom 
 they had put to death, it followed that they 
 did not know the mind of God : they were 
 spiritually blind as well as envious and cruel. 
 And the apostles were there to testify fearlessly 
 that God had raised up Jesus from the dead. 
 It was useless to tell them the story that the 
 dead body had been stolen and hidden away. 
 They had seen Him alive after His resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 But how could such a thing be ? How im- 
 probable that the leaders of the nation should 
 
66 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 all have failed to recognise the Messiah, and 
 only these fishermen and a few other private 
 persons taken his part ? One can imagine 
 members of the council ready to exclaim, as 
 Simon Peter's bold words sounded through the 
 chamber — " The thing is incredible, impossible. 
 This is the holy Sanhedrim, filled with men of 
 reputation, who know the Scriptures, and are 
 presided over by the High Priest. It can- 
 not be that such a court should have so terribly 
 misjudged the character and claims of Jesus, 
 and put to death that Christ for whose coming 
 so many generations in Israel have waited and 
 prayed ! " The apostle anticipated this incredu- 
 lity, and quoted from the Psalter to show that 
 such a rejection of the Messiah was not merely 
 possible, but actually foretold in the Scriptures. 
 The suggestion, doubtless, was taken from 
 the apostle's recollection of his Master's lan- 
 guage to those chief priests and elders a few 
 days before His crucifixion. He then quoted 
 to them the words of the Ii8th Psalm: — 
 
 The stone which the builders rejected, 
 The same was made the head of the corner : 
 This was from the Lord, 
 And it is marvellous in our eyes. 
 
 The priests and Pharisees at that time did not 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 6/ 
 
 clearly understand the quotation, but they per- 
 ceived that it was directed against them, and 
 were all the more incensed against Jesus, and 
 bent on His destruction. But Simon Peter 
 remembered the quotation, and now repeated 
 it, pointing the charge directly against the 
 Jewish authorities in whose presence He stood. 
 " Set at nought of you builders." It was great 
 plainness of speech. " Your religious position, 
 O Sanhedrists ! is admitted. You are the hus- 
 bandmen of the vineyard who have killed the 
 Heir. You are the builders, bound by your 
 offices to erect the spiritual temple of the Lord, 
 and you have erred at the very foundation, and 
 by your wicked prejudice have set at nought 
 Him who is the true Stone of Israel." 
 
 Certainly those who have taken St Peter 
 himself for the foundation of the Church have 
 not been misled by him ; for both in speaking 
 and in writing* he laid special emphasis on 
 the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, and none 
 but He, is "the chosen corner stone, the sure 
 foundation." Wherever in the New Testament 
 a fundamental position is assigned to one 
 apostle, t or to the twelve,:}: or to the apostles 
 
 * I Pet. ii. 4-8. t Matt, xvi, 18. I Rev. xxi. 14. 
 
68 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 and prophets together,* it is evidently ascribed 
 to them as bearing that original witness to 
 Christ on which the Church rests ; and so the 
 truth is only made all the clearer that — 
 
 Christ is made the sure foundation, 
 And the precious Corner Stone ; 
 
 Chosen of the Lord, and precious, 
 Binding all the Church in one. 
 
 One sentence more and the apostle has 
 finished his speech. But he felt that he must 
 say it — he must preach the gospel to the San- 
 hedrim, so as to be clear of the blood of all who 
 heard him. In the spirit of his Master, he 
 wished to do good to those who despitefully used 
 him ; and, after the manner of his Master, he 
 rose from the consideration of an act of bodily 
 healing to the thought of moral and spiritual 
 healing, or salvation. To set Jesus Christ at 
 nought as they had done, and were still doing, 
 was the way to destroy themselves and their 
 city. To have faith in His name, as the two 
 apostles had, was the way to be saved and to 
 save others. Thus, while the council sought 
 his hurt, St Peter sought their salvation ; while 
 the council put him to the question as for life or 
 
 * Eph. ii. 20. I Cor. xii. 28. 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 69 
 
 death, he put before them a higher question of 
 life or death, salvation or perdition, to be deter- 
 mined by the attitude they should thenceforth 
 assume^toward Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom 
 they had crucified but God had raised from the 
 dead. 
 
 " And in none other is there salvation ; for 
 neither is there any other name under heaven, 
 that is given among men, wherein we must be 
 saved." It was on this sentence that Bengel 
 wrote his " Examination Sermon before Ordi- 
 nation." He was only in his twentieth year ; 
 and the sermon, which is extant, bears marks 
 of inexperience, but it breathes, as did Bengel 
 all his life long, a spirit of ardour towards the 
 Saviour; and the discussion of the text is pre- 
 faced with this short prayer — " O Lord Jesus 
 Christ! whose name is as ointment poured 
 forth, most salutary and refreshing, mercifully 
 grant us all to experience its grace and sweet 
 savour, that, being strengthened by its mighty 
 power, we may zealously follow Thee in life and 
 death, through honour and dishonour ! Amen." 
 
 So Jesus Christ was preached in the most 
 difficult spot that the preacher could have occu- 
 pied — the Council Chamber of the Jews — 
 
70 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 preached to the very men who were most 
 guilty of His blood. St Peter had not only no 
 fear, but also no desire to retaliate, no word of 
 menace, no thirst for revenge. He did not 
 even petition for his own discharge and that 
 of his fellow-apostle from custody. He forgot 
 it in his zeal for his Master's glory as a Saviour, 
 and his intense longing that even these San- 
 hedrists might receive salvation through the 
 Saviour's name. And with a fine union of 
 courage and humility said not ''ye must be," 
 but " we must be saved," including in one view 
 all who were gathered together in the chamber, 
 from the high priest downwards, with the apos- 
 tolic prisoners and the police who guarded them, 
 and the man who had been healed. Through 
 Jesus Christ alone must we, or any of us, be 
 saved. 
 
 It is a great saying, and one that has vastly 
 widened its application since it was spoken at 
 Jerusalem, for Jesus Christ has now been 
 preached in many lands and for many centu- 
 ries. How God will deal with nations and 
 tribes that have not heard of Jesus Christ and 
 His power to save, this saying does not deter- 
 mine. Such a problem had no place in the 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 7 1 
 
 thoughts of the apostles on that day. Enough 
 for their purpose, as also for ours, to say that 
 those to whom Christ is preached may and 
 must be saved only in and through His name. 
 
 Mark the effect of this brave and holy speech. 
 After the addresses of St Peter to the multitude 
 we hear of conversions by the thousand ; but 
 these Jewish officials were not at all so open to 
 conviction. Self-righteous Pharisees, and scep- 
 tical Sadducees of any nation are not easily 
 converted. 
 
 Unwilling to go into the pith of the matter, 
 the council occupied itself with questions on 
 the surface. How were those men — mere lay- 
 men, so to speak — so bold in their august pre- 
 sence ! Had they not been ? Yes ; they re- 
 cognised them (John was known to the High 
 Priest) as having been among the Galilean com- 
 panions of Jesus. And then came the lame and 
 impotent conclusion : Let the affair be hushed 
 up ! And such has often been the owlish 
 wisdom of personages high placed, but timid 
 about the spread of truth and knowledge. New 
 facts are inconvenient; let them be ignored. 
 Fresh light is a disturbing element ; let it be 
 put safely under a bushel. 
 
72 ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 
 
 But men who thus arrange to stifle what they 
 do not wish to admit, know Httle of the force 
 of truth, or the loyalty to it which is the 
 passion of noble minds. Peter and John 
 made a most memorable answer to the ordin- 
 ance of silence enjoined by the Sanhedrim. 
 "Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
 hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge 
 ye : for we cannot but speak the things which 
 we have seen and heard." Well for us, and 
 for all the world, that those witnesses could not 
 be brow-beaten, those preachers could not be 
 silenced. The testimony which they would 
 not abandon has gained the day, and become 
 the creed of all Christendom. It is Peter and 
 John who are strong to-day ; Annas and 
 Caiaphas who are weak. Christianity does 
 not stand at the bar of a Jesus-rejecting 
 Judaism to receive sentence. On the con- 
 trary, it summons such Judaism to answer for 
 itself. If Jesus of Nazareth was not the 
 Messiah, who is and where is your Messiah, ye 
 men of Israel ! Has not this Jesus done what 
 you have scarcely attempted to do — turned the 
 Gentiles from their idols, and spread over all 
 the world a knowledge of your Scriptures, and 
 
ST PETER TO THE SANHEDRIM. 73 
 
 a reverence for the law, the psalms, and the 
 prophets ? Has He not saved ; is He not now 
 saving thousands from their sins ; and is not 
 His the dominion that goes to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth ? What think you of the 
 conduct of your chief priests and rulers in 
 taking away His life, and preferring to Him 
 a bandit like Barabbas, a destroyer of life, and 
 not a saviour ? And what have you to say for 
 your continued rejection and hatred of One 
 whom all the world recognises as the greatest 
 son of Israel who ever lived ? When will you 
 see what is so obvious to all others who have 
 ever read the history, that Peter and John were 
 right, Annas and Caiaphas wrong? Jesus of 
 Nazareth is the Saviour of men, and you, even 
 as we, if saved at all, must be saved through 
 His name. 
 
ST PETER AT C.ESAREA TO A GENTILE 
 COMPANY. 
 
 ** The word which he sent unto the children of Israel, preach- 
 ing good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all) — 
 that saying ye yourselves know, which was published through- 
 out all Judaea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which 
 John preached ; even Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed 
 him with the Holy Ghost and with power : who went about 
 doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; 
 for God was with' him. And we are witnesses of all things 
 which he did both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem ; 
 whom also they slew, hanging him on a tree. Him God raised 
 up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest, not to all 
 the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before of God, 
 even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from 
 the dead. And he charged us to preach unto the people, and 
 to testify that this is he which is ordained of God to be the 
 Judge of quick and dead. To him bear all the prophets witness, 
 that through his name every one that believeth on him shall 
 receive remission of sins." — Acts x. 36-43. 
 
 THE Lord gave to Simon Peter " the keys 
 of the kingdom of heaven." They were 
 not keys of heaven, the apostle being porter at 
 the gate, as later superstition fancied. They 
 were not keys of the Church, militant or tri- 
 
ST PETER TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 75 
 
 umphant, but keys of the kingdom of heaven 
 on earth. The use made of them we learn from 
 this history. St Peter used a key at Jerusalem 
 to open the kingdom of heaven to the Jews; a 
 second at Samaria, to open the same kingdom 
 to the Samaritans; a third at Caesarea, to open 
 it to the Gentiles. These were from his point 
 of view the three divisions of the human race. 
 So, in the three places which have been named, 
 the apostle preached the word of life, and the 
 Holy Ghost fell on those who heard it. 
 
 We know that the Lord designed another, 
 not yet named in the history, to be His apostle 
 to the Gentiles. St Paul was to spread the 
 gospel among the nations more widely than 
 any one of the Twelve, to grapple more firmly 
 and skilfully with the religious and social 
 problems connected with the increase of Gentile 
 Christianity, and to establish more clearly the 
 freedom of the Church from the yoke of 
 Judaism. There was, however, obvious ad- 
 vantage in the employment of St Peter to 
 open the door of faith to the Gentiles. He 
 was known to all the brethren in Jerusalem 
 as a strict Jew in his way of thinking and his 
 adherence to hereditary usage ; and if such a 
 
76 ST PETER AT CvESAREA 
 
 man as he was satisfied of the extension of 
 God's grace to the Gentiles, his word to that 
 effect would go far to abate the prejudice, and 
 win the assent and sympathy of all the Hebrew 
 Christians. We have evidence of this in the 
 chapter following. 
 
 At Csesarea St Peter did not make the 
 occasion for his speech. It was made for 
 him by the Lord Jesus, who was now direct- 
 ing from heaven the activities of His servants 
 in the foundation and extension of the Church. 
 It was the Lord who prepared the centurion 
 Cornelius to hear, and at the same time pre- 
 pared the apostle to speak with a degree of 
 freedom from Jewish narrowness, and sympathy 
 with the Gentile mind, such as he never felt or 
 displayed till that eventful day. 
 
 The audience was quite different from those 
 crowds in Jerusalem which St Peter had pre- 
 viously addressed. Cornelius and his friends 
 were Gentiles by extraction : the centurion 
 himself almost certainly an Italian. A deep 
 furrow separated them in social life from Jews 
 and Galileans ; and yet, there was an approxi- 
 mation which tended in some measure to 
 facilitate the apostle's task. The Roman 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 'T] 
 
 military stationed at Caesarea could not be 
 quite unaffected by their surroundings. They 
 were not in a heathen country, but in a com- 
 munity which worshipped one invisible God 
 without help of images, and some of them at 
 all events must have had acquaintance with 
 the Jewish Scriptures. The centurion himself 
 was "a devout man, and one that feared God 
 with all his house, and gave much alms to the 
 people, and prayed to God alway." It was 
 a character which few, if any, of the native 
 Jews can have surpassed. 
 
 On the invitation of this good officer, the 
 apostle Peter had come from Joppa with six 
 Jewish brethren. He had taken these brethren 
 with him as helpers and witnesses, for both the 
 character of the invitation which was brought 
 to him, and its coincidence with a remarkable 
 vision which had revealed to him the abolition 
 of those distinctions which had hitherto made 
 it almost impossible for a Jew to have much 
 intercourse with Gentiles, indicated to St Peter 
 that his visit to Caesarea was to have important 
 bearings on the future of Christianity and the 
 Church. 
 
 In his two speeches to the multitude at Jeru- 
 
78 ST PETER AT C^SAREA 
 
 salem, the apostle began by removing a mis- 
 conception from the minds of those whom he 
 addressed. In the speech at Csesarea, he ac- 
 knowledged the removal of a misconception 
 from his own mind. He had always known 
 that the God of the Jews was by right the God 
 of the Gentiles also — the only true God. He 
 had also known that the Gentiles were to be 
 enlightened and blessed under the Messiah ; 
 but he had assumed that in order to this they 
 would have to enter the covenant of circumci- 
 sion, and be conformed and even subordinated 
 to the chosen race of Israel. But now light 
 had broken in upon his mind through the mid- 
 day vision at Joppa. He now perceived that 
 fleshly distinctions, and separations of race 
 which had long been in force were not to be 
 retained in the kingdom of heaven on earth. 
 The love of God to mankind revealed itself to 
 his mind with a clearness hitherto unknown ; 
 so he began his speech with these large-hearted 
 words — " 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." This indeed was an old 
 saying in Israel. It occurs three times in the 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 79 
 
 Old Testament* But, though the Apostle 
 probably knew it in the letter, for he was 
 versed in the Scriptures, he had never till now 
 felt the force of this assertion of Divine im- 
 partiality, or seen the width of its application. 
 Although he had been so much with Jesus, and 
 had heard Him announce Himself as the light 
 of the world, St Peter had not understood till 
 now that even the best men of other nations 
 were fit persons in God's sight to have the Gos- 
 pel preached to them as freely as it was preached 
 to the Jews. 
 
 So soon, however, as his mind was cleared of 
 the narrow assumptions and prejudices in which 
 he had been reared, the apostle proceeded, with his 
 accustomed energy and succinctness of speech, 
 to make known the word of salvation to the Gen- 
 tile company gathered before him. The de- 
 finiteness and decision which marked his ad- 
 dress were admirably suited to a military 
 audience. He also showed both tact and fair- 
 ness in putting^his statements on ground which 
 was common to all. At Jerusalem he had 
 spoken to Jews, and therefore rested on the 
 ground of the Old Testament, which they held 
 
 * See Deut. x. 17 ; 2 Sam. xiv. 14; 2 Chron. xix. 7. 
 
8o ST PETER AT C^SAREA 
 
 in reverence, referring to the Law, the Prophets, 
 and the Psalms. But at Caesarea, though Cor- 
 nelius himself feared God, and was doubtless 
 acquainted with the Greek version of the Old 
 Testament, the rest of the company may not 
 have been so far enlightened ; and in any case, 
 the ancient Scriptures were not to Gentiles what 
 they were to Jews. Therefore St Peter made 
 no quotation from the Old Testament, and ad- 
 vanced no argument to prove that Jesus fulfilled 
 the Law and the Prophets. He took his auditors 
 on ground which they knew, going no further 
 back than the preaching of John the Baptist, 
 and the stir which had arisen about Jesus of 
 Nazareth. All who were present knew some- 
 thing about the baptism which John preached 
 and the works which Jesus did. 
 
 Such adaptation on the part of the speaker 
 to the character of his audience ought not to 
 be represented as a sort of crafty device, incon- 
 sistent with straightforwardness. It is in har- 
 mony with common sense, and must be practised 
 if justice is to be done to religious truth. To 
 missionary preachers, in particular, it is indis- 
 pensable. A missionary to the Jews must 
 reason from Moses and the prophets, and must 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 8 I 
 
 try to prove to them that Jesus was the Christ 
 of whom the prophets wrote, and the end of the 
 law for righteousness to every one who believes. 
 But if he turn to the Gentiles, he must remember 
 that the heathen know nothing of Moses and 
 the prophets, and that questions which mean a 
 great deal for those of the circumcision may 
 mean scarcely anything for those of the uncir- 
 cumcision. Questions therefore of Old Testa- 
 ment interpretation ought not to be obtruded 
 on the Gentile mind. The woe of the heathen is 
 that they have succumbed to the power of Satan, 
 the ruler of the darkness of this world, and so are 
 under a dominion of injustice and cruelty — their 
 very gods being vile. To them it is not of much 
 consequence to learn how the Gospel is related 
 to "Moses' law." What they need is to hear 
 of One who has come " to destroy the works of 
 the devil," and to transfer men " from darkness 
 into marvellous light " — a Redeemer for all na- 
 tions, a living Saviour, and a righteous Judge. 
 
 This wise principle of adaptation shows itself 
 clearly in the train of thought which St Peter 
 followed at Caesarea. His speech falls into 
 three parts. 
 
 I A rehearsal of facts of which the audience was 
 
 F 
 
82 ST PETER AT C^SAREA 
 
 already cognisant (vv. 36-39). — Though Jesus 
 had never visited that Gentile town, dwellers in 
 Csesarea could not be unaware of the fame 
 which had gathered round Him in Palestine, 
 and of the shameful death inflicted on Him at 
 Jerusalem. The fact that He had been charged 
 in His life-time with disaffection to the Roman 
 government, had been accused before Pontius 
 Pilate of high treason against Caesar, and had 
 been crucified as King of the Jews, must have 
 especially attracted the notice of military men 
 responsible for the peace of the country. 
 
 St Peter affirmed that this Jesus was no re- 
 volutionary agitator, but a preacher of good 
 tidings of peace sent by God to His people, 
 Israel ; though, as the apostle happily observed 
 in a parenthesis. He was Lord, not of Israel 
 only, but of all mankind. He did not touch 
 the imperial rights of Caesar, and yet at the 
 same time He was far above all the Caesars — 
 He was Lord of all. 
 
 The word and authority of Jesus had been 
 attested by good deeds and works of healing ; 
 and these again were accounted for on this 
 ground, that God, who had sent Him, was 
 with Him, and anointed Him with the Holy 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. S^ 
 
 Ghost and with power. If there was any hesi- 
 tation to believe this, Simon Peter and his 
 companions were ready with personal testimony 
 — "We are witnesses of all things which He did 
 both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusa- 
 lem." The apostle and those who had come with 
 him from Joppa would not object to be strictly 
 interrogated and cross-examined on the facts ; 
 and although the speech was not interrupted by 
 any question, we can well suppose that in the 
 time (" certain days," ver. 48) which he spent at 
 Caesarea, St Peter told many an incident which 
 his own eyes had seen in his Master's career: 
 how He had raised his own mother-in-law from 
 a bed of fever, and Lazarus from the tomb, and 
 opened the eyes of Bartimeus, and walked upon 
 the sea. 
 
 Such a prophet, such a healer, the Jews had 
 slain, hanging Him on a tree. The fact was 
 already known to Cornelius and his friends; 
 but the apostle saw fit to lay emphasis on the 
 entire innocence of Jesus. He did so in order to 
 remove any impression which may, very natur- 
 ally, have lurked in the minds of an Italian 
 officer and his comrades, that One whom the 
 Roman governor had sentenced, and whom 
 
84 ST PETER AT C^SAREA 
 
 Roman soldiers had scourged and crucified, 
 must have, in some measure, deserved His fate. 
 It was not so. In this case the Roman author- 
 ities had taken an unworthy course, and served 
 the cruel malice of the Jews. 
 
 11. The announcement of a new fact, zvhich 
 changed the luhole aspect of the case (vers. 40, 41). 
 — God had raised up Jesus from the dead on 
 the third day. 
 
 No allusion to the i6th or 11 8th Psalm meets 
 us here. Quotations from these sacred odes 
 were for a Jewish, not a Gentile, audience. It 
 would not have greatly moved those Roman 
 soldiers to learn that a Hebrew poet in a re- 
 mote age had sung of One who, though dead, 
 should not remain in Hades. What they cared 
 for was sufficient proof that in their own time 
 and in the very country in which they were 
 stationed, a crucified man was raised from the 
 dead : and the apostle adduced the proof with 
 an exactness admirably suited to the occasion. 
 He said, not that his Master was seen to rise, 
 but that he was seen after He had risen. He 
 said, not that He was seen by as many as saw 
 Him crucified — for the Christ-rejecting Jewswere 
 to see Him no more till He should come in the 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 85 
 
 clouds of heaven — but that He was seen by 
 witnesses, sufficient in number and unimpeach- 
 able in character, whom God had previously- 
 chosen to this high privilege. 
 
 It may well be asked in what way any his- 
 torical fact of an unusual nature can be more 
 sufficiently proved. As we have said in a 
 former chapter, if any allege that not even God 
 can raise the dead, we have with such persons 
 no argument here. Bnt grant that the thing is 
 possible with God, and then say what conditions 
 of evidence would satisfy the mind, that the 
 thing had actually happened. All mankind 
 could not be present to see with their own eyes, 
 so that it is a question of sufficient evidence. 
 The following would be reasonable condi- 
 tions : — 
 
 (i.) The witnesses must be more than one or 
 two in number. The evidence of a very small 
 number might be suspected of collusion. 
 
 (2.) They must be men of good character, 
 not open to a charge of wilful deceit. 
 
 (3.) They must have been well acquainted 
 with the person of Him regarding whom they 
 testified, so that they could not have been mis- 
 taken as to His identity. 
 
S6 ST PETER AT C.ESAREA 
 
 (4.) They must have had sufficient oppor- 
 tunity or opportunities for the recognition. 
 One or even two occasions would hardly 
 suffice to obviate all doubt. 
 
 (5.) They must have told their story at once, 
 and not brought it out when some interval of 
 time had passed, or as an after-thought. 
 
 (6.) They must have adhered to their story at 
 all risks, and without any grave incoherence or 
 contradiction among themselves. 
 
 Now, all these conditions are met in the evi- 
 dence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
 
 (i.) The witnesses were sufficiently numerous — 
 men and women, apostles and less prominent 
 disciples ; one at a time, then two, then eleven, 
 then seven, then "five hundred brethren at 
 once." 
 
 (2.) They were of unblemished character. 
 The one deceiver had dropped out of the 
 apostolic band before the crucifixion. The 
 rulers of the Jews despised the rest as un- 
 learned men, but could never make out any 
 charge of deceit. One of them, James the Less, 
 was honoured of all classes in Jerusalem for his 
 high probity, and was known as " the Just." 
 
 (3.) They were intimate with Jesus Christ — 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. Sy 
 
 had been His close companions, and could not 
 have mistaken any other for Him. 
 
 (4.) They had ample opportunity to identify 
 Him ; for they not only saw and heard Him, 
 but '' did eat and drink with Him after He rose 
 from the dead." 
 
 (5.) They told the story from the beginning, 
 and at the greatest possible risk to themselves 
 They laid on it at once the whole weight of the 
 sacred cause which they maintained. Joyfully 
 they accepted the position that, if the resurrec- 
 tion were true, the Church was to succeed ; if 
 it was a lie or an illusion, the Church would fail. 
 
 (6.) They adhered to this testimony till their 
 last breath ; and not one of all these witnesses 
 could ever be induced to retract or even modify 
 the statement that the Lord had risen. 
 
 We know that to believe in the resurrection 
 of our Saviour is difficult for those who are re- 
 luctant to accept the consequences which flow 
 from it ; but we must maintain that, on any fair 
 grounds of estimating the evidence for a long 
 past historical fact, it is a hundred times more 
 rational to believe than to disbelieve it. 
 
 III. ^ statement of the power and glory of the 
 Risen Jesus (vers. 42, 43). 
 
SS ST PETER AT C^SAREA 
 
 I. " This is He who is ordained of God to be 
 Judge of the living and the dead." Jesus Him- 
 self had charged His apostles to make this 
 known to the people. 
 
 St Peter had touched on this at Jerusalem, 
 when he spoke of the second coming of Jesus, 
 and the " time of restitution of all things." So 
 he put it when addressing Jews, and confining 
 his thoughts to the sphere of Jewish expecta- 
 tion. But now he stated it in the way most 
 suited to impress Gentiles, as did St Paul after- 
 wards at Athens. This Man who had been 
 raised from the dead, and who, though unseen, 
 was now " Lord of all," was ordained to be the 
 Judge of all, both the living and the dead. 
 
 There was a special fitness in the first 
 announcement of this to Gentiles being made 
 to a Roman officer, his kinsmen and friends. 
 The great functions of the Romans in the world 
 at that period were those of conquest, govern- 
 ment, and judgment. They were the men of 
 the sword, the sceptre, and the judgment-seat. 
 Their master, the Emperor, looked round the 
 world, and was looked up to by the world, as 
 Lord of all. And he, too, was Judge of all, for 
 appeals went up from all regions of the known 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 89 
 
 world to the supreme throne of judgment at 
 Rome. The Apostle Peter had a startling state- 
 ment to make to those men of the Italian band, — 
 a quite new doctrine of supremacy, which in- 
 volved no treason against Caesar, and yet made 
 the Emperor's glory weak and pale. It was 
 that the one living and true God had ordained 
 a Conqueror, Ruler, and Judge of all, even of 
 Cassar ; and given to Him authority to summon 
 before Him all the dwellers on the earth, and 
 even to call generations of men from their 
 graves to stand before His judgment-seat. The 
 most abject flatterers of the Roman emperors 
 had never ascribed to them such power as 
 this. 
 
 2. " Through His name every one that be- 
 lieveth on Him shall receive remission of sins." 
 As in his speeches to the people at Jerusalem, 
 so here again the apostle was careful to pro- 
 claim free pardon in Christ, for he knew that it 
 w^as needed by Gentiles quite as much by Jews. 
 It came in well after the announcement of the 
 Judge. He who will be the Judge is now the 
 Saviour ; and, through faith in His name, sinful 
 men are now purged from that which would 
 otherwise involve their future condemnation. 
 
90 ST PETER AT CyESAREA 
 
 To this truth regarding remission of sins, St 
 Peter said that all the prophets were bearing 
 witness. One is surprised to find that even 
 meritorious commentators have assumed that 
 the reference is to the prophets of the Old 
 Testament, and have cited as a parallel passage 
 St Peter's statement in Solomon's Porch — " All 
 the prophets from Samuel and them that fol- 
 lowed after, told of these days." But surely this 
 is quite a mistake, (i.) The statement of the 
 apostle was not that the prophets have told or 
 testified, but that they are bearing witness. He 
 pointed to living witnesses like the apostles 
 themselves. (2.) A quotation from a speech to 
 Jews is no true parallel to an expression used in 
 addressing a Gentile company. In the former 
 case it was an apposite and weighty considera- 
 tion that the Hebrew prophets after Samuel had 
 foretold these days ; but it would have had no 
 such significance for Roman soldiers or their 
 friends at Caesarea. Now we have seen that St 
 Peter skilfully adapted his argument to his 
 audience. In the present speech he did not 
 need or wish to go further back than to the 
 ministry of John the Baptist. We conclude 
 that in his last sentence he pointed to the pro- 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 91 
 
 phets of the new age who had begun, in con- 
 currence with the apostles, to utter the good 
 tidings from God regarding Jesus Christ in the 
 power of the Spirit. In his view, the day of 
 Pentecost had ushered in a new era of spiritual 
 communication and prophetic fervour, as fore- 
 told in the ancient oracle of Joel. And all the 
 prophets of this new time agreed in this, that 
 there was free remission of sins through faith in 
 the name of the Lord Jesus. 
 
 Does any one consider our explanation too 
 hypothetical, and even far-fetched ? Does any 
 one object that there has been no mention 
 as yet of any New Testament prophets ? 
 Our answer is this. As yet, in this book of 
 Scripture, we have found only the words of 
 Peter, or of Peter and John among the 
 apostles, yet we believe that all the apostles 
 were giving testimony, and the instances of the 
 deacons Stephen and Philip shew that the wit- 
 ness to Christ was by no means confined to the 
 Twelve. And if we have not till now read of 
 prophets as associated with apostles, we soon 
 do so. St Paul has told us that " God set some 
 in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets; ' 
 that "we are built on the foundation of the 
 apostles and prophets;" and that the Lord 
 
92 ST PETER AT C^SAREA 
 
 Jesus in bestowing gifts, "gave some apostles, 
 and some prophets."* Keeping these state- 
 ments in mind, we surely give the most natural 
 interpretation when we take St Peter to refer to 
 prophets who, with new ardour in the Holy 
 Ghost, were already testifying to the sin-can- 
 celling power of Jesus. Indeed, we need not 
 go so far as to the Epistles for proof that such 
 prophets existed. The next chapter of this his- 
 tory relates that "in those days there came down 
 prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch ;'' and 
 again, " There were at Antioch in the Church 
 prophets and teachers." *[* 
 
 As in music one does well to end on a full 
 clear note, so the apostolic preacher did well to 
 close with this abundant testimony to the bles- 
 sing of forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Good 
 news to the Gentiles ! It was such an assurance 
 as none of their prophets, priests, or philosophers 
 could give. And then this blessing was to be 
 obtained on so simple a plan as this — faith in 
 His name. Of the Jews St Peter had required 
 repentance in order to pardon, because they had 
 rejected the Prince of Life. But to these Gen- 
 
 * I Cor. xii. 28; Eph. ii. 20 j iv. 11. 
 t Acts xi. 27 ; xiii. i. 
 
TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 93 
 
 tiles the Saviour had not " come," or manifested 
 Himself, as to the House of Israel. They had 
 not refused Him as the Jews had done, for He 
 had never been presented or preached to them 
 as One who had a claim on their religious con- 
 fidence and homage — the Saviour of the world 
 and the Lord of all. Therefore St Peter set the 
 claim of Christ before the Gentiles at Csesarea, 
 and called on them to believe. 
 
 Indeed, he had not time to call on them to 
 believe, for he was gloriously interrupted in his 
 address. It is likely enough that having stated 
 the blessing of pardon that would ensue on 
 faith, the apostle meant to add words of direct 
 exhortation and appeal ; but if so, he found it 
 superfluous to do so. Soon as the good tidings 
 of pardon fell from his lips, the audience was 
 suffused with spiritual tenderness — " The Holy 
 Ghost fell on all of them." 
 
 What then ensued it will be convenient to 
 consider when we examine the apostle's speech 
 at Jerusalem, narrating the result, and justifying 
 his course of action. Meanwhile we have 
 learned enough to show what power resides in 
 one short, clear sermon on Jesus Christ, when 
 God has prepared both preacher and congrega- 
 
94 ST PETER TO A GENTILE COMPANY. 
 
 tion, and all things are ready. A hearty 
 straightforward preacher, brethren with him 
 who are in prayerful sympathy, and an audi- 
 ence penetrated by the feeling that they are all 
 assembled " before God " — what may not such 
 a combination secure of spiritual light and joy! 
 That day at Caesarea was the Pentecost of the 
 Gentiles. On them, as formerly on Jews, " was 
 poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost." It is 
 inaccurate to pray for another Pentecost in 
 modern times, because the dispensation of the 
 Spirit has begun, and cannot begin again. But 
 it is a constant duty to pray that the Spirit may 
 continue to demonstrate to the hearts of men 
 that word of salvation which is preached in 
 Christendom, and that beyond the bounds of 
 Christendom, where the word is only now begin- 
 ning to be preached, the Holy Ghost may fall 
 on the people, and God may grant to them 
 also '' repentance unto life." 
 
VI. 
 
 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS AT 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 " But Peter began, and expounded the matter unto them in 
 order, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying : and in a 
 trance I saw a vision, a certain vessel descending, as it were a 
 great sheet let down from heaven by four corners ; and it came 
 even unto me : upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, 
 I considered, and saw the fourfooted beasts of the earth and 
 wild beasts and creeping things and fowls of the heaven. And 
 I heard also a voice saying unto me. Rise, Peter ; kill and eat. 
 But I said, Not so, Lord : for nothing common or unclean hath 
 ever entered into my mouth. But a voice answered the second 
 time out of heaven. What God hath cleansed, make not thou 
 common. And this was done thrice : and all were drawn up 
 again into heaven. And behold, forthwith three men stood 
 before the house in which we were, having been sent from 
 Csesarea unto me. And the Spirit bade me go with them, 
 making no distinction. And these six brethren also accom- 
 panied me ; and we entered into the man's house : and he told 
 us how he had seen the angel standing in his house, and saying, 
 Send to Joppa, and fetch Simon, whose surname is Peter ; who 
 shall speak unto thee words, whereby thou shalt be saved, thou 
 and all thy house. And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost 
 fell on them, even as on us at the beginning. And I remem- 
 bered the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed 
 baptised with water ; but ye shall be baptised with the Holy 
 
96 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 Ghost. If then God gave unto them the like gift as he did 
 also unto us, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 was I, that I could withstand God?"— Acts xi. 4-17. 
 
 THIS differs from the previous speeches of 
 the same apostle (except the first), in 
 being addressed to those within the Church, not 
 to those without. It is not an appeal to men to 
 become Christians, but an explanation to men 
 who already were Christians, of a fresh course 
 of action taken in the service of Christ. 
 
 While St Peter tarried a few days at Caesarea 
 at the request of the new Gentile converts, the 
 apostles and brethren in and near Jerusalem 
 heard with surprise of this unexpected victory 
 of the Gospel, and eagerly waited the return of 
 their leader to the capital. He, on his part, 
 was well aware of the necessity for accurately 
 reporting and fully explaining what had occurred 
 to his colleagues and friends at headquarters ; 
 and therefore he did not return to Joppa, but 
 went straight up from Caesarea to Jerusalem. 
 With excellent judgment he took with him the 
 six Jewish Christians from Joppa who had wit- 
 nessed the glorious scene in the house of Cor- 
 nelius, and had, under the apostle's direction, 
 baptised the believing Gentiles. These could 
 
AT JERUSALEM. 97 
 
 corroborate his story, and testify that he had 
 not acted from self-will, but had followed clear 
 indications of the Lord's good pleasure. 
 
 Not all the apostles and brethren at Jeru- 
 salem, but a certain number of the Christians 
 there, being especially jealous for the honour 
 of Jewish separation from other races of men, 
 were dissatisfied with Simon Peter's course at 
 Caesarea, and showed it openly. "They that 
 were of the circumcision contended with him." 
 It is very significant of their state of mind that, 
 so far as appears, they made no observation on 
 the preaching of the Gospel to those Gen- 
 tiles, or even on their having been baptised ; 
 but complained of a circumcised man having 
 had social intercourse with the uncircumcised 
 — " Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, 
 and didst eat with them." Those who took 
 umbrage at this were Christians in this sense, 
 that they acknowledged Jesus as the Christ of 
 Israel ; but their thoughts still ran in narrow 
 grooves of Jewish exclusiveness, and they had 
 not caught the great Christian sentiment of 
 love to the world. So they were displeased 
 that an apostle had broken a tradition of strict 
 Judaism, and probably assumed that he had 
 
 G 
 
98 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 presumptuously violated the Mosaic law of 
 clean and unclean meats. 
 
 Such a condition of mind we probably regard 
 with a little wonder and pity ; and yet some- 
 thing very like it is far too common in our 
 modern Christendom. Who has not seen in- 
 stances of a Christian faith miserably united 
 with small-minded prejudices, and a hot zeal 
 for narrow rules and restrictions ? And what 
 can be more trying to the patience of those 
 who, like St Peter, have reached some larger 
 vision of the impartiality and mercy of God ? 
 And this also we see everywhere and always. 
 Narrowness of sympathy goes with dulness of 
 perception. Those Jews who were keen for 
 maintaining every sign of separation between 
 themselves and the Gentiles, could not see in 
 what had occurred at Caesarea anything more 
 important than the question whether Simon 
 Peter did well or ill in sitting at table with the 
 uncircumcised, discovered nothing worthy of 
 their attention or thanksgiving in the belief of 
 the Gospel by the Gentiles, or their having re- 
 ceived the Holy Ghost. So it is in the modern 
 Church. The more that men make of external 
 regulation and restriction in our religion, the 
 
AT JERUSALEM. 99 
 
 more do they incapacitate their minds for per- 
 ceiving and appreciating what is more spiritual, 
 essential, and permanent. 
 
 " But Peter began and expounded the matter 
 to them in order." What he did and said on 
 the occasion suggests to us as follows — 
 
 I. The position taken by even the leading 
 Apostle in the primitive CJinrch. — The name of 
 Simon Peter has been used for many centuries 
 to cover the exorbitant claim of supremacy over 
 the whole Church advanced by the Bishop of 
 Rome. We, of course, do not admit, even 
 if St Peter had exercised such supremacy, 
 that it would involve the transmission of 
 that supremacy to the Bishops of Rome in 
 lineal succession. But, for the moment, let 
 us waive this serious demurrer, and observe 
 the actual bearing of St Peter in an assem- 
 bly of Christian brethren. They were not 
 afraid to "contend with him;" and he made 
 no attempt to put the objectors to silence by 
 dint of authority, but patiently explained his 
 course of action till he won a verdict of ap- 
 proval. Is it not plain that there was no such 
 thing as Popedom known to St Peter t There 
 was not even oligarchic government by the 
 
lOO ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 College of Apostles. The Church had leaders 
 and guides — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pas- 
 tors, and teachers ; but the wisdom of Christ, 
 the living Head, was imparted to the whole 
 body, not to a few conspicuous members only, 
 that they might dictate to all the rest. An 
 able writer has remarked on this passage : — " If 
 any man might have carried matters within the 
 Church with a high hand, surely it was this 
 Rock-Man to whom Jesus had given the key ; 
 and if ever he had an excuse for being peremp- 
 tory or self-assertive, it was at the moment when, 
 led by the voice of his Master, he had just set 
 open to the whole heathen world the gates of 
 the kingdom of God. Yet to his brethren, 
 even to brethren whose tone was unpleasant 
 and*disputatious, he felt bound to offer a most 
 careful explanation, to fortify his statement by 
 the evidence of witnesses, and to appeal to their 
 own reason in justification of his conduct." * 
 
 It is not well that any one whatever in the 
 Church of God should reckon himself above 
 question or challenge from the brethren. It is 
 quite possible that they may find fault through 
 ignorance, knowing only in part when they 
 
 * "From Jerusalem to AnLioch," by Dr Oswald Dykes, p. 393. 
 
AT JERUSALEM. lOI 
 
 assume that they know all ; but, in such a case, 
 the servant of the Lord must learn of St Peter 
 not to give way to any natural feeling of irrita- 
 tion, but calmly explain to such brethren what 
 they have misunderstood. Cases, unhappily, 
 will occur in which fault is found peevishly and 
 even with a touch of malice. So much the 
 worse for the censorious critics ; but the servant 
 of the Lord must not strive, or repay bitter 
 words with bitter. Let him tell the unvar- 
 nished truth to all who will listen, and leave it 
 to the heavenly Master to vindicate him from 
 unmerited reproach. 
 
 n. The best way to remove mistmderstandings 
 among brethren, — Nine-tenths of the fault-find- 
 ing among Christians come of defective informa- 
 tion. We see that those zealous Jewish Chris- 
 tians who blamed St Peter knew but very par- 
 tially what his conduct had been, and knew not 
 at all the reasons for his conduct. They heard 
 that he had been living among Gentiles, but 
 appear to have heard nothing of the vision at 
 Joppa, and the intimation of the Lord's will 
 which had been made to the apostle in the 
 Spirit, and nothing of the vision which Cor- 
 nelius had seen, or of the spiritual results which 
 
102 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 had ensued on the preaching of Christ to the 
 company gathered together in the centurion's 
 house. It was rash and unreasonable on their 
 part to ascribe fault to a man in St Peter's 
 responsible position before they had a detailed' 
 report ; and they certainly laid themselves open 
 to a sharp reproof. But the apostle refrained 
 from rebuke, did not even make complaint. 
 He wished not to excite their prejudice or 
 irritate their national pride any further, but to 
 conciliate their better judgment, and preserve 
 peace in the Church. Therefore he was con- 
 tent to reply to their disputes by a simple 
 straightforward narrative. The facts of the 
 case were strong enough, and needed only to 
 be fully related in order to turn the whole cur- 
 rent of opinion and feeling in the apostle's 
 favour, and change the unseemly dispute into 
 unanimous doxology. 
 
 This, too, conveys a most valuable lesson to 
 those who, serving Christ in some public capa- 
 city, find their course of action called into 
 question. In a large proportion of cases it 
 will be found that fault-finders proceed on most 
 partial and inaccurate information ; and, by 
 doing so, they lay themselves open to severe 
 
AT JERUSALEM. IO3 
 
 retort. But the object of a ser\'ant of the Lord 
 should be not to triumph over an unreasonable 
 brother, or put him to shame, but to gain vic- 
 tories for the truth, put an end to mischievous 
 misunderstandings, and, so far as possible, main- 
 tain peace, brotherly kindness, and charit}'. 
 Therefore a wise man will not be drawn into 
 contention in the Church, if he can with a good 
 conscience avoid it, will show no thirst for 
 battle, but will meet even provoking fault- 
 finders with candid and dispassionate state- 
 ments. As they drop their solid facts into the 
 boiling caldron of ill-informed disputation, the 
 noisy bubbling gradually ceases, and excited 
 feehngs grow wonderfully cool and calm. 
 
 III. TJie most effective answer to sticklers on 
 poiftts of order. — St Peter did not enter into an 
 argument with the dissatisfied brethren upon 
 the permanence of those restrictions which had 
 for so many generations separated the Jews 
 from the Gentiles. He was himself scarcely 
 prepared for such an argument, though a new 
 light on the subject had been cast into his mind 
 by the vision on the house-top at Joppa, No 
 such light, however, had fallen on those brethren 
 at Jerusalem ; and it would have been worse 
 
104 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 than useless to argue and debate. St Peter took 
 the brethren on ground which no Christian 
 could call in question. Whatever the outward 
 rites and rules connected with religion, they 
 were of less value than the inward and spiritual 
 blessing. Now the fact which he and his six 
 companions from Joppa were there to narrate 
 and attest was this : — that as the word of life 
 was being preached to the Gentile company, the 
 Holy Ghost fell on them, just as on the Jewish 
 multitude on the day of Pentecost. Did not 
 that one momentous fact settle all questions, 
 overcome all misgivings > Since God had be- 
 stowed the best blessing from heaven, what 
 was the use of setting up traditional scruples 
 as to the fitness of the persons on whom the 
 blessing had descended ; or why should a diffi- 
 culty be raised about forms and conditions 
 which God in His sovereign pleasure had thus 
 put aside ? " If then God gave unto them the 
 like gift as He did also unto us when we 
 believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who am I, 
 that I could withstand God } " 
 
 This way of handling a difficulty seems to us 
 to make short work with many Church contro- 
 versies about holy orders, correct ritual, and 
 
AT JERUSALEM. IO5 
 
 the like. We admit the presumption in favour 
 of traditional and orderly usages. We would 
 not ourselves willingly belong to any Church 
 that had not, in our judgment, a primitive 
 constitution, an orderly ministry, and a ritual 
 in harmony with the New Testament. But 
 we cannot deny, and do not wish to deny, 
 that Churches which seem to us far less cor- 
 rectly constituted and administered have re- 
 ceived the Divine blessing. In ways that we 
 consider exceptional, and through the labours 
 of persons not in holy orders, or whose ordina- 
 tion has but an uncertain validity, and whose 
 right to administer Christian ordinances and 
 preside over Christian fellowship is at least 
 open to serious question, hundreds and thou- 
 sands have been converted from sin to right- 
 eousness, and have lived and died to the Lord. 
 This seems to us to be matter of fact, which 
 only a desperate bigotry can ignore. How is it 
 to be thought of or accounted for .? It must be 
 a sore puzzle to those who consider a ministry 
 or priesthood derived from prelates in a line of 
 ordination which they are pleased to call apos- 
 tolic succession, and the reception of sacra- 
 ments from such authentic priests, essential to 
 
I06 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 the communication of Divine grace. But it is 
 no puzzle at all to those who have a larger 
 estimate of the ways of God in saving the 
 children of men. His blessing has never been 
 tied to forms, or the conveyance of it made a 
 perquisite of those who are in a particular line 
 of " orders." To think so is to shut one's eyes 
 to broad historical facts. Surely, when we see 
 that sinners are turned from their evil ways, 
 and that in believing the Word they are made 
 new creatures — a change which can be wrought 
 by no less power than that'of the Holy Ghost — our 
 simple duty is to acknowledge the work of God 
 whenever and wherever He pleases to work, and 
 give Him thanks. If, through any instrument- 
 ality, and with or without conditions supposed 
 by us to be necessary, God has given to other 
 men the like gift of His favour as to us, who 
 are we that we should withstand God ? 
 
 IV. T/ie true place and justification of baptism. 
 — The Gentiles at Caesarea having been bap- 
 tised with the Holy Ghost, it was impossible to 
 deny to them baptism with water. 
 
 Indeed there are not two baptisms, but one, 
 having an outer form and inner sense. The 
 former requires water, the latter the grace of 
 
AT JERUSALEM. IO7 
 
 the Holy Spirit. Superstition holds that the 
 former always involves the latter, and therefore 
 urges people to be baptised, or to have their 
 infants baptised, in order that, in or by that 
 rite, they may receive the Holy Ghost, and be 
 made partakers of Christ. This is " Christen- 
 ing " of which the Bible knows nothing. Faith, 
 on the contrary, holds, and primitive usage as 
 indicated in the Acts of the Apostles shows, 
 that partakers of Christ are to be baptised. 
 The proper subjects of the ordinance are bap- 
 tised, not in order to be thereby made Chris- 
 tians, but because they are Christians, and 
 ought to be openly recognised and marked as 
 such. An old Scottish divine has said : — " As 
 the Israelites were first brought out of Egypt 
 before they were brought through the sea, so 
 we are first redeemed by Christ, and find grace 
 in His eyes before we receive the seals of the 
 covenant of grace. Baptism is intended only 
 for the redeemed." * Another has distinguished 
 between the right to baptism " in foro Dei, or 
 before God," and the right " in foro ecclesicB, or 
 in the judgment of the Church." He proceeds 
 to show that the former right belongs to those 
 * George Gillespie's " Miscellany Questions," chap. xvii. 
 
Io8 ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 only "who have actually a saving interest in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ ;" and the latter to those 
 only who " appear to have a saving interest in 
 Christ." This last point is proved from the 
 nature of the ordinance. " In baptism there is 
 an open acknowledging of the party for a 
 disciple of Christ. He ought to be looked on 
 as a servant of the great Master before he get 
 on his badge and wear his livery. The commis- 
 sion for baptising runs so, first to make disciples, 
 then to baptise." The writer is, however, care- 
 ful to protect the baptism of Christian infants, 
 in these words — " Let it be remembered that 
 we acknowledge infants to be disciples of 
 Christ, as well as adult persons ; and whatever 
 is, or may be said on this head, must be under- 
 stood de subjecto capaci, and without prejudice 
 to the holy seed, the infants of the faithful." 
 He then confirms his principle by particular 
 references to the New Testament. "All the 
 examples of baptism recorded in the Scripture 
 hold forth none to have been baptised but those 
 that before baptism appeared to have a saving 
 interest in Christ."* 
 
 It is enough to trace the dispensation of bap- 
 
 * Thomas Boston's " Miscellany Questions," No. 6. 
 
AT JERUSALEM. IO9 
 
 tism through these early chapters of the Acts of 
 the Apostles. At Jerusalem, they that received 
 the word of salvation were baptised. At Samaria, 
 they that believed the good tidings were bap- 
 tised, both men and women ; and the case of 
 Simon the Sorcerer presents no real difficulty, 
 for he professed and appeared to have believed. 
 On the road to Gaza, the Ethiopian treasurer 
 first received Philip's preaching of Jesus, and 
 then was baptised. At Damascus, Saul re- 
 ceived his sight through the intervention of 
 Ananias, a disciple of the Lord Jesus, and was 
 filled with the Holy Ghost. Then "he arose, 
 and was baptised." In like manner, at Caesarea, 
 when the Gentiles believed the word which St 
 Peter preached, and had received the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost, they were baptised. In every 
 case men first became, or appeared to become, 
 Christian disciples, and then they were publicly 
 initiated and acknowledged as such. No one 
 could " forbid water " for their baptism. 
 
 Sometimes the Westminster standards of 
 theology are said to teach something very like 
 baptismal regeneration ; but the assertion only 
 reveals confusion of ideas in those who make 
 it. The words of the Shorter Catechism are 
 
no ST PETER TO JEWISH CHRISTIANS 
 
 these — " Baptism is a sacrament wherein the 
 washing with water in the name of the Father, 
 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth 
 signify and seal our engrafting into Christ, and 
 partaking of the benefits of the covenant of 
 grace, and our engagement to be the Lord's." 
 To convey what is commonly known as the 
 doctrine of baptismal regeneration, the sentence 
 ought to have run thus — " The washing with 
 water doth bring about or effect our ingrafting 
 into Christ." But not so. According to the 
 Catechism, one should have this ingrafting in 
 order to baptism, which rite then signifies or 
 expresses it, and also seals or ratifies it, to the 
 comfort and establishment in faith and hope of 
 him who is so baptised. 
 
 This is best seen in the baptism of adults 
 making profession of their own faith ; for this, 
 as every one admits, is the normal baptism on 
 which the meaning of that ordinance is most 
 clearly inscribed. But it is on exactly the same 
 principle that we also baptise " the infants of 
 such as are members of the visible Church." It 
 is not to christen or christianise them, but to 
 signify that they are by birth and nurture within, 
 and not without, the pale of the visible Church. 
 
AT JERUSALEM. 1 I I 
 
 It may be said against this practice that the 
 Christianity of adults is capable of evidence, 
 whereas that of infants is problematical and 
 hypothetic. But this does not amount to much 
 in the argument. An adult is baptised not on 
 his faith, or even on proof of his faith, but on 
 profession of his faith, provided there be no- 
 thing in his conduct to render the profession at 
 the time incredible. It may afterwards turn 
 out to be mistaken or insincere, as occurred in 
 the case of Simon at Samaria, adverted to 
 above. But enough that the candidate for 
 baptism professes to have the thing signified. 
 He is then entitled to have the sign. But who 
 will venture to say that the child of a believer, 
 committed in prayer to the Lord, may not have 
 the inward grace, and so the potential disciple- 
 ship } And why, if capable of the grace, should 
 he be counted incapable of admission to the 
 ordinance which signifies and seals that grace .? 
 Why, if even potentially a disciple, may he not 
 be charitably reckoned and treated as such ? 
 
 But we are wandering from St Peter's speech. 
 It had, like all the other speeches which we have 
 examined, a marked success. Murmurs were 
 
1 t 2 ST PETER AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 stilled; and the Jewish brethren "glorified God, 
 saying, Then to the Gentiles also hath God 
 granted repentance unto life." Would that the 
 Jewish Christians had all learned and cherished 
 this mood of joyful acquiescence in the con- 
 version of the Gentiles ! What contentions and 
 controversies would have been avoided in the 
 early Churches ! What trouble might have been 
 spared to the Apostle Paul ! 
 
 Those disciples at Jerusalem had a clear con- 
 ception of repentance (i) in its origin as the 
 gift of God's grace ; (2) in its issue as " unto 
 life " — a turning from death in sin to life in 
 Jesus Christ. And with this doctrine of re- 
 pentance ought " the fallow ground " of men's 
 hearts to be broken up in all times and all 
 nations. It is God's command to every man — 
 " repent!" It is God's gift — the disposition and 
 power as well as opportunity to repent. It is 
 God's encouragement — " repent unto life ! Turn 
 ye ; why will ye die.'*" 
 
VII. 
 
 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH IX THE 
 SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 "And Paul stood up, and beckoning \\-ith the hand said, Men 
 of Israel, and ye that fear God, hearken. The God of this 
 people Israel chose our fathers, and exalted the people when 
 they sojourned in the land of Eg}'pt, and with a high arm led he 
 them forth out of it. And for about the time of forty years 
 suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had 
 destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them 
 their land for an inheritance, for about four hundred and fifty 
 years : and after these things he gave them judges until Samuel 
 the prophet. And afterward they asked for a king : and God 
 gave unto them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Ben- 
 jamin, for the space of forty years. And when he had removed 
 him, he raised up Da\'id to be their king ; to whom also he bare 
 witness, and said, I have found Dax-id the son of Jesse, a man 
 after my heart, who shall do all my will. Of this man's seed 
 hath God according to promise brought unto Israel a Sa^-iou^, 
 Jesus ; when John had first preached before his coming the 
 baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John 
 was fulfilling his course, he said. What suppose ye that I am ? 
 I am not he. But behold, there cometh one after me, the shoes 
 of whose feet I am not worthy to unloose. Brethren, children 
 of the stock of Abraham, and those among you that fear God, 
 to us is the word of this salvation sent forth. For they that 
 dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, 
 nor the voices of the prophets which are read ever)- sabbath, 
 fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found no 
 
 H 
 
1 I 4 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH 
 
 cause of death in him, yet asked they of Pilate that he should be 
 slain. And when they had fulfilled all things that were written 
 f him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a 
 omb. But God raised him from the dead : and he was seen for 
 many days of them that came up with him from Galilee to 
 Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses unto the people. And we 
 bring you good tidings of the promise made unto the fathers, how 
 that God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that he 
 raised up Jesus ; as also it is written in the second psalm. Thou 
 art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning 
 that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to 
 corruption, he hath spoken on this wise, I will give you the holy 
 and sure blessings of David. Because he saith also in another 
 psalm, Thou wilt not give thy Holy One to see corruption. For 
 David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of 
 God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw cor- 
 ruption : but he whom God raised up saw no corruption. Be it 
 known unto you therefore, brethren, that through this man is 
 proclaimed unto you remission of sins : and by him every one 
 that believeth is justified from all things, from which ye could 
 not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest 
 that come upon you, which is spoken in the prophets ; Behold, 
 ye despisers, and wonder, and perish ; for I work a work in 
 your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, if one de- 
 clare it unto you." — Acts xiii. 16-41. 
 
 THE scene is changed from Palestine to a 
 hilly region in the interior of Asia Minor, 
 named Pisidia. A large and populous town was 
 there, called Antioch. It is mentioned by both 
 Ptolemy and Strabo, but would have been long 
 ago quite forgotten, and the poor ruins of its 
 ancient structures left in obscurity, had it not 
 been for the visit paid to it by two Christian 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I I 5 
 
 missionaries, and the record of that visit by St 
 Luke in the sacred volume. 
 
 In all the prosperous towns of Asia Minor at 
 that period Jews had settled ; and in Antioch 
 there was a synagogue frequented by the resi- 
 dent Jews and some Proselytes of Gentile ex- 
 traction. The missionaries of whom we have 
 spoken were Jews ; and, therefore, when the 
 Sabbath — our Saturday — came round, they at- 
 tended the synagogue. Their presence was 
 observed ; and, after the usual public reading 
 of the Old Testament, no doubt in the Greek 
 version, the strangers were invited by the rulers 
 of the synagogue to exhort the congregation. 
 So again opportunity came to an apostolic 
 speaker, and was not made or forced by him. 
 
 One of the missionaries was Barnabas, whose 
 original name was Joseph — a Levite by extrac- 
 tion, a Cypriote by birth. The other was Saul 
 or Paul, a Benjamite by extraction, a Cilician 
 by birth. It was the latter who spoke in com- 
 pliance with the invitation given. He rose from 
 his seat, and with a gesture of the hand, which 
 was characteristic of him, summoned the atten- 
 tion of the people. 
 
 The task before him was difficult. He had 
 
I l6 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCII 
 
 to win the confidence and hold the attention of 
 an audience to which he was quite unknown. 
 He had to keep the ground of Israel's peculiar 
 history and hope, and yet to show that at the 
 holy city itself the Messiah had been rejected 
 and crucified. But St Paul (for so the Church 
 delights to call him) was the very man for an 
 emergency. Difficulties only developed his re- 
 sources. He had all the skill and deftness of a 
 well-trained pleader, combined with all the fer- 
 vour of a man speaking what he intensely 
 believed. Best of all, he had the consummate 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 A comparison of the speech which he pro- 
 ceeded to deliver with the two addresses of St 
 Peter to the multitude at Jerusalem reveals a 
 considerable similarity. St Paul followed the 
 same Jewish course of thought, appealing to old 
 Hebrew predictions and promises. He also 
 published the same facts regarding Jesus, 
 especially His death, burial, and resurrection, 
 and proclaimed free remission of sins through 
 His name. Yet this is far from being a copy or 
 imitation of those earlier addresses. It has its 
 own characteristic merits ; gives evidence of 
 mental breadth and energy in the speaker, and 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I I 7 
 
 illustrates his admirable faculty for blending 
 together statement and persuasion. 
 
 A closer parallel may be traced between the 
 first reported speech of Paul and that address 
 of Stephen before the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, 
 which the apostle had heard shortly before his 
 conversion, and could never forget. 
 
 Like the martyr, St Paul began with a rapid 
 recital of the history of Israel, probably taking 
 the cue from the Scriptures which had been 
 read in the Synagogue. Thereby he put him- 
 self on a good footing with his hearers, and 
 conciliated their strong national feeling. It 
 was not necessary for St Peter, when speaking 
 to the people at Jerusalem, to go so far back as 
 the calling of Israel out of Egypt, their exodus, 
 their error in the wilderness, their settlement in 
 Palestine, their government by judges and 
 kings; but it was well for St Stephen to 
 take such a review when he stood before the 
 council to defend himself from the charge of 
 unfaithfulness to his nation and its hereditary 
 religion ; and it w^as prudent in St Paul to 
 follow the same course in opening his address 
 to Jews and Proselytes far away from the holy 
 city, surrounded by the heathen, and cherishing, 
 
I 1 8 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH 
 
 as men so situated were sure to do, an intense 
 and even jealous feeling for the traditions of 
 their ancestry. 
 
 St Paul, however, had more than a con- 
 ciliatory purpose in his sketch of Israel's early 
 history. While desirous to show that he was 
 alive to all the honour and privilege of the 
 chosen people, he also wished to remind his 
 hearers how wilful and refractory that people 
 had often been. After their escape from Egypt 
 they had been detained for forty years in the 
 Wilderness, on account of their murmuring 
 against God, their unbelief, and disobedience. 
 And afterwards, when they had judges, they 
 were not content, but must needs ask for a 
 king. These reminders were thrown out to 
 prepare the audience for the startling charge 
 which the apostle had to bring against the 
 rulers of the Jews at Jerusalem, as having con- 
 demned and slain the Saviour whom God had 
 brought to Israel. Let not this be thought 
 incredible. The people had erred before, and 
 might err again. They had rejected Moses and 
 Samuel ; and now they had rejected the Christ. 
 
 The historical review stopped at the elevation 
 of David to be king. This was certainly not 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I 1 9 
 
 because instances of national error and dis- 
 obedience could not be cited from later annals 
 of Israel and Judah, but because the mention of 
 David opened the way for the introduction of 
 the name and story of Jesus. Every Jew, 
 every Proselyte, expected a deliverer of Israel 
 to spring from the root of Jesse ; and all those 
 " of the dispersion " must have expected that 
 whenever the long-promised Son of David 
 appeared, he would be hailed with hosannas 
 and followed with enthusiasm by the priests 
 and elders at Jerusalem. St Paul told those at 
 Antioch that the Son of David had come. " Of 
 this man's (David's) seed hath God according to 
 promise brought unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus." 
 One can imagine the rustle of surprise all over 
 the Synagogue. This announcement went far 
 beyond anything that was looked for when the 
 two strangers were invited to speak. It appealed 
 to that hope of a Messiah which had cheered 
 the hearts of religious Jews during years of 
 national depression and subjection to the 
 heathen. Every ear in the Synagogue must 
 have been on the alert to catch every word 
 that followed. 
 
 The Jews in Pisidia probably had little in- 
 
I20 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH 
 
 tercourse with Palestine, and were vaguely, if 
 at all, informed of the events which had recently 
 transpired in their father-land. Therefore, St 
 Paul thought it well to explain to them that 
 the Son of David had not appeared without the 
 announcement due to His high dignity. A 
 prophet, and more than a prophet, named 
 John, had prepared His way, and by preach- 
 ing beforehand "the baptism of repentance," 
 had indicated the nature of the salvation which 
 the Son of David was about to bring, and 
 which was expressed under the name, Jesus, 
 as not a political deliverance, but a salvation 
 from sin. 
 
 But what followed the appearing of the 
 Saviour } What reception had been given to 
 Him, whose sandals the great prophet, John, 
 deemed himself unworthy to loose ^ Now was 
 St Paul obliged to tell of the condemnation and 
 crucifixion of Jesus by the dwellers in Jerusa- 
 lem and their rulers. It was the critical point 
 in his address, and was treated with admirable 
 discretion. Those Jews " of the dispersion " 
 naturally looked to the rulers at the holy city 
 for a pattern of wisdom and for lessons in 
 righteousness. But, alas! it must be shown 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I 2 I 
 
 to them that those rulers with the people of 
 Jerusalem had erred and sinned more griev- 
 ously than their fathers. One generation had 
 murmured against Moses, another had rejected 
 the government of God under judges, but this 
 generation had actually rejected and slain the 
 Son of David, the Saviour. It was, on their 
 part, a sin of ignorance, and perverse blindness 
 of heart. They at Jerusalem had not known 
 the meaning of the prophetical books which 
 they read " every Sabbath ; " but through this 
 very ignorance they had unwittingly fulfilled 
 prophecy that the Messiah must suffer in order 
 to enter into His glory. 
 
 While the people in the Synagogue were 
 listening with amazement to this unexpected 
 statement, St Paul proceeded rapidly to 
 convey to their ears these facts : that the 
 rulers and multitude at Jerusalem, though 
 they could find no fault in Jesus, had de- 
 manded and obtained His crucifixion from 
 the Roman governor, Pilate ; that the dead 
 body had then been taken " down from the 
 tree," and duly laid " in a tomb ; " that God 
 had raised up from the dead Him who had 
 been slain and buried ; and that there were 
 
122 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH 
 
 many witnesses, well acquainted with His 
 person In Galilee, who had seen the risen 
 Saviour " for many days." 
 
 One can hardly suppose that the Jews and 
 Proselytes in PIsidian Antioch had never heard 
 so much as a rumour of these things till this 
 memorable day. But this was the first clear 
 and firm statement concerning Jesus that had 
 been made In their hearing, and it must have 
 astonished, and even appalled them. Could 
 such things be .^ Was it to be believed that 
 the foremost men of their nation had been so 
 obtuse and cruel as to quench the nation's 
 dearest hope in innocent blood.!* What could 
 be more dreadful than that the Messiah Prince 
 should have been slain in the holy city, and 
 that too by the most painful and opprobrious 
 instrument of death — the Cross } And what was 
 to be thought of the alleged resurrection, and 
 the witnesses who asserted it } How did these 
 things agree with the words of ancient prophets ? 
 
 St Paul gave his hearers no time to express 
 their perplexities. He knew their thoughts, 
 and hastened to meet them. For him, as for 
 all the earliest preachers of our faith, the truth 
 of Christ's resurrection was the point on which 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I 23 
 
 to lay the chief emphasis ; and therefore he 
 proceeded to show by quotations from the 
 Old Testament, that Barnabas and he were 
 in harmony with those oracles, and had 
 brought "good tidings of the promise made 
 to their fathers." 
 
 The quotations were three : — 
 
 1. "Thou art my Son; this day have I be- 
 gotten Thee," Ps. ii. 7. According to the pro- 
 phetic ode, the royal dignity and dominion of 
 the Son of David were secured by a divine 
 decree which provided for the raising up of the 
 king as by a birth from the dark womb of 
 death. The ancients had not understood the 
 oracle ; but the apostle recognised its fulfilment 
 in the resurrection of Jesus, Son of David, and 
 Son of God. It was a view of the elevation of 
 his Master which he often expressed in his later 
 teachings, as when he wrote of our Saviour as 
 " the first-born from the dead." 
 
 2. ** I will give you the holy and sure bless- 
 ings of David," Isa. Iv. 3. The great promise 
 to David, regarded by him as " an everlasting 
 covenant," * had respect to the establishment of 
 his throne in the line of his descendants. The 
 
 * 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. 
 
124 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH 
 
 throne of David, however, had fallen. How 
 could it be restored and made the throne of an 
 everlasting kingdom ? It could not be by any 
 mortal sovereign, however prosperous. But in 
 the Lord Jesus as son of David, yet no more 
 subject to death as David was, for He had risen 
 from the dead, the throne might be established 
 for ever, and so " the sure mercies of David " be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 3. " Thou wilt not give Thy Holy One to see 
 corruption," Ps. xvi. 10. On this prophetic 
 word St Peter had spoken at Jerusalem on the 
 day of Pentecost. David had certainly fallen 
 asleep, and his tomb remained undisturbed. 
 The Son of David, the destined keeper of 
 Israel, must be one not liable to death and that 
 corruption which is after death. It was a con- 
 dition which no one could fulfil in a mortal and 
 corruptible body. David, for this reason, could 
 only serve his own generation. But lo ! a Son 
 of David who had endured death, had risen 
 again before the dead form had "seen cor- 
 ruption ! " As risen from the dead, Jesus 
 was able to save, and to reign to all genera- 
 tions, and the whole earth is to be filled with 
 His glory. 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I 25 
 
 The facts concerning Jesus having thus been 
 succinctly told, and the harmony of them with 
 Old Testament prophecy set forth, the apostle 
 proceeded with a swiftness which gave no op- 
 portunity for interruption, to declare the salva- 
 tion which Barnabas and he had come forth to 
 preach. Like St Peter at Jerusalem, he an- 
 nounced free remission of sins through the Man 
 of God s right hand, the Saviour. Nay, he went 
 further. He propounded a statement which he 
 carefully reasoned and established in his writ- 
 ings, viz., that justification could not be through 
 obedience to the law of Moses, could be only 
 by the grace of God, and would be to those 
 only who had faith in Jesus Christ. This state- 
 ment suffices of itself to show that to be justi- 
 fied is something more than to be pardoned. 
 No one could suppose that he could be par- 
 doned through the law. Pardon never is by 
 law : it is an act of grace or mercy. To be 
 justified is to be accounted righteous. The \ 
 
 Jews held that they would be justified by and 
 before God on account of careful observance of 
 the law. They think so still. But St Paul had 
 learned, and now began to teach, that such con- 
 fidence was vain. The perfect law could not 
 
I 26 ST PAUL AT PISIDIAN ANTIOCH 
 
 consistently justify — God Himself, as acting in 
 the law, would not justify man whose obedience 
 was imperfect ; but God in grace would account 
 as righteous those who believed in Jesus. " It 
 is God that justifieth ; who is he that con- 
 demneth ? " 
 
 So clear is this doctrine in St Paul's teaching, 
 that one marvels how the notion of a sinner 
 being justified on account of works of righteous- 
 ness which he has done, ever obtained any accep- 
 tance among Christians. If men will put them- 
 selves under the law for justification, the result 
 is and must be the very opposite of that which 
 they seek. It is and must be condemnation, 
 because the law is not perfectly kept, but is 
 violated in thought, word, and deed. Sin is 
 the transgression of the law. God's word of 
 salvation reveals a more excellent way. Justi- 
 fication from all things is by God's free grace to 
 the believers in Jesus ; and they are, not are to 
 be, justified. They stand "in Him, in Him 
 alone, gloriously complete." 
 
 The Jews became passionately excited when 
 any word was spoken that seemed to derogate 
 from the high dignity of Moses and the law. 
 Accordingly, the uneasiness which had been 
 
IN THE SYNAGOGUE. I 27 
 
 gathering during St Paul's address, began at 
 this last word to swell into indignation. The 
 speaker observed it in the faces of his auditors, 
 perhaps in gestures also, and an angry murmur. 
 So he brought his speech to an end with words 
 of warning quoted from the book of Habakkuk 
 (chap. i. 5), the burden of it being that they 
 should not despise the word sent to them from 
 God. 
 
 The speech was ended ; and the two mission- 
 aries left the synagogue amidst a loud hum of 
 voices eagerly talking of St Paul's discourse. 
 A strong difference of opinion appeared. Some 
 received the word, and followed Paul and 
 Barnabas : but some resisted it, and, hardening 
 their hearts, soon became persecutors of those 
 preachers of salvation. 
 
 All prophets and preachers of the Gospel 
 have to warn their hearers against a neglect of 
 the great salvation, or a prejudiced resistance 
 to it. The Master himself had to weep over 
 infatuated Jerusalem. It is enough that ser- 
 vants be as their Lord. They must not count 
 it a strange thing that, however plainly and 
 earnestly they speak, some of their hearers will 
 
128 ST PAUL IN THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 lightly esteem the message of reconciliation to 
 God, and return to their houses unjustified. As 
 St Paul said at a later stage of his ministry, 
 " We are a sweet savour of Christ unto God in 
 them that are being saved, and in them that are 
 perishing." 
 
VIII. 
 
 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE ASSEMBLY AT 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 " And when there had been much questioning, Peter rose up, 
 and said unto them, Brethren, ye know how that a good while 
 ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gen- 
 tiles should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And 
 God, which knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them 
 the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us ; and he made no dis- 
 tinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. 
 Now therefore why tempt ye God, that ye should put a yoke 
 upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we 
 were able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved 
 through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in like manner as they. 
 And all the multitude kept silence ; and they hearkened unto 
 Barnabas and Paul rehearsing what signs and wonders God had 
 wrought among the Gentiles by them. And after they had held 
 their peace, James answered, saying. Brethren, hearken unto 
 me : Symeon hath rehearsed how first God did visit the Gen- 
 tiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this 
 agree the words of the prophets ; as it is written, After these 
 things I will return, and I will build again the tabernacle of 
 David, which is fallen ; and I will build again the ruins thereof, 
 and I will set it up : that the residue of men may seek after the 
 Lord. And all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, 
 saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from the be- 
 ginning of the world. Wherefore my judgment is that we 
 trouble not them which from among the Gentiles turn to God ; 
 but that we write unto them, that they abstain from the poUu- 
 
130 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 tions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, 
 and from blood. For Moses from generations of old hath in 
 every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues 
 every sabbath." — Acts xv. 7-21. 
 
 THE apostolic speeches which we have con- 
 sidered hitherto, have been for the most 
 part statements or vindications of the Gospel. 
 Several of the reports given to us by St Luke 
 might be described as " notes of sermons." The 
 only one which prepares us for the discussion 
 that now comes under review, is the address of 
 St Peter at Jerusalem in explanation of his con- 
 duct towards Cornelius and other Gentiles at 
 Caesarea. At the time, that address silenced 
 Jewish murmurers in the mother Church. They 
 did not in express terms acquiesce in the law- 
 fulness of receiving Gentile converts into fellow- 
 ship without subjecting them to circumcision, 
 and requiring them to pass under the yoke of 
 the Mosaic law ; but they acknowledged that 
 God had granted^to Gentiles "repentance unto 
 life." The question was not dead, but slept a 
 while. It awoke with energy when the Gospel 
 was openly carried to the Gentiles in Syria 
 and throughout Asia Minor, and churches of 
 mixed origin were formed. About twelve years 
 had passed since St Peter had calmed the 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. 1 3 I 
 
 murmurs of the Jewish Christians ; and during 
 that time the Church at Jerusalem had been 
 recruited from the Hebrew population only, 
 and contained a good many persons who, 
 though they owned Jesus as the Messiah, had 
 little of His spirit, and were as bigoted as any 
 Pharisees. The mission to the Gentiles had 
 emanated from Antioch, not from Jerusalem ; 
 and when the Church in the former city was 
 rejoicing over the success which the missionaries 
 on their return were able to report, it was from 
 Judea that fanatical Jewish Christians came 
 down to disturb the peace and damp the joy at 
 Antioch by insisting that circumcision was 
 essential to salvation. Paul and Barnabas, 
 fresh from the mission field, could not for a 
 moment admit this miserable narrowing of the 
 grace of God. While those Judean Christians 
 could think of nothing greater than the 
 distinctive sanctity and glory of Israel, the 
 missionaries had caught the Master's mighty 
 thought of God's love to the world, and had 
 seen the value and adaptation of the Gospel 
 to men of strange cities, who welcomed it when 
 it was denounced and rejected by the Jews. 
 They knew that it would be impossible, and 
 
132 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 felt that it would be useless, to keep the Church 
 on the restricted lines of the synagogue, and to 
 compel converts from all nations to conform to 
 the customs of the Jews. The discussion of 
 the question at Antioch was hot and protracted ; 
 so it was determined that a deputation should 
 go to Jerusalem to consult the apostles and 
 elders there, and so ascertain whether the 
 preachers of circumcision who had come from 
 Judea did or did not represent the mature 
 opinions of the mother Church. 
 
 Whether the assembly at Jerusalem may be 
 regarded as in any proper sense a synod or 
 council is a question beyond our present scope. 
 Enough that we are allowed to enter the 
 assembly and hear the speeches. 
 
 The " apostles and elders " were seated in 
 order, as constituting a Christian Sanhedrim. 
 On the earlier occasion, when St Peter's con- 
 duct at Csesarea had been called in question, we 
 read of " the apostles and the brethren." In 
 the interval, presbyters had been appointed to 
 represent and superintend the general body of 
 Christian brethren. There is no mention of an 
 institution of this order, as there is of the order 
 of deacons, and for this excellent reason, that 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. 1 33 
 
 the deaconship was a new order, but the elder- 
 ship was not. The Jews had always been 
 accustomed to the rule of elders, and, as a 
 matter of course, continued that order in the 
 new Christian fellowship. Barnabas and Paul 
 had no hesitation whatever as to the kind of 
 superintendence which was proper for the new 
 congregations gathered through their labours 
 in Asia Minor. They "appointed elders in 
 every church."* It is as plain as possible that 
 those assemblies at Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian 
 Antioch, were what we should call now-a-days 
 Presbyterian congregations.f 
 
 Along with their acknowledged leaders were 
 assembled many of the private Christians of 
 Jerusalem; and in the preliminary "question- 
 ing " they probably made their voices heard in 
 exclamations and interruptions, for the matter 
 
 * Acts xiv. 21-23. 
 
 + It is scarcely necessary to argue this after the acknow- 
 ledgments of Lightfoot, Jacob, and Hatch, the modern scholar- 
 ship of our English Prelatism having virtually conceded the 
 Presbyterian position as regards the first, and most important 
 century. The late Dean of Westminster has said, in the 
 last work which issued from his pen — "It is certain that 
 throughout the first century, and for the first years of the second, 
 bishop and presbyter were convertible terms, and that the body 
 of men so-called were the rulers — so far as any permanent rulers 
 existed — of the early Church. " Rather awkward this for divines 
 
134 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 in hand was one that excited intense feeling, 
 and the mention of silence after St Peter's 
 speech implies that there had been a good deal 
 of noise and agitation before he began. Bar- 
 nabas and Paul were there with other deputies 
 from Antioch who took the same side in the 
 controversy. The party opposed to them was 
 numerously represented also. 
 
 As battles have often begun with the skir- 
 mishing of light troops, that could decide 
 nothing, but could search and clear the ground 
 for the onset of the battalions that were to 
 decide the fortune of the day ; so in this 
 assembly there was much informal discussion 
 before the leaders spoke. To us it may seem 
 pitiful that the question should have given any 
 trouble; almost ludicrous that such a fleshly 
 rite as circumcision should have been gravely 
 
 who have it gravely laid down in their formularies that — " It is 
 evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and 
 ancient authors, that from the apostles' time there have been 
 three orders of ministers — bishops, priests, and deacons. " Dean 
 Stanley knew that this was incorrect, and got over it, or slipped 
 past it, thus: — "We commonly speak of three orders, and the 
 present elevation of bishops has justified that phrase; but 
 according to the strict rules of the Church, derived from those 
 early times, there are but two — presbyters and deacons." — 
 " Christian Institutions," pp. 187-189. 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. I 35 
 
 regarded as essential to salvation. But it was 
 a dogma taught by venerable Rabbis ; and the 
 Jewish Christians who contended for the uni- 
 versal obligation of what they called, with more 
 zeal than accuracy, "the custom of Moses"* 
 (for circumcision came from Abraham), simply 
 overrated the importance of external rites and 
 observances, as narrow-minded men always do. 
 It would not be difficult to show that Gentile 
 Christianity has also had bigots who taught 
 conditions of salvation quite as irrational. 
 
 At last it was evident that the '' much ques- 
 tioning" was not moving the subject any nearer 
 to solution. We are allowed to hear two 
 speeches which moulded the opinion of the 
 assembly, and brought the somewhat heated 
 and perilous discussion to a temperate and 
 harmonious conclusion. The speakers had 
 great influence, for they were "pillars in the 
 Church." And the Spirit of the Lord gave 
 them meekness of wisdom. 
 
 I. " Peter rose up." It had always been his 
 way to take the initiative ; and the illustrious 
 part he had played on and since the day of 
 Pentecost entitled him to much honour and 
 
 * Acts XV. I . 
 
T^6 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 deference from the whole Christian community. 
 He was no pope, for, if he had been, he would 
 have settled the matter in dispute by a decree. 
 He claimed nothing more than a voice on a par 
 with the other apostles and elders. He de- 
 scribes himself with his own pen as " an apostle 
 of Jesus Christ, who also am an elder."* 
 
 The speech of St Peter, as reported, is short, 
 but clear and to the point. He saw no need 
 for lengthened discussion. He was guided to 
 his conclusion by the logic of facts. The 
 matter now debated was in his view virtually 
 settled by the former case of the Gentiles at 
 Caesarea, and he at once recalled that case to 
 the mind of the assembly. It was not the bent 
 of this apostle's mind to plough his way through 
 a deep or careful argument ; but he knew how 
 to grasp relevant facts, and make them tell 
 strongly on the minds of others. He held that 
 the act of God in cleansing the hearts of Cor- 
 neHus and his friends by faith, and imparting to 
 them the Holy Ghost, was sufficient to estab- 
 lish the principle that, for a Gentile at all 
 events, circumcision was not essential to salva- 
 tion ! Why should not the decision arrived at, 
 
 * I Pet. i. I ; V. i. 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. I37 
 
 SO many years before, in the case from Csesarea, 
 apply to other cases as they arose ? Why 
 should the objectors " tempt God " by assum- 
 ing that He would not save Gentiles elsewhere 
 as He had saved them in the house of Cor- 
 nelius ? And for what end did they seek thus 
 to restrict the mercy of God, and limit the 
 range of the Christian Church ? Was it then 
 really such an object to impose on the Gentile 
 disciples a yoke of rites and ceremonies which 
 generations of Israel had been unable to bear ? 
 
 The obligation of circumcision was not the 
 only point raised by the objecting party. Being 
 of the sect of the Pharisees, though now also 
 Christians, they alleged that it was needful not 
 only to circumcise Gentile converts, but also 
 "to charge them to keep the law of Moses."* 
 This was what St Peter called "a yoke upon 
 the neck." He referred to the minute regula- 
 tions of the ceremonial law which, though 
 familiar to the Jews by hereditary usage, would 
 have been an unmeaning and vexatious burden 
 on Greek or Roman Christians. Nor did he 
 exclude from his meaning the moral precepts 
 of the law of Moses when regarded, as they 
 
 * Acts XV. 5. 
 
138 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 were by the Pharisees, as instruments for estab- 
 lishing self-righteousness. Indeed the distinc- 
 tion between the ceremonial and the moral 
 elements in the Mosaic legislation which is 
 so carefully made by our theologians, was not 
 at all emphasised by the Jewish mind, which 
 looked on the law as a whole, and was inclined, 
 so far as it made a difference, to give the more 
 important place to ritual, and to make more of 
 customs and ceremonies than of morals. 
 
 One thing was quite certain, that salvation 
 for all men was " through the grace of the Lord 
 Jesus ;" and no ceremonial or traditional restric- 
 tion on that grace could be allowed. We can 
 imagine the satisfaction with which St Paul, 
 who understood the question, and appreciated 
 the critical issues of that day better than any 
 one, listened to this clear evangelical statement 
 as it fell from the lips of the venerable Simon 
 Peter. He remembered it, and was obliged to 
 remind St Peter of it on a future occasion at 
 Antioch, when that apostle showed some symp- 
 tom of the weakness of other days, and acted in 
 a manner inconsistent with his speech. 
 
 Happily the speech was on the side of Gen- 
 tile liberty. St Peter always spoke with effect ; 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. I 39 
 
 and the whole assembly felt the force of his un- 
 answerable words. The facts which he had 
 recalled could not be denied ; and indeed the 
 only question that could now be discussed was 
 whether the principle on which the case of the 
 Caesarean converts had been decided ought to 
 be applied to all disciples gathered from the 
 heathen nations. "All the multitude kept 
 silence." So far truth and charity had gained 
 the day. 
 
 The silence was broken by the missionaries. 
 Perhaps by prearrangement with the leading 
 apostles, perhaps on the happy inspiration of 
 the moment, Barnabas and Paul with excellent 
 tact struck in, and spoke successively in the 
 line which was pointed to by St Peter. Barna- 
 bas seems to have spoken first — a judicious 
 arrangement, because he had a stronger hold 
 than his companion on the confidence of the 
 Church at Jerusalem. Both of them were men 
 not likely to surrender any just claim of Judaism 
 without good cause. Barnabas was a Levite, 
 and Paul a carefully educated Pharisee, who 
 even in youth had been a Sanhedrist. They 
 proceeded to rehearse facts which had come 
 
140 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 under their own observation during their recent 
 missionary tour in foreign parts, thus following 
 up and deepening the impression of St Peter's 
 speech. They did not so much debate or argue 
 as narrate what God had wrought among the 
 Gentiles under their own ministry. Then they 
 did not need to press the question ; it suggested 
 and pressed itself. If God has not refused those 
 Gentile converts on account of their uncircum- 
 cision, why should the Church refuse them .? 
 And if God gave to them His Holy spirit, why 
 should men hesitate to give them baptism ? 
 
 Thus the necessary proof was laid before the 
 assembly, that the great question now under 
 discussion was only a continuation and enlarge- 
 ment of that which had been settled twelve 
 years before. And the way was prepared for 
 a reasonable and liberal solution of the diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 11. St James then moved, as we should say, 
 the judgment of the court. There was indeed 
 a third pillar of the Church* — St John — but he, 
 if present, was no doubt content, as at other 
 times, to signify his concurrence with his 
 * Gal. i. 9. 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. I4I 
 
 familiar friend, St Peter. It fell naturally to 
 St James to close the discussion on account of 
 his position as in chief charge of the Church at 
 Jerusalem, or president of the local Presbytery. 
 He is known to have been held in great esteem 
 by all the people of Jerusalem, non-Christian as 
 well as Christian. His character gave great 
 weight to his opinion on such an occasion as 
 this ; and his voice must have been eagerly 
 waited for by the Judaising party, because he 
 was a strict Jew, and they must have felt that 
 such a question as they had raised would receive 
 from him all due consideration. He was not 
 implicated in any personal intercourse with 
 Gentiles, as St Peter was, but happily he was 
 too just a man to lay an unnecessary burden on 
 other nations for the exaltation of Judaism, and 
 too enlightened to suppose that all mankind 
 must be forced to adopt a Jewish peculiarity in 
 order to be saved. 
 
 This is the only speech of St James which 
 has been preserved. It consists of four sen- 
 tences : — 
 
 I. He recognised the importance and re- 
 levancy of the historical case referred to by his 
 colleague, whom he characteristically styled in 
 
142 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 the Hebrew form '' Symeon." The conversion 
 of Gentiles at Csesarea appeared to his mind as 
 the act of God in taking a people for His name 
 out of the profane mass of the heathen world. 
 
 2. He went to the Old Testament to find 
 prophetic sanction for this new phenomenon. 
 A mind like his craved some ground of Scrip- 
 ture as well as of observation and reason for the 
 admission of the Gentiles to the household of 
 faith. He found it in the book of Amos, from 
 which he made a quotation (chap. ix. ii, 12) in 
 the Septuagint version. The prophet had fore- 
 told that the fallen tabernacle of David would 
 be rebuilt, and that in conjunction with this 
 favour to Israel a blessing would fall on the 
 Gentiles — "upon whom My name is called, 
 saith the Lord." The apostle was not careful 
 to fix the definite literal fulfilment of the oracle. 
 He was not unaware of what have been well- 
 described as " the ever widening horizons of 
 prophecy." The erection of the Church of 
 Christ, the Son of David, was a restoration of 
 the tabernacle of David ; and there came into 
 prominent view those words which intimated 
 that the Lord's name would be " called " on the 
 Gentiles. Was not this being fulfilled in the 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. 1 43 
 
 conversion to Christ of a people whom God was 
 now calling out of the heathen world for His 
 name ? And, if so, it certainly was not neces- 
 sary for those Gentile Christians to renounce 
 their own nationalities, and conform to the 
 separate rites and customs of the Jews. 
 
 3. In pursuance of this view, he proposed a 
 decision of the case before the assembly, and 
 gave his own vote in its support. He was in 
 favour of some restrictions whereas St Peter had 
 spoken of none, but he conceded the main point 
 about which Paul and Barnabas were anxious. 
 The Gentile converts should not be harassed by 
 exactions and prescriptions which had their 
 origin in Jewish custom and law. Enough that 
 they should conform to certain rules of absten- 
 tion which could not be called irksome, and 
 which might in some degree conciliate those 
 who were apt to regard all Gentiles alike as 
 unclean. The restrictions were of a prudential 
 nature, intended to preserve the peace between 
 Jewish and Gentile Christians till such time as 
 the lasting principles of New Testament free- 
 dom and fellowship should be more clearly 
 understood. 
 
 4. In his last sentence he touched with sooth- 
 
144 ^T PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 ing hand the susceptibilities of the more keen 
 Jewish partisans. The law was according to 
 ancient practice read on every Sabbath in all 
 the synagogues in the world. There was no 
 need to fear that the liberty accorded to the 
 Gentiles would bring the law into disrespect. 
 And there was strong reason why the Gentile 
 Christians should consider and spare the feel- 
 ings of their Jewish brethren on this subject, 
 and even defer to their scruples in so far as con- 
 science would allow. 
 
 At the close of this short speech from St 
 James the deliberation of the council was closed. 
 Some of the Judaising party no doubt were 
 silenced rather than convinced ; but the ques- 
 tion was settled. The counsel of St James 
 became the unanimous resolution of the whole 
 conclave. The Gentile liberty was secured, 
 and, at the same time, the peace of the whole 
 Church was promoted. 
 
 The whole discussion suggests to our 
 minds : — 
 
 I. The advantage of holding Christian as- 
 semblies for the adjustment of difficulties. The 
 narrative which we have been examining is 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. 1 45 
 
 fatal to the Popish, and to any and every 
 hierarchical, system of church government ; for 
 there was open discussion in a grand council of 
 apostles and elders in the presence of their 
 brethren, and the decision went out in the name 
 of Apostles and Presbyters with concurrence of 
 the whole Church. It is also incompatible with 
 a bare system of independency, which leaves 
 every local church to steer its own course, ad- 
 just as best it may its own perplexities, and 
 consume its own party spirit or be consumed 
 thereby. We have said that we should deem it 
 beyond our present scope to determine how far 
 this assembly at Jerusalem corresponds to a 
 synod receiving and determining a reference on 
 some local difficulty ; but we venture to think 
 that the narrative goes far to sanction and re- 
 commend the settlement of such disputes by 
 some large and impartial tribunal. 
 
 It is easy to point the finger at synods or 
 councils which have been bigoted, tyrannical, 
 tumultuous, superstitious ; but these were ' not 
 constituted like the assembly at Jerusalem. 
 Give us a council of the elders of the 
 Church, and these, not as a privileged caste 
 meeting apart, but as the trusted leaders of 
 K 
 
146 ST PETER AND ST JAMES TO THE 
 
 the Christian community, deliberating in pre- 
 sence of their brethren ; and you furnish the 
 best possible instrument for adjusting diffi- 
 culties, allaying jealousies, maintaining truth 
 and peace. For the safety of the State, local 
 and particular objects must be kept in sub- 
 ordination to the public interest; and this is 
 secured by vesting the supreme control in a 
 National Assembly or High Court of Parlia- 
 ment. To this conclusion all progressive 
 nations tend. They find in this the benefit 
 of bringing out and bringing together the 
 wisdom of their ablest counsellors, and that 
 too under the full light of public comment. 
 A similar arrangement must be good for 
 the Church, conducing as it does alike to 
 that candid consideration and comparison of 
 diverging views which is essential to broad 
 and wise conclusions, and to that development 
 of various gifts among the elders and brethren 
 which is for the profit of all. The Church 
 wants missionary pioneers and energetic 
 workers like Barnabas and Paul; fathers of 
 practical experience, like Saint Peter; grave 
 and cautious men too, like James, who know 
 how to bring disputation to an end by framing 
 a reasonable and_[equitable deliverance. 
 
ASSEMBLY AT JERUSALEM. 1 47 
 
 2. The debt of gratitude due to those men 
 who settled what are now to us dead con- 
 troversies. The Gnostic, Manichean, Arian, 
 Monophysite, and other questions that tor- 
 mented and perplexed early Christianity, are 
 nothing now but matters of remote history. 
 Thanks to the defenders of the faith who 
 encountered and refuted these heresies! 
 Thanks above all to the Spirit of Truth who 
 enabled them to discern and maintain sound 
 doctrine ! 
 
 The question of circumcision which troubled 
 the infancy of the Church so much is now quite 
 dead. We can scarcely conceive a proposal 
 being gravely made or entertained that such 
 a rite should be imposed on Christians of all 
 nations. But we should remember that at the 
 beginning our Gentile liberty in Christ was 
 won only by a hard struggle, and should 
 heartily honour the men, themselves Jews, 
 who broke down the claims of an arrogant 
 Judaism. 
 
 Even the decision at Jerusalem did not settle 
 the question. St Paul had still to fight it out 
 in almost every Church, by letters and by oral 
 teaching. Few things are nobler in religious 
 
148 ST PETER AND ST JAMES AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 history than the devotion of this Pharisee — 
 this Hebrew of the Hebrews — to the cause 
 of Gentile liberty in Christ. Thanks to him 
 most of all, and then to other Jewish brethren 
 who championed our freedom from a Jewish 
 yoke ! j Well for us, and for all the world, 
 that they recognised in Jesus the light to 
 lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of 
 the people Israel, and also perceived that "in 
 Him neither circumcision nor uncircumcision 
 profits anything, but a new creation." 
 
IX. 
 
 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 "And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said, Ye 
 men of Athens in all things I perceive that ye are somewhat 
 superstitious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects 
 of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 
 TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore ye worship in 
 ignorance, this set forth I unto you. The God that made 
 the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and 
 earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; neither is he 
 served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing 
 he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ; and he 
 made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of 
 the earth, having determined theh- appointed seasons, and the 
 bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek God, if haply 
 they might feel after him, and find him, though he is not far 
 from each one of us ; for in him we live, and move, and have 
 our being ; as certain even of your own poets have said. For we 
 are also his offspring. Being then the offspring of God, we 
 ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, 
 or stone, graven by art and device of man. The times of 
 ignorance therefore God overlooked ; but now he commandeth 
 men that they should all everywhere repent : inasmuch as he 
 hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in 
 righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he 
 hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him 
 from the dead." — Acts xvii. 22-31. 
 
 WE are now in Europe, and on the classic 
 soil of Greece. Jews had settled in 
 the chief Greek cities, and gathered round them 
 
1 50 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 a certain number of Proselytes. They had a 
 synagogue at Athens, to which the apostle Paul 
 went on his arrival in the city ; but the Jewish 
 influence obviously was small, and the interest 
 of St Paul's visit did not turn on Jewish 
 questions. His discussion in the Agora, or 
 market-place, was with the Greeks who loved 
 colloquial argument in the open air; and his 
 address, perhaps the most admired of all his 
 speeches, was delivered to them in their court- 
 house, under the blue sky, on the hill of Mars. 
 
 The occasion which drew forth this speech 
 must have galled the sensitive spirit of St 
 Paul, but did not in the least confuse his 
 mind, or embarrass his ready eloquence. He 
 was alone in a city which may be described 
 as thoroughly Pagan, for the few Jews and 
 Proselytes were of no account, and which was at 
 the same time extremely proud of its literary and 
 philosophical eminence, and, therefore, presented 
 a peculiarly hard surface to the Christian mis- 
 sionary. The people whom St Paul met - in 
 the market-place, including those who by 
 profession were students of wisdom, treated 
 his grave statements with levity. Now he 
 was accustomed to angry opposition and se- 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. I 5 1 
 
 vere controversy. Such obstruction he was 
 prepared to meet. But this light, chattering 
 Athenian ridicule was a new form of vexation, 
 and one that must have been peculiarly trying 
 to an earnest spirit consciously entrusted with 
 a divine message of transcendent value and 
 urgency. 
 
 Afanc^ seized the Athenians to call this 
 Jewish stranger to a sort of mock trial for 
 his new doctrine. So they seized him, not as 
 with any serious or legal arrest, but rather 
 in a freak of popular humour, and led him 
 up the rough stone steps to the eminence 
 called the Hill of Mars, where the courts 
 were wont to sit in the open air. They 
 placed St Paul on the spot from which 
 accused persons spoke in their own defence; 
 and then taking their places as judges, they 
 said to the apostle: "May we know what 
 this new teaching is which is spoken by 
 thee } " They had no real hunger of soul, no 
 trouble of conscience, no deep religious feeling 
 of any kind ; but were actuated by that intel- 
 lectu al curio sity which was one of their strong 
 popular characteristics. If this Jew knew any- 
 thing which they knew not, let him speak. 
 
152 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 By the grace of God, St Paul made admir- 
 able use of his opportunity. Speaking to a 
 heathen audience, he founded nothing on Jew- 
 ish history, quoted nothing from the Hebrew 
 Scriptures. He took the Greeks on grounds 
 which they might be expected to acknowledge, 
 and made citations from their own poets. The 
 address which he uttered on the spur of the 
 moment could not have been more skilfully 
 framed and worded, if he had spent days in 
 preparing it ; and this was well, for in no part 
 of the world could he have found an audience 
 so fond of rhetoric and so keen to criticise. It 
 was no ordinary task which the apostle set him- 
 self to accomplish, to conciliate and interest an 
 Athenian crowd, while rebuking their national 
 self-complacency and exposing the errors of 
 their philosophers ; and then to proclaim on 
 Mars Hill, as he had already in a more col- 
 loquial manner announced in the Market-place, 
 Jesus and the Resurrection. 
 
 The Authorised Version has, in the opening 
 sentence of the speech, the phrase " too super- 
 stitious." The Revised Version gives "some- 
 what superstitious ; " but the American Revisers 
 suggested "very religious." It is difficult to 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. I 53 
 
 believe that so skilful a speaker as St Paul 
 opened with an expression fitted to offend. The! 
 word he employed is the comparative of an ad-' 
 jective, which means divinitjjeanng, and was 
 no doubt spoken in a courteous tone and with 
 conciliatory intention. The same term occurs 
 five times in Josephus, and always in a respect- 
 f ul sen se. So we understand the apostle as 
 saying — " Athenians ! I perceive that you are, 
 more than others, given to honour divinities. 
 Everything around me shows that you pay 
 much homage to your gods." Well might he 
 say so ; for Athens was full of temples and 
 sacred statues. An ancient author asserts that 
 there were more statues at Athens than in all 
 the rest of Greece put together. 
 
 The altars in the city, and the statues of gods 
 and goddesses were abhorrent to St Paul both as 
 a Jew and as a Christian. They pained his soul as 
 he walked through the streets; but among them 
 he noticed an altar inscribed, not to gods in the 
 plural, not even to one god by name, but " to K 
 the unknown God." Ancient writers have been 
 quoted to corroborate the fact that such altars 
 existed in Greece ; but it is unnecessary for us 
 to pursue any inquiry into their origin'or inten- 
 
154 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 tion. What is material is the view which St 
 Paul took of the altar in question, and the ad- 
 vantage to which he turned it in his speech. 
 He adverted to it as a confession of the inade- 
 quacy of the Greek Polytheism, notwithstand- 
 ing all its aids from poetry and sculpture. 
 "Lo," said the Christian preacher, "the God 
 who is God in truth, and whom indeed you 
 know not. Him declare I unto you !" 
 / In all the annals of eloquence, a more felici- 
 tous introduction is not to be found. One skil- 
 ful turn of thought and expression, and the 
 orator was in the heart of his subject, declaring 
 I the supremacy and spirituality of God. It was 
 ' not like speaking to Jews who acknowledged one 
 God, and professed reverence for His prophets. 
 Among the Greeks it was necessary to begin 
 with the doctrine of one God against many; 
 " the God that made the world and all things 
 that are therein." How, too, we find in Paul's 
 public speaking a recollection of that address 
 of Stephen which had so burnt itself into 
 his memory. He followed Stephen also in 
 quoting from Solomon — " The Lord of heaven 
 and earth dwelleth not in temples made with 
 hands." 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. £55 
 
 In his teaching concerning God (ver. 24-29) 
 the apostle spoke as in response to the request 
 that he would explain his doctrine ; but in doing 
 so, he struck a series of heavy blows at the 
 views which pervaded his audience. The Epi- 
 cureans disbelieved in any creation of matter, 
 and the Stoics made God immanent in matter. 
 But St Paul said that the God whom he served 
 " made the world and all things therein." Then 
 the multitude were proud of the temples and 
 their exq3nsitdy:_chjs^elled statues both in metal 
 anci in marble ; and this Jewish preacher, stand- 
 ing there in full view of the colossal Pallas 
 Athene on the summit of the Acropolis, the 
 guardian goddess of the city, spoke of a " Lord 
 of heaven and earth " w ho wo uld not dwell in 
 the most beautiful temple that man could rear, 
 and could not be represented in " gold or silver 
 or stone, graven by art and man's device." 
 Again, the Epicureans said that the gods were 
 far away, living at ease, and careless of man- 
 kind ; but Paul said the very opposite — " He is 
 not far from each one of us." 
 
 In his teaching regarding man, the apostle 
 also ran counter to his audience. The Greeks, 
 especially those of Attica, were very vain of 
 
156 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 - their extraction, boasting that they were au- 
 tochthonous. Other nations were held to [be 
 inferior races, and were contemptuously styled 
 barbarians. In direct contradiction of this, St 
 Paul affirmed that God had " made of one every 
 nation of men to dwell on the face of earth." 
 y He also taught that all men held the same 
 natural relation to God. All are so constituted 
 ^that they seek their best interest when they 
 seek Him ; and all are so near to Him that " in 
 Him they live, and move, and have their being." 
 In support of this he could not quote Scripture 
 to the heathen, so he cited certain of their own 
 poets who designated man "the offspring of 
 God." The reference was to Aratus of Cihcia, 
 a countryman of Paul, whose verses he had 
 doubtless read at Tarsus ; but he said " poets " 
 because the same sentiment is found in a hymn 
 to Zeus, by Cleanthes. But if this was a fact, 
 and no mere poet's dream, what was the worth 
 of all those images t They could not set forth 
 the real nature and all-pervasive power of God. 
 Here is the true argument against the popular 
 use of images and pictures to represent Divine 
 existence. It limits and lowers in the human 
 mind what it attempts to illustrate. 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. I 57 
 
 The Greeks confidently assumed their own 
 intellectual illumination. St Paul_jdjd__not 
 scruple to say that with reference to God 
 they had lived in darkness. The, ages during 
 which heathenism had covered Greece, and all 
 the world but little Palestine, had been " times 
 of ignorance." Individual Greeks, indeed, had 
 appeared in those past times who saw and knew 
 far more than the multitude. If Socrates and 
 Plato were not, in the full sense of the term, 
 " children of light," they had bright gleams of 
 lofty thought and wisdom. But a few sparks, 
 or shooting rays of light, could not lift off the 
 burden of darkness from the world ; and ignor- 
 ance of God and of righteousness brooded over 
 the nations, even over that fair city of Athens, 
 brightest home of ancient thought and culture. 
 In His sublime patience, God had endured 
 those long-drawn " times of ignorance ;" had not 
 looked on them with an eye of severe scrutiny 
 but glanced quite over them and past them, 
 contemplating the day of Christ, the rising of 
 that True light. The apostle pronounced no 
 opinion on the state of those who had died in 
 the former ignorance ; but he boldly announced 
 to his hearers that now was the crisis of the world 
 
158 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 now was dawning a new age on Greece and on 
 all countries to which the Gospel came : 
 " Now God commandeth men that they should 
 all everywhere repent." 
 
 A command strange to Athenian ears ! The 
 people were in their usual lively superficial 
 mood, full of curiosity, ready for discussion, 
 but without any concern about sin, or serious 
 desire of emancipation from its power. And 
 this Jewish stranger, instead of seeking their 
 applause, wanted to smite their consciences, 
 and asserted that there was only one God, and 
 that He commanded Greeks, and all men alike, 
 to repent ! What a blow to the Stoics in the 
 crowd ! Those champions of strict virtue — 
 were they to be put on a level with other men, 
 and commanded to repent .? And what an 
 annoyance to the Epicureans ! Those philo- 
 sophers of pleasure — were they to subject them- 
 selves to reproofs of conscience, and to undergo 
 moral pain } 
 
 The messengers of God had long reasoned 
 with Israel concerning repentance. The pro- 
 phets, the Baptist, the Saviour Himself had 
 remonstrated with the chosen nation on their 
 departure or declension from the God of their 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. I 59 
 
 fathers, and charged them to repent and return. 
 There [is a famous instance in the Old Testa- 
 ment of a heathen king and people repenting 
 toward God, and finding mercy. It is that of 
 the king and people of Nineveh ; but we cannot 
 say that the prophet Jonah preached repent- 
 ance in their streets. He only sounded a 
 warning of doom. They heard and repented. 
 But when Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, 
 He gave a new commandment to His apostles. 
 They were to preach "repentance and remission 
 of sins in His name unto all nations." Hence 
 the statement of St Paul that repentance was 
 now proclaimed to and required of all mankind. 
 
 With repentance toward God was always 
 joined in the apostle's mind, faith toward the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. He would no doubt have 
 proceeded to inculcate this, if his speech had 
 not been interrupted. He was leading on to 
 the mention of the Saviour's name when the 
 interruption took place. 
 
 And how was he leading on to this ? It was 
 of no use to speak to the Athenians of an 
 expected Messiah, or of deliverance from the 
 condemnation incurred under Moses' law, as he 
 might have spoken to Jews and proselytes. He 
 
t6o ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 must put forward some truth for which the 
 heathen mind was in some measure prepared. 
 And he selected the truth of a future judgment 
 of mankind, just as St Peter had done in speak- 
 ing to Gentiles at Caesarea.* The Greeks 
 believed in three judges before whom disem- 
 bodied men should stand to receive reward or 
 doom. St Paul told them that God had 
 ordained One Man to "judge the world in 
 righteousness." There was a grave significance 
 in such a statement as made by one whom the 
 Athenians were lightly judging in that court of 
 Areopagus, famous throughout all the pro- 
 vinces and islands of Greece. The quickwitted 
 crowd perceived the bearing of it, and, being 
 vain and shallow-minded, shook it off. 
 
 The point at which they interrupted was St 
 Paul's affirmation that the Judge of all was a 
 Man whom God had raised from the dead. He 
 was endeavouring to fix their thoughts on the 
 Man of God's right hand, and to awaken within 
 their breasts some nobler curiosity to learn 
 who and what this " one Man " might be 
 whose name he had not pronounced. But they 
 counted his words to be folly, and so never 
 * Acts X. 47. 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. l6l 
 
 heard even the name of Jesus. Some mocked. 
 Others more polite, but with no more grave 
 intention, said, "We will hear thee con- 
 cerning this yet again." They could believe 
 in heroes raised to be gods, but not in a man 
 raised from the dead and continuing to be a 
 man. This Jew might speak to them about 
 the nature of God, for that was an accepted 
 topic among the philosophers, and he spoke 
 well, and knew the poets ; but once he began 
 to speak of a man's resurrection from the realms 
 of the dead, it seemed to the Athenians a waste 
 of time to listen to him. His statement was 
 beneath the consideration of educated men. 
 They were not angry enough to imprison or 
 kill St Paul, as their fathers killed Socrates 
 by poison near that very spot, for what they 
 called impiety, but really for knowing more 
 divinity than they did themselves. They 
 managed, however, to rid themselves of the 
 apostle's presence as effectually as if they had 
 put him to death. They treated his message 
 with contumely, and would not hear another 
 word, though he had brought his speech to the 
 very point when he was about to preach Jesus, 
 and to tell them of that faith in Him by which 
 L 
 
1 62 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 they might become more and better than phi- 
 losophers — saints. He let them put him to 
 silence. He did not gesticulate and shout 
 against the clamour. He had too great a respect 
 for the Gospel to force it on the people. He 
 had too much reverence for his Master in 
 heaven, to bawl out His name in the ears of 
 those mockers. They had brought him to that 
 spot, and had asked him to speak. If they 
 would not listen, his responsibility was ex- 
 hausted, his task was done. " Thus Paul went 
 out from among them." We can see him 
 grave^ and sadly descending the steps from 
 the hill to the city, which he soon left never to 
 revisit. Often as he sailed along that coast in 
 after years, long as he stayed at the neighbour- 
 ing city of Corinth, he appears never to have 
 set foot again in Athens, or finished that 
 masterly speech which a frivolous crowd had 
 broken with their mockery. 
 
 The mission to Athens seemed to be a failure. 
 Yet not quite. A little flock was gathered even 
 there. One of the judges of the Areopagus 
 showed himself willing to bear the reproach of 
 Christ ; also a woman of whom we know 
 nothing but the name, but of whom we are 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. I 63 
 
 Specially glad to hear, because her case is one 
 of a series in which this missionary tour of St 
 Paul reaped among women good fruits from the 
 women's prayer-meeting at Philippi.* Besides 
 Lydia, we learn that " a certain maid " at Phi- 
 lippi was saved in the name of Jesus Christ, the 
 Pythonic spirit being exorcised. At Thessa- 
 lonica among the first Christians were " of 
 the chief women not a few." At Beroea also 
 there were *' of the Greek women of honour- 
 able estate not a few." And now, at Athens, 
 "a woman named Damaris." Others joined 
 Dionysius and Damaris, and a little Church 
 was formed which continued and flourished at 
 Athens for centuries. So the apparent defeat 
 of St Paul turned out an ultimate victory. The 
 Athenian gods were weak before the Man whom 
 Paul preached, whom God had raised from the 
 dead. 
 
 How little after all did that heathen Athens 
 know ! With all its brilliant succession of 
 philosophers, orators, statesmen, soldiers, artists, 
 and poets, what darkness brooded over the city 
 as compared with the celestial light which that 
 one man, Paul of Tarsus, carried in his breast! 
 
 * Acts xvi. 13-18; xvii. 4, 12, 34. 
 
164 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 What an element in civilisation and genuine 
 culture is wanting when religious knowledge 
 and conviction are left out or are degraded and 
 misled by superstition ! One may see it in our 
 modern Christendom. Superstition has for 
 many generations lain as an incubus on certain 
 Christian nations. And now an Agnostic and 
 Christ-ignoring education is coming into vogue, 
 which laughs not at superstition only, but at 
 all revealed religion. Many seem to hail it in 
 the interest of liberty, knowledge, and social 
 progress. We believe that it is the way to 
 darkness and social chaos. They are the wise 
 who have the fear of the Lord : and they are 
 the freemen, whom the truth makes free. • 
 
 The Athenians were willing to make room for 
 new divinities, but with an easy tolerance which 
 betrayed their lack of reverential faith in any 
 god. A similar spirit is abroad at the present 
 day, even in our own cities. Men are so kind 
 as to say that they do not wish to interfere with 
 existing creeds and ancient institutions. Let 
 them remain for what they are worth. Let 
 every one keep the tradition or belief that suits 
 him. If he be under a delusion why disturb 
 him, or deprive l^im of what he finds to be help- 
 
ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. I 65 
 
 ful ? At the same time, if any one has any 
 more light to communicate, by all means let his 
 light shine. There is room for him too, and for 
 his doctrine. We have grown very broad in 
 our views, very tolerant all round. We allow 
 something to be said for this, and something 
 for that ; and then we find an element of much 
 value in a third view which appears to contra- 
 dict both the others. But is not faith in the 
 absolute truth of any doctrine whatever con- 
 cerning God and Jesus Christ slipping away 
 under these plausible phrases } Are not men 
 often easy and tolerant because they have no 
 strong conviction or deep feeling of things un- 
 seen ? You may detect them by a simple ex- 
 periment. Bring y6ur holy doctrine to the 
 reproof of their vainglory, and see how soon 
 they chafe and mock. Deal with their con- 
 sciences, and preach to them Christ and His 
 future judgment of them and all men in 
 righteousness, and see how soon they grow im- 
 patient and shut their ears. 
 
 Wisdom is neither with the mocking crowd 
 nor with the supercilious philosophers. Diony- 
 sius and Damaris showed a more excellent way. 
 The gospel which others slighted they embraced. 
 
1 66 ST PAUL TO THE ATHENIANS. 
 
 The command to repent which others scouted 
 they obeyed. The warning of judgment which 
 others cast from them they laid to heart. The 
 Man of God's right hand, the risen Lord, whom 
 all around them rejected, they adhered to and 
 honoured as the mighty Saviour not of the Jews 
 only, but also of the Greeks. 
 
ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS AT MILETUS. 
 
 "And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye 
 yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, after 
 what manner I was with you all the time, serving the Lord with 
 all lowliness of mind, and with tears, and with trials which be- 
 fell me by the plots of the Jews : how that I shrank not from 
 declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching 
 you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to Jews 
 and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit 
 unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me 
 there : save that the Holy Ghost testifieth unto me in every city, 
 saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But I hold not my 
 life of any account, as dear unto myself, so that I may accom- 
 plish my course, and the ministry which I received from the 
 Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now 
 behold, I know that ye all, among whom I went about preach- 
 ing the kingdom, shall see my face no more. Wherefore I testify 
 unto you this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. 
 For I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of 
 God. Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in the 
 which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the 
 church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. I 
 know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in 
 among you, not sparing the flock ; and from among your own 
 selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away 
 the disciples after them. Wherefore watch ye, remembering 
 that by the space of three years I ceased not to admonish every 
 
I 68 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 one night and day with tears. And now I commend you to 
 God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you 
 up, and to give you the inheritance among all them that are 
 sanctified. I coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Ye 
 yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities, 
 and to them that were with me. In all things I gave you an 
 example, how that so labouring ye ought to help the weak, and 
 to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 
 It is more blessed to give than to receive." — Acts xx. 18-35. 
 
 THIS is not a speech to the people, but a 
 charge to officers of the Church. We 
 may characterise it as the first specimen of the 
 kind. It is true that our Lord gave solemn 
 charge and admonition both to the Seventy and 
 to the Twelve ; but this is the first instance of 
 such an address delivered by a servant of 
 Christ to fellow-servants in the Church. If 
 any one had a good right to admonish his 
 brethren it certainly was St Paul, both on 
 account of his now well-established apostolic 
 dignity, and because of his devoted labours in 
 the gospel of Christ. In no place had these 
 labours been more abundant than in the region 
 of Asia Minor, and especially in the city and 
 neighbourhood of Ephesus. Accordingly, as he 
 sailed along that coast on his way to Jerusalem, 
 not having time for a visit to that city, yet not 
 willing to lose the opportunity of some inter- 
 
AT MILETUS. 1 69 
 
 course with the Ephesian Church, he asked the 
 elders or bishops of that Church to meet him at 
 the seaport town of Miletus. It is impossible 
 to say how many were in the local Presbytery — 
 perhaps a score. They at once went down by 
 road to Miletus, and had an interview with the 
 apostle, which is fresh in the thoughts of men 
 to this day, long after both Ephesus and Mile- 
 tus have fallen to ruins. 
 
 This speech, as reported, is full of St Paul's 
 finest traits — his sensitiveness, tenderness, 
 faithfulness, and firmness. 
 
 I. He appealed to the elders in regard to 
 their knowledge of his Christian life and 
 ministry. He did so with a frankness as far 
 removed from foolish pride as from strained 
 humility. And he did it for three reasons : — 
 (i) To lay it on the consciences of those elders, 
 that they should not permit his name and 
 authority to be disparaged in his absence ; (2) 
 to give moral force to the exhortations which 
 he meant to address to them ; (3) to set before 
 them an example which they ought to follow. 
 In those days there were no books on the 
 Christian life or pastoral care in circulation. 
 Paul himself had to be a book and a model to 
 
I 70 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 those Ephesian brethren. Let them be imitators 
 of him, as he also was of Christ. 
 
 The references to personal labour and suffer- 
 ing are strewn all over the speech. It is in- 
 structive to observe that the apostle first 
 appealed to the knowledge which the elders 
 had of his life, and then reminded them of his 
 doctrine. His manner of life showed the value 
 he put upon the doctrine, and the powerful in- 
 fluence which it was fitted to exert over those 
 who heartily believed and confessed it. Teach- 
 ing, however clear, if unsupported by the life of 
 the teacher, carries but a faint and doubtful im- 
 pression to the hearts of those who see and hear 
 him. 
 
 It gave St Paul an immense power in ad- 
 dressing the elders from Ephesus that he could 
 thus fearlessly recall to their remembrance his 
 devotion to the Lord, whom he had served 
 among them with a lowly mind and in the face 
 of trial ^and danger, and his assiduity in the 
 Church while teaching both publicly and from 
 house to house. He had admonished all who 
 would listen to him at Ephesus with a fidelity 
 that cleared him of blame for the death of any 
 sinner impenitent, with a thoroughness which 
 
AT MILETUS. I 7 I 
 
 kept back no part of the Divine counsel that 
 was within his cognisance, and at the same time 
 with a tenderness of feeUng which had often 
 poured tears from his eyes. 
 
 Tears are mentioned three times in this inter- 
 view at Miletus. No one who understands the 
 character of St Paul will infer that he was of a 
 weak or effeminate nature. On the contrary, he 
 was signalised by masculine energy and splendid 
 courage ; but it was quite consistent with this, 
 and a mark of the true greatness of the man, 
 that he had a quick and deep sensibility passing 
 the tenderness of women. So at Miletus (i) he 
 spoke of the tears which had been pressed from 
 his eyes by the trials encountered in his minis- 
 try, and especially by the deadly hatred shown 
 to him by his own nation — " the plots of the 
 Jews ; " (2) he recalled his tears of pastoral 
 anxiety at Ephesus, when he was earnestly 
 watching for souls ; (3) the elders wept sore 
 when they learned that the apostle was now 
 leaving them, with no hope or intention to re- 
 turn. We do not read that he wept ; but we 
 feel very sure that his eyes were not dry as he 
 turned from those weeping friends, stepped on 
 board the ship, and sailed away. 
 
172 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 Another point on which the apostle laid some 
 stress was his disinterestedness in the Lord's 
 service. From more than one of his epistles 
 we perceive that he was keenly sensitive to any 
 imputation of self-seeking motives ; and he 
 knew that he was exposed to insinuations of 
 this sort from hostile and envious tongues in 
 all the cities which he had visited. It was then 
 as it is now. Those who love money and live 
 for it are always ready to believe that others 
 love money, and to allege that every one is 
 mercenary. They are particularly fond of 
 insinuating that those who teach and spread 
 religion do so merely to get a living thereby. 
 
 To silence such calumnies the apostle had 
 worked with his hands at Ephesus for his own 
 support and that of his companions. It is 
 scarcely necessary for ministers of the word 
 in our modern cities to take such steps for 
 the vindication of their motives. Intelligent 
 congregations know that they would be the 
 losers and sufferers if their pastors were to 
 occupy themselves day after day with manual 
 work or worldly business for the support of 
 their families and themselves. Every minister 
 of the Word is not a Paul ; and if pastors were 
 
AT MILETUS. I "J 2, 
 
 not relieved from toil for their own support, the 
 flocks would be ill-guarded and ill-fed. It can- 
 not be too strongly put or too clearly under- 
 stood, that ministerial support in the form of 
 stipend or " living " is provided in the interest 
 of the Church, i.e. of the Christian assembly, 
 and not of the ministry as a privileged caste. 
 Better for preachers and teachers of religion to 
 renounce ministry for ever than to pursue it for 
 " silver or gold, or apparel." But if they are 
 pursuing ministry with higher motives, better 
 for the Church, at least in educated communi- 
 ties, to provide them with such things temporal 
 as they have need of, in order that they may 
 more effectively watch over and nourish the 
 flock of God. 
 
 We must also freely admit that cases may 
 still occur in which it would be incumbent on 
 a missionary to follow this apostle's example. 
 If he were labouring among very poor people, 
 he might best win their affection by sharing 
 their lot ; or, if he were trying to introduce the 
 gospel among a population suspicious of his 
 motives, and therefore prejudiced against his 
 testimony, he might do well to meet his per- 
 sonal necessities by the labour of his own 
 hands, that the gospel might not be hindered. 
 
I 74 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 When St Paul had thus appealed to the 
 elders in regard to the spirit and manner of 
 his ministry at Ephesus, he also reminded them 
 of the great theme on which he had ^d welt both 
 in public and in private. It was the same 
 gospel which he had everywhere delivered, 
 alike to Jews and Gentiles ; and it comprised 
 "repentance toward God, and faith toward 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." Not a word did the 
 apostle say of the " special miracles " which 
 God had wrought by him at Ephesus,* for 
 such signs and wonders were exceptional in 
 their character, and not permanent accompani- 
 ments of the gospel ; but he was emphatic 
 on these two indispensable things — repentance 
 and faith — for these brought salvation home, 
 and these were themes to be handled by the 
 elders, and all others at Ephesus, who should 
 thereafter proclaim and teach the gospel of 
 grace. 
 
 This was the very expression of St Paul — 
 "to testify the gospel of the grace of God." 
 He also spoke of preaching "the kingdom;" 
 and of declaring " the whole counsel of God." 
 Such had been his ministry at all costs and 
 
 * Acts xix. II, 12, 
 
AT MILETUS. 175 
 
 risks ; and his ardent desire was that the elders 
 should continue the faithful testimony, and 
 preach the same and no other gospel to both 
 Jews and Greeks. 
 
 II. Having reminded the elders of his past 
 labours, St Paul proceeded to explain to them 
 the reason of this interview and address. He 
 was on his way to Jerusalem, and knew that 
 his visit to that city would be at the peril 
 of his life. 
 
 At this point we are much struck with the 
 apostle's conformity to the sufferings of his 
 Lord. "It came to pass, when the days were 
 well nigh come that He should be received up, 
 He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem."* 
 The Master took no counsel with flesh and 
 blood, did not consult even His most intimate 
 friends among the disciples, but simply assured 
 them " that He must go unto Jerusalem, and 
 suffer many things of the elders and chief 
 priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third 
 day be raised up."f His apostles were most 
 unwilling that He should cast Himself into 
 such danger. One of them went so far as 
 to say — " Be it far from Thee, Lord ! This 
 
 * Luke ix. 51. f Matt. xvi. 21. 
 
I 76 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 shall not be unto Thee." But Jesus replied 
 by a prompt rebuke. Nothing could shake 
 His purpose. So he calmly pursued His way, 
 the disciples attending Him with misgiving and 
 fear. "Jesus was going before them, and they 
 were amazed ; and they that followed were 
 afraid."* 
 
 So also Christ's servant, Paul, steadfastly set 
 his face to go to Jerusalem, knowing that he 
 should suffer many things. And he too was 
 attended by disciples, but took no counsel 
 from them, or from any other mortal men. 
 A solemn impression of duty was on his con- 
 science. He went "bound in the spirit;" 
 and only told to his companions his settled 
 purpose. Many tried to dissuade him. At 
 Tyre and at Caesarea very earnest efforts were 
 put forth to arrest his perilous progress, but in 
 vain. He knew not what things should befal 
 him at Jerusalem, as his Master had known ; 
 but he had sufficient presentiment and warning 
 of great danger awaiting him in the Jewish 
 capital to make his obedience to the heavenly 
 indication of duty truly Christlike and heroic. 
 
 Such intrepid persistence as this was made 
 
 * Mark x. 32. 
 
AT MILETUS. I 77 
 
 possible to St Paul simply through his intense 
 devotion to Christ and the gospel, a devo- 
 tion which was produced and maintained within 
 him by the operation of the Holy Ghost. It 
 was no longer any object with him to live till 
 old age, unless his life could be of service to the 
 Master, and the Master's cause. All that he 
 wished for was to accomplish his course, to 
 fulfil that ministry which he had received, not 
 from man, but from the Lord Jesus. He never 
 could fulfil that ministry if he did not obey the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit, however trying 
 that obedience might be to the flesh ; and he 
 never could mar that ministry or end it pre- 
 maturely if he followed, even through "bonds 
 and afflictions," the command which the Lord 
 by the Spirit had bound upon his soul. 
 
 HI. With these touching references to his 
 own past and future, St Paul joined exhorta- 
 tion and warning to the Presbyter-Bishops of 
 Ephesus. He minded them that the same Holy 
 Ghost whose guidance he felt bound to obey 
 implicitly, had the direction of their duty also. 
 The Holy Ghost had made them overseers or 
 bishops of the Christian flock. 
 
 Such was the high estimate of spiritual 
 M 
 
178 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 office in the primitive Church. It did not 
 allow those bishops to lord it over God's heri- 
 tage, but it required them to bear themselves 
 as the organs of a heavenly power, channels of 
 Divine direction, and superintendents of a spiri- 
 tual province. For men in such a position to 
 assume secular office and authority, would be 
 to descend from their true dignity. For men 
 in such a position to allow secular power to 
 control the worship and government of the 
 Church, would be to betray their solemn spiri- 
 tual trust. 
 
 " Take heed to yourselves ! " O wise and faith- 
 ful word ! Oversight of one's self is certainly 
 the first requirement for a judicious oversight of 
 others. It is a charge to be constantly pressed 
 on the consciences of those who are shepherds 
 and bishops of souls, and that for various 
 reasons — (i.) Their acknowledged religious posi- 
 tion tempts them to take their spiritual life and 
 health for granted, and to relax that devout 
 vigilance over themselves which other Chris- 
 tians find so indispensable. (2.) While they 
 neglect introspection, and yet perform their 
 public functions in the Church with all regu- 
 larity, they tend to become mere religious hacks^ 
 
AT MILETUS. I 79 
 
 and grow more and more unfit to be the real 
 channels of spiritual guidance to others. (3.) 
 Because of their position, any coldness of heart, 
 or inconsistency of life, on their part, does 
 double injury to the cause of Christ. 
 
 In modern times, this counsel needs to be 
 given also to the many amateur directors of 
 religious effort who have sprung up on every 
 side — a sort of self-appointed bishops — and also 
 to the countless critics who are ready, at the 
 shortest notice, to pass an opinion— generally 
 an unfavourable one — on the religion of their 
 neighbours. Most of these persons pronounce 
 far too freely on the spiritual condition of indi- 
 viduals and of churches. It were better that 
 they should take heed to themselves, and re- 
 serve their strict censures for their own faults. 
 
 The next direction to the Ephesian Presbyters 
 was — " Take heed to all the flock in which the 
 Holy Ghost hath made you bishops, to feed the 
 Church of God, which He purchased with His 
 own blood." The Church was not the flock of 
 those bishops. It was forbidden to bishops to 
 "draw away disciples after them;'' and it would 
 be well for modern Christian shepherds to avoid 
 such expressions as — " My church," " my flock," 
 
l8o ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 "my congregation." The redeemed people of 
 God in any definite place as a city, town, 
 or parish, form the flock, the one flock, of 
 God. They may gather in portions here or 
 there for worship and communion, and may 
 vary somewhat in their forms and customs ; 
 but before God, they are still one flock. The 
 duty of the bishops in each place (for not even 
 the smallest Church should be put under one 
 bishop) is to watch over and feed the people 
 of God's pasture, and sheep of His hand, divid- 
 ing the work among them according to their 
 ability. To " feed the flock " is indeed a com- 
 prehensive expression, including instruction, 
 guidance, comfort, and discipline. 
 
 As the shedding of tears is mentioned three 
 times in the interview, so also we read three 
 times of the shedding of blood, or laying down 
 of the life, the physical basis of which is the 
 blood, (i.) His own life the apostle was willing 
 to yield up at Jerusalem if it was required for 
 the service of Christ and the Church. (2.) From 
 the blood of all men he kept himself pure by 
 so preaching the Gospel, that if any heard and 
 refused it, their blood would be on their own 
 heads, and would not be required at the faithful 
 
AT MILETUS. l8l 
 
 watchman's hand. (3.) The blood of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ by which the flock or Church of 
 God has been purchased, St Paul thought of 
 with reverent joy and thankfulness, and referred 
 to it in order to remind the Elders how dear 
 the Church was to God, and therefore how de- 
 serving of their earnest pastoral care. 
 
 The apostle counselled the elders on whom all 
 this sacred responsibility rested to follow his own 
 example as to self-support. At Ephesus, where 
 it had been so common to practise and display 
 pseudo-spiritual arts for filthy lucre's sake, * it 
 was eminently advisable that the chiefs of 
 the Christian community should prove them- 
 selves thoroughly disinterested in their pious 
 labours. It was well too that instead of being 
 eager to receive, they should show an example 
 to others in Christian giving, and should tax 
 their own strength in order to help the weak. 
 
 He also dropped a word of warning which 
 must have added an element of alarm to the 
 sorrow of the assembled bishops. He foresaw 
 that after his departure some of those teachers 
 of error who in so many places tried to subvert 
 his teaching and influence, would appear at 
 
 * Acts xix. 13, 19. 
 
t82 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 Ephesus, and have some measure of success. 
 Nay, more ; even in the ranks of the elders 
 some would be found to play the part of bad 
 bishops, wolves instead of shepherds, living on 
 the flock and serving themselves of the silly 
 sheep, instead of living for the flock and feeding 
 it in the counsel and love of God. He did not 
 expatiate on the subject, but sounded the alarm 
 — " Watch ! " So the Saviour, before he suffered 
 at Jerusalem, indicated to the disciples that they 
 were "not all clean." He indeed saw the future 
 more clearly than His servant, Paul. He had 
 more than a general foreboding of treason ; He 
 knew "who it was that should betray Him." 
 
 From the message of the Lord to the Ephe- 
 sian Church delivered through St John at the 
 end of the first century, we learn that the evil 
 here spoken of did arise. * We also gather 
 that the warning of St Paul had not been with- 
 out good effect, followed up as it must have been 
 by the exhortations of St John during his long 
 stay at Ephesus; for those who called them- 
 selves apostles, but were not, were tried and 
 found false, and the Church as represented by 
 its angel, was praised for having rejected those 
 " evil men." 
 
 * Rev. ii. 1-7. 
 
AT MILETUS. 1 53 
 
 IV. As he departed, St Paul commended 
 these brethren to God and to the word of His 
 grace. With this benediction (ver. 32) he pro- 
 bably meant to conclude ; but having mentioned 
 God's munificent gift of an inheritance, he was 
 moved to add an exhortation on the blessed- 
 ness of giving. 
 
 In the foresight of dangers coming on those 
 elders as well as on himself, St Paul prayerfully 
 entrusted them to God who guards the life and 
 keeps the feet of His saints. And with God he 
 joined the Gospel, as "the word of His grace.* 
 By God and the Gospel the Church at Ephesus 
 would be built up. The false and perverse 
 teachers would try to pull it down. How for- 
 cibly must the language about the building 
 the inheritance have been recalled to the minds 
 of the elders, when, in course of a few years, 
 they received and read St Paul's Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, in which he dwelt so impressively 
 both on the building together of Christians into 
 a holy temple, and on the inheritance which 
 
 * Stier, in "Words of the Apostles," thinks it is "the Inde- 
 pendent Word in the preached word." But the application of 
 the title Logos to Christ is peculiar to St John, and not 
 found in the pages of St Paul. 
 
184 ST PAUL TO PRESBYTERS 
 
 God has in the saints, and the saints have in 
 God!* 
 
 How again we are reminded of the action of 
 the Saviour in commending His followers to 
 the Divine protection before he suffered. " Holy- 
 Father, keep them in Thy name ! . . . I pray 
 not that Thou shouldest take them out of 
 the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them 
 from the evil." f 
 
 At the end of other apostolic speeches, we 
 have looked for the result in the conversion of 
 some of the hearers, the conciliation of some 
 who had been hostile, or the persuasion of some 
 who had doubted. In this case we see the 
 tribute to the fitness and power with which St 
 Paul had spoken in the solemn feeling that fell 
 on the listening Elders and the tears that flowed 
 from their eyes. Then the apostle on bended 
 knees prayed with them all : after which they 
 parted with every sign of sorrowful affection. 
 Paul loved strongly, and was strongly loved. 
 
 The ser\'ant is as his Master : but the Master 
 is above the servant still. Jesus Christ left His 
 disciples, yet did not leave them comfortless. 
 
 * Eph. i. 2. t John xvii. 11 -15. 
 
AT MILETUS. I 85 
 
 Indeed, in the presence of the Holy Ghost, He 
 is with us always. We do not see His face, but 
 we feel His power, and taste His loving-kind- 
 ness. Nor may we say that we shall see His 
 face no more. We look for Him ; and in this 
 we rejoice most of all that we shall see His face, 
 and His name will be on our foreheads. O 
 bright, long-looked-for day, when those also 
 whose faces we have lost on earth with tears will 
 re-appear, and with them, Paul and all the rest 
 who have loved the Lord's appearing, wearing 
 their crowns of righteousness ! We have sorrow 
 when faces that we love fade away in death, 
 like the face of Paul as the ship bore him away 
 from the company upon the shore; but we 
 sorrow not as others who have no hope. " Those 
 who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." 
 
XL 
 
 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 " Brethren and fathers, hear ye the defence which I now make 
 unto you. And when they heard that he spake unto them in 
 the Hebrew language, they were the more quiet : and he saith, 
 I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this 
 city, at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict 
 manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as 
 ye all are this day : and I persecuted this Way unto the death, 
 binding and delivering into prisons both men and women. As 
 also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of 
 the elders : from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, 
 and journeyed to Damascus, to bring them also which were there 
 unto Jerusalem in bonds, for to be punished. And it came to 
 pass, that, as I made my journey, and drew nigh unto Damascus, 
 about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light 
 round about me. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice 
 saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? And I 
 answered. Who art thou. Lord ? And he said unto me, I am 
 Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And they that were 
 with me beheld indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of 
 him that spake to me. And I said. What shall I do, Lord ? 
 And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus ; and 
 there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed 
 for thee to do. And when I could not see for the glory of that 
 light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came 
 into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to 
 the law, well reported of by all the Jews that dwelt there, came 
 unto me, and standing by me said unto me, Brother Saul, re- 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. I 87 
 
 ceive thy sight. And in that very hour I looked up on him. 
 And he said, The God of our fathers hath appointed thee to 
 know his will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice 
 from his mouth. For thou shalt be a witness for him unto all 
 men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why tarriest 
 thou ? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling 
 on his name. And it came to pass, that, when I had returned 
 to Jerusalem, and while I prayed in the temple, I fell into a 
 trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee 
 quickly out of Jerusalem : because they will not receive of thee 
 testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they themselves 
 know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that 
 believed on thee : and when the blood of Stephen thy witness 
 was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting, and keeping 
 the garments of them that slew him. And he said unto me. 
 Depart : for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles. " 
 — Acts xxii. I -2 1. 
 
 THIS is a speech to an excited crowd, made 
 by one who had but just escaped from 
 their clutches. St Paul stood on the stairs 
 which led from the court of the Temple to the 
 tower of Anton ia, protected by a guard of 
 Roman soldiers from a surging multitude of 
 Jews who filled the court below, and pierced 
 the air with angry outcries for his life. The 
 apostle calmly surveyed them, and having 
 obtained permission from the Roman officers, 
 stretched forth his hand — his usual oratorical 
 gesture — and began to speak. A sudden silence 
 fell on the crowd, and, probably for the first, 
 
I 88 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 certainly for the last time, the voice of this 
 great Witness for Christ rang through the courts 
 of the national sanctuary. 
 
 We are struck with — 
 
 I. The love to his nation which this action of 
 St Paul evinced. He does not seem to have 
 become in the least embittered against the Jews 
 by all that he had suffered from their cruel 
 enmity in Asia Minor, in Macedonia, and in 
 Greece. Nay, though he had but narrowly 
 escaped sudden and violent death at the hands 
 of this mob in Jerusalem, and saw nothing 
 but fanatical prejudice and unreasoning hatred 
 blazing from their eyes and leaping from their 
 throats, he would not turn away from them into 
 the tower occupied by the heathen garrison with- 
 out one intrepid and earnest effort to persuade 
 his own nation of the claims of Jesus as the 
 Lord Christ, and to abate their frantic opposi- 
 tion to the Gospel. Even in that moment of 
 sharp emergency, and that scene of angry 
 tumult, he was little concerned about his own 
 life, but much concerned about Israel's blind- 
 ness, and anxious to fulfil among Jews as well 
 as Gentiles the ministry which he had received 
 from the Lord Jesus. 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. I 89 
 
 2. The wonderful composure and skill with 
 which the apostle spoke. How evident that the 
 Spirit of wisdom and power was with him ! 
 
 It was well judged to turn from the Greek 
 language which he commonly spoke, and in 
 which he had addressed the Roman officer, to 
 the Hebraic, i.e., not pure Hebrew, but the 
 Syriac dialect which was the vernacular speech 
 of Palestine at the period. This seemed to 
 imply that he was one of themselves, and so 
 was listened to, when a speech in Greek would 
 probably have irritated the crowd. 
 
 Then, the opening words, " I am a Jew," were 
 well chosen to conciliate ; as were the references 
 to the high priest and the elders, and the 
 description of Ananias as " a devout man 
 according to the law, well reported of by all 
 the Jews " at Damascus. Such language had 
 begun to soothe the excited feeling of the 
 crowd, when, the speaker having occasion to 
 mention the Gentiles, the storm broke out 
 again. One has but to mark the howl of 
 rage that suddenly broke from the mob, to 
 appreciate the skill with which St Paul chose 
 his line of defence, and picked his words, to be 
 allowed to speak so long as he did. 
 
I go ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 Looking at the speech as a whole, we per- 
 ceive it to be a personal vindication such as the 
 occasion demanded, but so expressed as to be 
 at the same time a courageous testimony to the 
 Messiahship and Lordship of Jesus of Nazareth 
 whom the authorities and people of Jerusalem 
 had rejected and slain. The apostle did not 
 protest against that foolish frenzy of the crowd 
 to which he had so nearly fallen a victim. On 
 the contrary, he gave his audience to under- 
 stand that he could easily account for their 
 excitement and make allowance for it ; for not 
 only was he himself a Jew, but at one time he 
 had been as furious against Christians as any 
 of them could be. This the high priest and the 
 elders could certify. Indeed, so hostile had he 
 been to the followers of the Nazarene, and so 
 persuaded that in persecuting them he was 
 loyal to Israel and zealous for God, that nothing 
 short of a revelation from heaven could have 
 made him change his feeling and reverse his 
 conduct. The fanatical mob before him showed 
 to the apostle a dreadful picture of the 
 cruel rage which once had possessed his own 
 breast before the Lord called and enlightened 
 him ; and the sight of it brought, if not a 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. I9I 
 
 tremulous tone to his voice, a keen sense of 
 shame and pity to his heart. 
 
 He told them where he was born, how and 
 where he was educated, and with what con- 
 scieatious severity he had once persecuted 
 Christians. More than twenty years had passed 
 and left many traces of toil and hardship on his 
 frame. The crowd, therefore, could not recog- 
 nise him ; though the chief priests and elders, if 
 they had been so disposed, could have identi- 
 fied him with that young Pharisee who, at and 
 after the death of Stephen, excelled all others 
 in his hot zeal to suppress the sect of the 
 Nazarenes. How came it to pass that he was 
 now zealous for that " Way " which he was then 
 so zealous against ? Why did he now build up 
 what he then sought to destroy ? The answer 
 was that revelations from heaven which he 
 could not dispute or resist had shown him his 
 error, and brought him to the faith and service 
 of the Lord Jesus. He spoke of two visions — 
 
 I. T/ie revelation of tJu Lord from heaven on 
 St Paul's Journey to Damascus. — This was the 
 turning-point in his career. No doubt the story 
 was generally known to Christians at Jerusalem, 
 and everywhere else. All that concerned the 
 
192 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 signal conversion of so bitter a persecutor into 
 so fervent a leader of the Christian host must 
 have had a commanding interest for their minds, 
 and been a frequent theme of conversation and 
 thanksgiving. But now for the first time the 
 people of Jerusalem heard it from his own lips. 
 They were not worthy to hear it ; but it is a 
 story which the Church will never cease to hold 
 dear, and which converted Israel will yet learn 
 to read with adoring wonder — how the young 
 persecutor was on his way with an escort to 
 Damascus, resolved to extirpate the Nazarene 
 heresy from the Jewish settlement in that 
 ancient city, and how there suddenly shone 
 upon him a light from heaven, bright indeed, 
 for it exceeded the blaze of the Syrian noon. 
 So much his companions saw, and they also 
 heard a sound. But Saul only, prostrate on 
 the ground, heard the words that were spoken, 
 and which at once sunk deeply into his soul — 
 " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me } And 
 I answered, Who art Thou, Lord } And He 
 said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom 
 thou persecutest." 
 
 This Prophet of Nazareth then really was the 
 Messiah ! This Jesus against whom he was so 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 1 93 
 
 prejudiced, and whose followers he was hunting 
 down as though they were unfit to live, was the 
 Lord ! Stephen was right, and had died for the 
 truth, a martyr and a saint ! And he himself 
 was wrong, blind, wicked, amidst all his phari- 
 saic learning, miserably ignorant of the Christ 
 of God ! 
 
 Yet, even in that awful moment of over- 
 powering wonder and intense self-reproach, 
 Saul of Tarsus so far kept his characteristic 
 presence of mind as to ask the Lord what 
 he should do. Receiving answer that he should 
 proceed to Damascus, and there receive further 
 guidance, he went on with that decision and 
 promptitude which also characterised him, and 
 entered the city, blind indeed, and humbled in 
 his own esteem, but as ready now to wait for 
 Christian guidance as he had been a little before 
 to destroy the Christian name. 
 
 The good Ananias came to him, obedient to 
 Divine direction, though feeling somewhat as 
 a lamb might do on entering a lion's den. But 
 the lion was now a lamb. As the Christian 
 visitor hailed him " brother," and said " receive 
 thy sight," Saul's eyes opened, and rested on 
 the wondering Ananias with a look of new born 
 N 
 
1 94 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 affection and sympathy. Here, indeed, was a 
 brother well won. 
 
 Then followed the baptism by which the new 
 convert entered the fellowship of the Church ; 
 and then the commission to be a public witness 
 to Jesus. In carrying to him the commission, 
 Ananias naturally and necessarily spoke from 
 the Jewish point of view, for the relation of 
 Christianity to the Gentiles was at that period 
 beyond the thoughts even of the twelve apostles, 
 much more beyond the mental horizon of a 
 private Jewish Christian living at Damascus. 
 So Ananias gave the commission as from the 
 God of the Hebrew fathers, and indicated the 
 Lord Jesus by the title "the Just One," just as 
 Stephen had done before the Council at Jeru- 
 salem. This last coincidence must have greatly 
 struck the mind of Saul, on whom Stephen's 
 address had already made a deep impression. 
 
 The Jewish cast of the whole story was skil- 
 fully reproduced by St Paul when he told it to 
 the Jewish crowd. Why were they so frantic 
 against him for bearing witness to that Just 
 One as the Christ ? What other course could 
 he have taken after such a vision and revelation 
 as he now described ? And why should he be 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 1 95 
 
 deemed an enemy to God or to his nation for 
 pursuing a career which, as he firmly believed, 
 had been assigned to him by the God of his 
 fathers ? 
 
 So far the audience kept silence. These were 
 wonderful facts, if true, which this bold speaker 
 declared : no Jew would venture to say that 
 visions and revelations from heaven were in- 
 credible ; and thus far nothing had been uttered 
 which even malice could construe into an attack 
 on the law or on the customs of the nation. 
 
 But the apostle had to tell them of another 
 vision, in order to account for the wide sweep 
 which his testimony to the Just One had taken, 
 and which had made him so obnoxious to those 
 Jews from the province of Asia, who had raised 
 the tumult against him.* 
 
 II. The revelation of the Lord to St Paid in 
 the Ternple. — In some respects this second story 
 must have been more startling to the audience 
 than the first. At that very temple, within 
 those holy courts, Jesus, years after His cruci- 
 fixion, had appeared and spoken to Paul ! 
 
 It was at the time when he first preached in 
 Jerusalem as a Christian, having been intro- 
 
 * Acts xxi. 27, 28. 
 
196 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 duced to the Church by Barnabas. The Hel- 
 lenist Jews even then plotted to kill him, and 
 he was persuaded by his brethren in the faith 
 to leave the city.* There was, however, another 
 reason for his departure, not mentioned at that 
 time by the historian, but divulged in this 
 speech by St Paul himself. While praying 
 in the Temple he had fallen into a trance, 
 just as St Peter had done at Joppa, while 
 praying on the house top. In the trance, St 
 Paul then saw the Lord, who enjoined him 
 to make haste and get quickly out of Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 It is evident that the apostle had been resist- 
 ing the entreaty of the brethren that he should 
 save his life by flight. He even urged it on 
 the Lord, that he might be allowed to remain 
 in that long- sacred city. He loved his own 
 people, Israel, so intensely, and was so reluc- 
 tant to believe that they would reject his 
 fervent testimony to Christ ! Then he was, 
 like his Master, so desirous, if it were possible, 
 to save Jerusalem ; and he pleaded that the 
 knowledge which the citizens had of his recent 
 hostility to the Christians would tend to con- 
 * Acts ix. 28-30. 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 1 97 
 
 vince them that he must have had very strong 
 grounds for now taking up so different a posi- 
 tion, and bearing, at every risk, a Christian 
 testimony. St Paul perceived and felt, what in 
 later times some of our English defenders of 
 the faith have urged with great force, that 
 his own conversion supplied one of the most 
 powerful arguments for Christianity. But the 
 Lord had given him in reply a distinct com- 
 mand — " Go ! for I will send thee forth from 
 hence to the Gentiles." And it was in obedi- 
 ence to his heavenly Master, not from any 
 disloyalty to his own nation, or preference for 
 other countries or races, that, during the twenty 
 years which had elapsed between that vision 
 and this riot in the Temple, the apostle had 
 given his laborious days and nights to the 
 service of Christ in foreign parts, not only 
 to the Jews and proselytes in Gentile cities, 
 but to the Gentiles themselves, thousands of 
 whom had "turned from idols to serve the 
 living God, and to wait for His Son from 
 heaven." 
 
 But the speaker had dropped the word " Gen- 
 tiles," and in a tone not of hatred, but of good- 
 will. It was intolerable to those fanatical Jews, 
 
198 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 who regarded all nations but their own as un- 
 worthy to bear the name of God or of His 
 Christ. In a moment all the conciliatory tenor 
 of this speech was disregarded, and passionate 
 cries again rose from the furious crowd, "Away 
 with such a fellow from the earth ! " In an ex- 
 citement which only an Oriental mob can reach, 
 they threw off their garments, and cast dust into 
 the air. Happily the apostle was out of their 
 reach ; but " the chief captain," being ignorant 
 of the language in which the speech had been 
 delivered, appears to have inferred from this new 
 outbreak of popular rage, that St Paul must have 
 said something quite atrocious. Accordingly he 
 proposed to " examine him by scourging, that 
 he might know for what cause they so shouted 
 against him." 
 
 This outrage was prevented by St Paul's 
 affirmation pf his Roman citizenship ; and so he 
 rested safely in the castle till the following day, 
 when he spoke again in his own defence before 
 the chief priests and the Sanhedrim. 
 
 One or two reflections suggest themselves — 
 (i) How cruel is race-hatred, especially when 
 intensified by religious prejudice. The tribes of 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 1 99 
 
 Israel were separated by the will of God from 
 other tribes and nations, in order that they 
 might preserve a heritage of truth for the 
 benefit of the whole world, and that in Abra- 
 ham's posterity all families of the earth might 
 be blessed. But they gloried in their separa- 
 tion, as if it were appointed for their sakes, and 
 marked their superiority to all mankind. They 
 regarded themselves as favourites of heaven, 
 conceived a scorn for other nations, and as- 
 sumed that God was as narrow-minded as 
 themselves. The Gentiles, to a considerable 
 extent, reciprocated the scorn, and regarded the 
 Jews not as a holy nation, but as an unsocial 
 and obstinate race. 
 
 Through all the Christian centuries this 
 miserable enmity has continued, and it shows 
 itself in unabated strength in some countries of 
 Europe at the present day. The Jews in their 
 hearts despise the people among whom they 
 live, outwit and fleece them without the 
 slightest compunction, all the time assuming 
 that the God of their fathers is with them, not 
 only guardian of their national existence, but 
 patron of their most bitter prejudices. On the 
 other hand. Gentiles dislike and distrust the 
 
200 ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 
 
 Jews, and sometimes assail them with hard 
 words, and harder deeds. It is all wrong and 
 displeasing to God. It is bad humanity and 
 bad divinity. It is an Eastern race feud, in- 
 creased and inflamed by false and narrow con- 
 ceptions of the character and will of God. It 
 might and would have been corrected eighteen 
 centuries ago, if the Jews had not rejected the 
 Gospel which was sent to them first and then to 
 all the nations, and if they had not refused the 
 teaching of one to whom the Gentiles listened — 
 a man who has cast more honour on the Jewish 
 name than all the Rabbis of whom the syna- 
 gogues can boast — Paul, the Jew, of Tarsus. 
 
 (2.) How great the change which the grace of 
 Christ can effect in man ! That fierce and 
 angry mob, shouting for the blood of this man 
 of God, was in his view a hideous illustration of 
 what he himself had been in the days when 
 he " breathed out threatening and slaughter " 
 against the followers of Jesus. But now what 
 they hated, and he had hated, he loved with all 
 his heart and soul. Old things had passed 
 away ; all things were made new. 
 
 Let it not be said of any man that he is too 
 far from Christ, or too much opposed to the 
 
ST PAUL TO A MOB AT JERUSALEM. 20I 
 
 Gospel, ever to be converted. Least of all, let 
 this be said of one who acts from views of duty 
 however mistaken, and obeys a conscience how- 
 ever misinformed and prejudiced. It is well 
 that there is a moral nature to be wrought 
 upon; well that there is a conscience which 
 may be enlightened. Prayer should be made 
 for men of earnest purpose who are against the 
 Gospel, whether they are influenced by supersti- 
 tion or by infidelity. Their case is not hope- 
 less, for He who made of the persecutor, Saul, 
 not only a believer, but a persuasive and power- 
 ful witness to the truth, and a chosen vessel to 
 bear the name of Jesus, knows how to reveal 
 Himself to men whom ordinary methods do not 
 reach, and to turn vehement assailants into de- 
 vout and courageous champions of the faith. 
 
XII. 
 
 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 "And when the governor had beckoned unto him to speak, 
 Paul answered, Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of 
 many years a judge unto this nation, I do cheerfully make my 
 defence : seeing that thou canst take knowledge, that it is not 
 more than twelve days since I went up to worship at Jerusalem: 
 and neither in the temple did they find me disputing with any 
 man or stirring up a crowd, nor in the synagogues, nor in the 
 city. Neither can they prove to thee the things whereof they 
 now accuse me. But this I confess unto thee, that after the Way 
 which they call a sect, so sei-ve I the God of our fathers, believing 
 all things which are according to the law, and which are written 
 in the prophets : having hope toward God, which these also 
 themselves look for, that there shall be a resurrection both of 
 the just and unjust. Herein do I also exercise myself to have 
 a conscience void of offence toward God and men alway. Now 
 after many years I came to bring alms to my nation, and offer- 
 ings : amidst which they found me purified in the temple, with 
 no crowd, nor yet with tumult : but there were certain Jews from 
 Asia — who ought to have been here before thee, and to make 
 accusation, if they had aught against me. Or else let these men 
 themselves say what wrong-doing they found, when I stood 
 before the council, except it be for this one voice, that I cried 
 standing among them. Touching the resurrection of the dead I 
 am called in question before you this day." — Acts xxiv. 10-21. 
 
 WE have to do no longer with the procla- 
 mation of the Gospel by a missionary 
 in the synagogue or in the open air, but with 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 203 
 
 the defence made by an accused prisoner before 
 a Roman governor in his hall or court of justice. 
 Felix, who was ruler, or as the title ran. Pro- 
 curator of Palestine, sat on the judgment-seat. 
 Before him appeared the High Priest from 
 Jerusalem, attended by certain of the elders, 
 to arraign Paul of Tarsus. The fact that such 
 dignitaries of the Jewish nation had come so 
 far in person to lay this accusation, showed 
 what importance they attached to their plea. 
 But they mistrusted their own competency to 
 conduct a cause in this Gentile court, and there- 
 fore were represented by counsel. Tertullus, a 
 Latin rhetorician or advocate, was engaged to 
 speak in their behalf Then St Paul was 
 brought from the guard-room of the palace, 
 and stood face to face with his accusers. It 
 was a new place of witness for the much tried 
 man. We may be sure that he had prayed for 
 grace sufficient, and it was given to him in that 
 hour what he should speak. 
 
 The counsel for the prosecution opened in a 
 speech, of which, St Luke has given us a con- 
 densed report. He began with most obsequious 
 flattery of the Procurator, affecting, in name of 
 the Jews, to place in him unbounded confidence, 
 
204 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 whereas It is certain from historians of the period, 
 that Felix was an unjust and cruel, and there- 
 fore an extremely unpopular governor. 
 
 The cringing tones in which Tertullus ad- 
 dressed the judge gave place to unsparing 
 severity of language when he accused the 
 prisoner. The charges which he laid against 
 St Paul were three — (i) That he was a public 
 pest, everywhere promoting disturbance and 
 exciting a factious temper among the Jews ; 
 
 (2) That he was a ringleader of a new and 
 troublesome sect, known as "the Nazarenes;" 
 
 (3) That, out of sheer wickedness, he had at- 
 tempted to profane the Temple. These were 
 not offences of which the Roman law took 
 cognisance; therefore it was urged that this 
 man should be handed over for trial to the 
 Jewish tribunal, the Sanhedrim. It was inti- 
 mated to the Procurator that Paul would have 
 been dealt with already by that council, had 
 not the Roman commandant at Jerusalem 
 snatched him out of their hands. Of the 
 murderous tumult from which Paul had been 
 rescued, and of the foul conspiracy to assassi- 
 nate him from which he had escaped to Caesarea, 
 Tertullus conveniently said nothing. 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 205 
 
 No witnesses were called, apart from the 
 company of accusers. Their object, indeed, 
 was not to have a sentence pronounced by 
 Felix, but to induce him to remit the prisoner 
 to the Jewish council, with permission to the 
 council to pass what sentence and inflict what 
 penalty they pleased. Therefore the Jews fol- 
 lowed up the speech of their counsel by strong 
 assertions corroborative of the charges which 
 he had made. In this, however, they rather 
 outwitted themselves ; for every one in the 
 court, the Procurator not excepted, must have 
 seen what a mockery of justice it would be 
 to hand over an accused man to a tribunal 
 in which those angry fanatics would sit as 
 judges. 
 
 Felix said nothing, but beckoned to the 
 accused that he might proceed with his defence. 
 " Then Paul answered for himself" He was 
 calm, lucid, fearless, and full of a self-respecting 
 and truth-respecting dignity. 
 
 The contrast between his preamble and that 
 of Tertullus strikes every reader. The hired 
 orator, being insincere, overacted his part, and 
 paid compliments to Felix which every one in 
 the judgment-hall knew to be false. The 
 
206 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 apostle began with all due deference and 
 courtesy, but, in regard to the judge, con- 
 tented himself with saying what was strictly 
 true, viz., that Felix having been Procurator 
 in Judea for an unusually long term of years, 
 and therefore familiar with the Jewish calendar 
 and customs, was all the better able to under- 
 stand the hollowness of the charges which Ter- 
 tullus had uttered. The governor knew when 
 the Feast of Pentecost took place, how short 
 the time since Paul had arrived at Jerusalem to 
 worship at that feast, and how absurd it was to 
 denounce him as a hardened mischief maker in 
 the Holy City. 
 
 To the first and third allegations laid against 
 him, St Paul gave a flat contradiction, and 
 challenged his accusers to prove them. He 
 had not stirred confusion and uproar, either in 
 Jewish synagogues elsewhere, or in the streets 
 of Jerusalem. He had not desecrated the 
 Temple, but was there by right as a devout 
 Israelite. It was not those elders of Jerusalem 
 who had found him in the Temple, but certain 
 foreign Jews from the province of Asia, who 
 were not present to give their testimony, as 
 they might have been, and ought to have been. 
 
ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 207 
 
 if they had any serious charge against him. 
 This last point, even had there been no other 
 in the defence, was sufficient to prevent a 
 sentence of condemnation ; and when Tertullus 
 heard it, he must have admired the unpro- 
 fessional skill of the prisoner, and must have 
 known that the case for the prosecution was 
 lost. A Roman citizen could not be found 
 guilty in a Roman court on the accusation of 
 parties who had not been present when the 
 alleged offence was said to have been com- 
 mitted, while the persons who were present 
 and could have given testimony at first hand, 
 were absent from the court, and were not even 
 mentioned by the prosecutor. 
 
 It was not for the apostle to prove his own 
 innocence. Enough for him to show the inher- 
 ent improbability of the only precise charge 
 brought against him — that of stirring up tumults 
 at Jerusalem and desecrating the Temple, and 
 to point to the significant circumstance that the 
 witnesses who could have proved the offence if 
 it had been committed, were absent to a man. 
 Then we can well imagine him look firmly in 
 the face that wretched Sadducean High Priest 
 with whom he had already had a sharp en- 
 
208 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 counter of words in the council chamber, and 
 those hard-hearted elders who, with the High 
 Priest, sought the suppression of his testimony 
 by the taking of his life ; and we can hear him 
 defy the whole vindictive company to prove 
 these charges. " Neither can they prove to 
 thee the things whereof they now accuse me." 
 
 So much for the first and third charges ; but 
 the second count of indictment was thought by 
 St Paul to need a more affirmative answer. 
 Tertullus, acting under instructions, had stig- 
 matised him as '' a ringleader of the sect of the 
 Nazarenes." In reply, the apostle spoke frankly 
 of " the Way " which he had followed, and the 
 convictions he had formed. He saw in this an 
 opening for some useful testimony. '* But this 
 I confess unto thee, that after the Way which 
 they call a sect, so serve I the God of our 
 fathers." 
 
 " Heresy " is the word used both by Tertullus 
 and by Paul. That Greek term was used to 
 denote a separating party or sect. We read of 
 "the heresy (sect) of the Sadducees,"* and of 
 " the heresy (sect) of the Pharisees." f But as 
 the word in its English form is taken to mean 
 * Acts V. 1 7. t Acts XV. 5. 
 
ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 2O9 
 
 an unorthodox or heterodox opinion, we are 
 obliged, in order to express the thought of St 
 Paul, to change his term, and say " sect of the 
 Nazarenes." Such was the light in which the 
 first Christians were commonly regarded. They 
 were a sect or party like the Herodians or 
 Essenes. When the Jews at Rome sought 
 information from St Paul on his arrival in 
 that city, they said — ''As concerning this 
 heresy (sect) we know that it is everywhere 
 spoken against.''* 
 
 The imputation on Christianity that it was no 
 better than a crotchet of some Jewish separatists 
 who broke away from the main current of the 
 national religious thought and life was not only 
 inaccurate, but extremely offensive to one who 
 saw so clearly and comprehensively as St Paul 
 did the relation of Christianity to Judaism as 
 its efflorescence and its glory. But he contented 
 himself with the disclaimer implied in the ex- 
 pression — " which they call a sect ; " and pro- 
 ceeded to maintain, as he had taught every- 
 where, that the Christian faith was no departure 
 from the ancestral religion of Israel, but was its 
 issue and perfection. 
 
 * Acts xxviii. 22. 
 O 
 
2IO ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 He did not on this occasion introduce the 
 name of the Nazarene. Nothing had been 
 adduced against the Saviour's cause further 
 than this foolish allegation that the Nazarenes 
 were a sect of unruly separatists, and that Paul 
 as a leader of them stirred up animosity and 
 uproar wherever he went. So the apostle, being 
 on his defence in a court of justice, spoke to this 
 point, and showed that he and his brethren were 
 not sectaries, but faithful Israelites. They served 
 no new or strange god, but only the God of 
 their fathers. And they rejected no part of the 
 Old Testament canon of Scripture, but held to 
 the law and the prophets. 
 
 The High Priest and the Sanhedrim re- 
 garded the Nazarenes as heretics or sectaries 
 because they presumed to differ from the 
 authorities in regard to Jesus, whom the 
 council had condemned, just as the Pope and 
 all the leaders of the Latin Church denounced 
 the Reformers of the i6th century as heretics or 
 sectaries because they presumed to differ from 
 them regarding the grace of Christ and the free- 
 ness of the gospel. St Paul opened a deeper 
 question. Were they or were they not true to 
 Holy Scripture ? Were they not faithful to the 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 2 I I 
 
 hope which Scripture warranted ? This question 
 he was always ready, nay eager, to discuss. But 
 the rulers of the Jews, unable to meet him in 
 argument, tried to crush him by the violence of 
 mobs, and arraigned him before Gentile gover- 
 nors both in Europe and in Asia, that without 
 law or under forms of law the heretic might die. 
 In like manner the Reformers were always 
 eager to show that they fairly interpreted and 
 conscientiously followed Holy Scripture ; but 
 the chief priests and ecclesiastical magnates of 
 the traditional church, unable to refute them 
 on such ground, denounced them as pestilent 
 heretics, and tried to crush them by the strong 
 secular arm of the Emperor and the Princes of 
 Europe. 
 
 We have said that St Paul in his defence 
 said nothing of the Lord Jesus, for the sacred 
 name was not mentioned in the speech of ac- 
 cusation. Neither did he touch the question of 
 the Messiahship of Jesus, because it had not 
 been mooted by Tertullus ; and it was not a 
 topic which Felix, as a heathen, could very 
 well understand or judge. But there were two 
 points which had excited great discussion when 
 the apostle stood before the council at Jeru- 
 
212 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 salem ; and these he brought up again as the 
 real matters in dispute between him and the 
 High Priest. It must have been as gall and 
 wormwood to the vain Pontiff, Ananias, to hear 
 the very statements which he had hotly re- 
 sented in the Sanhedrim a few days before now 
 calmly reproduced while he was there, not 
 seated as a presiding judge, but standing as a 
 baffled accuser, and compelled to listen to this 
 bold defence. 
 
 I. The claim to a good conscience. — Before the 
 council St Paul had said — " I have lived before 
 God in all good conscience until this day." At 
 the word the High Priest, with monstrous un- 
 fairness, had bidden the officers of the court 
 smite the apostle on the mouth, and the out- 
 rage drew from Paul a stinging retort. But 
 now Ananias had to stand silent while Paul 
 said, " Herein do I exercise myself to have a 
 conscience void of offence toward God and man 
 alway." This did not prove that he was right 
 either in theory or in practice, for conscience 
 may be misinformed and misguided ; but it 
 went to show that Paul was no unruly person 
 or reckless plotter of sedition. Also it helped 
 him to stand unabashed before the Procurator, 
 
ST PAUL AT C.ESAREA TO FELIX. 2 I 3 
 
 and before his own accusing countrymen. He 
 had done them no wrong. He had not marred 
 the service of God ; he had not disturbed the 
 peace of society among either Jews or Gentiles, 
 though evil men had risen up against him. He 
 had been careful to avoid offence, and to walk 
 in his duty towards God and man. 
 
 2. The hope of the resiirrectio7t of the dead. — 
 This had been avowed by St Paul before the 
 council at Jerusalem, and thereupon a keen dis- 
 pute had sprung up between the Pharisees who 
 acknowledged and the Sadducees who disowned 
 a future resurrection. Ananias, the High Priest, 
 was a Sadducee, and sorely vexed he must have 
 been to be compelled to listen to the prisoner 
 not only expressing his own hope of the resurrec- 
 tion, but also assuring the Procurator that this 
 was the belief of orthodox Israelites — " Which 
 these also themselves look for, that there shall 
 be a resurrection both of the just and of the un- 
 just." 
 
 St Paul could have said much more of his 
 Christian faith and hope ; could have preached, 
 as at other times, repentance and forgiveness of 
 sins in the name of Lord Jesus. But "to every- 
 thing there is a season," The apostle was not 
 
214 ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 there to preach salvation to sinners, but was 
 defending his life and liberty before a tribunal ; 
 and he did wisely to confine his speech to the 
 charges which had been alleged against him. 
 He concluded by telling to the Procurator the 
 ground which he had taken up before that 
 council, the representatives of which had come 
 all the way to Caesarea to prosecute him. Why 
 should he not be at liberty to cherish a hope 
 regarding the dead which was held by a large 
 portion of the council .'* And why should he be 
 surrendered to the malice of those, his accusers, 
 who could not in the Roman court prove any 
 " wrong-doing " against him .-* 
 
 The defence was conclusive. Obviously the 
 case broke down. Felix knew more about the 
 Way, i.e., the Nazarene or Christian movement, 
 than the accusing party from Jerusalem had 
 supposed ; and he saw clearly that his prisoner 
 must not be surrendered to the Jewish council. 
 If he had stirred sedition, of which there was no 
 proof, the Roman authority, which was respon- 
 sible for the public peace in all provinces of the 
 Empire, should judge and sentence him. If he 
 held an opinion or hope about the resurrection 
 
ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 2 15 
 
 of the dead, as he had admitted, Jewish authori- 
 ties held the same opinion, and Roman law took 
 no notice of such matters. A Roman citizen of 
 Jewish extraction had a right to believe on a 
 point of that nature as he pleased. So St Paul 
 ought to have been released. But now the 
 character of Felix began to show its bad side. 
 He cared more for his own comfort than for 
 justice. It might cost him trouble afterwards if 
 he should give open offence to the High Priest 
 and the important deputation that accompanied 
 him, and send them back to Jerusalem ignomi- 
 niously defeated. So selfish prudence, not 
 righteousness, spoke from the judgment seat. 
 The case was adjourned. Paul was remanded, 
 but not to close confinement. His friends were 
 allowed to visit him ; and as there were a good 
 many Christians at Caesarea, no doubt they 
 sought the society of the apostle, and lightened 
 the hours of his confinement by their converse 
 and sympathy. More than two years passed 
 before Paul was permitted to leave that prison 
 in the Herodian Palace, which was used as the 
 Government House of the Roman Procurator ; 
 and, when he left it, he was a prisoner still. 
 During those years the apostle was well pro- 
 
2l6 ST PAUL AT C.ESAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 tected. Whatever the malice of the Jews, they 
 could not molest him within a Roman strong- 
 hold. No doubt he deeply felt the loss of time 
 for active ministry. What regions might he not 
 have visited, in how many places might he not 
 have planted the gospel, if it had not been 
 for this vexatious detention ! And then the 
 Churches which he had founded, and those 
 founded by others, which he had visited and 
 helped, how did it fare with them } Were false 
 teachers perplexing and scattering them, or 
 were they standing true to their first faith in 
 Christ Jesus ? What a trial to St Paul that he 
 could hear so little of them, and could not go 
 to them during those critical years of their 
 infancy ! But the Lord had a wise and loving 
 purpose in arranging for His servant this 
 enforced pause in the midst of a laborious 
 career. There can be little doubt that for 
 many months before, Paul had been overtax- 
 ing his strength. His nervous temperament 
 must have been strained and exhausted by 
 the impassioned scenes through which he had 
 passed, the clinging affection of his friends 
 and the inveterate fury of his enemies. This 
 mild imprisonment at Caesarea gave him time 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO FELIX. 2 1 7 
 
 to recruit. Nor need we suppose that time 
 hung heavy on his hands. Whether or not St 
 Paul wrote any of his great epistles during this 
 interval of forced retirement from the public 
 eye, he had precious leisure for study and 
 prayer, and must have prepared himself for 
 subsequent efforts of writing and preaching, 
 which told powerfully in his later ministry. 
 
 Nor was he quite without opportunity of 
 exercising ministry, or bearing testimony to the 
 truth, even during these two years at Caesarea. 
 FeHx had enticed Drusilla from her husband, 
 the Prince of Emesa, and married her. As she 
 was a Jewess, he thought to gratify her by 
 letting her see and hear his Jewish prisoner 
 who could speak so well. When Paul was 
 called before them, he did speak, but in a 
 way that made the procurator tremble. He 
 " reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment to come." Now Felix, as a ruler, 
 had violated righteousness ; as a man, had cast 
 off temperance ; and, both as a ruler and as a 
 man, had cause to fear the judgment to come. 
 Drusilla, more gentle in appearance, seems to 
 have had the stouter heart, or she knew how 
 to hide agitation under a calm exterior. Felix 
 visibly quivered under the apostle's word. 
 
2l8 ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 
 
 Again, he got rid of the prisoner by the weak 
 device of an adjournment. He felt the holy- 
 force of the preaching, and yet he would not do 
 justice to the preacher. He would hear him 
 again at a convenient time. It is sometimes 
 said, but quite erroneously, that Felix never 
 found that convenient season. Quite the con- 
 trary. He often sent for St Paul, — never again, 
 so far as we know, in Drusilla's presence, " and 
 communed with him." But he seems never to 
 have trembled again. The instructive fact is 
 that, so far as Felix was concerned, a covetous 
 motive vitiated all those interviews. He sought 
 a bribe for doing what it was his duty to do. 
 He felt sure that a man of such ability and 
 such importance to the Christian cause, could 
 command a very considerable ransom. So 
 '*he hoped that Paul would have given him 
 money." 
 
 Thus unhappy {infelix) Felix lost the con- 
 viction of conscience which once visited him, 
 and might have proved the beginning of repent- 
 ance. He lost this ; and he gained nothing. 
 He detained St Paul two whole years in ex- 
 pectation of a bribe, and bribe he got none. 
 When himself recalled to Rome, he left the 
 
ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO FELIX. 2 I 9 
 
 apostle in prison at Csesarea, in order to please 
 the Jews ; and the Jews, refusing to be pro- 
 pitiated, followed him to Rome with bitter 
 accusations of his misconduct and misgovern- 
 ment He narrowly escaped capital punish- 
 ment. He was obliged to disgorge the greater 
 portion of his ill-gotten wealth, and died in 
 obscurity and disgrace. 
 
 Many think they may do as they please with 
 the preacher of the Gospel. They listen, or 
 refuse to listen, as the mood seizes them. They 
 open the ear to him when it is convenient, and 
 then, if he presses them hard, put the matter 
 off till some other convenient season. But it 
 is an unseemly thing thus to play with the 
 Gospel ; and it is an extremely perilous thing 
 to trifle with conviction or compunction of con- 
 science, which men may indeed contrive to 
 dismiss, but cannot, at their own pleasure, 
 recall. 
 
XIII. 
 
 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 "And Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to spea 
 for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth his hand, and made his 
 defence: I think myself happy, king Agrippa, that I am to 
 make my defence before thee this day touching all the things 
 whereof I am accused by the Jews : especially because thou art 
 expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews : 
 wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of 
 life then from my youth up, which was from the beginning 
 among mine own nation, and at Jerusalem, know all the Jews ; 
 having knowledge of me from the first, if they be willing to 
 testify, how that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a 
 Pharisee. And now I stand here to be judged for the hope of 
 the promise made of God unto our fathers ; unto which promise 
 our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to 
 attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, 
 O king ! Why is it judged incredible with you, if God doth 
 raise the dead? I verily thought with myself, that I ought to 
 do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And 
 this I also did in Jerusalem : and I both shut up many of the 
 saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, 
 and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. 
 And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove 
 to make them blaspheme ; and being exceedingly mad against 
 them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities. Whereupon 
 as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority, and commission 
 of the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 221 
 
 from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round 
 about me and them that journeyed with them. And v^hen vi^e 
 vi^ere all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying unto me in 
 the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou nie ? it 
 is hard for thee to kick against the goad. And I said, Who art 
 thou Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou perse- 
 cutest. But arise, and stand upon thy feet : for to this end have 
 I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness 
 both of the things wherein thou hast seen me, and of the things 
 wherein I will appear unto thee ; delivering thee from the peo- 
 ple, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee, to open 
 their eyes, that they might turn from darkness to Hght, and from 
 the power of Satan unto God, that they receive remission of sins 
 and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in 
 me. Wherefore, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto 
 the heavenly vision : but declared both to them of Damascus first, 
 and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judgsa, and 
 also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, 
 doing works worthy of repentance. For this cause the Jews 
 seized me in the temple, and assayed to kill me. Having there- 
 fore obtained the help that is from God, I stand unto this day 
 testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the 
 prophets and Moses did say should come ; how that the Christ 
 must suffer, and how that he first by the resurrection of the dead 
 should proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles. 
 And as he thus made his defence, Festus saith with a loud voice, 
 Paul, thou art mad ; thy much learning doth turn thee to mad- 
 ness. Paul saith, I am not mad, most excellent Festus ; but 
 speak forth words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth 
 of these things, unto whom also I speak freely : for I am per- 
 suaded that none of these things is hidden from him ; for this 
 hath not been done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou 
 the prophets ? I know that thou believest. And Agrippa said 
 unto Paul, With but little persuasion thou wouldest fain make me 
 a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that whether with 
 little or with much, not thou only, but also all that hear me 
 this day, might become such as I am, except these bonds. And 
 
2 2 2 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 the king rose up, and the governor, and Bernice. and they that 
 that sat with them : and when they had withdrawn, they spake 
 one to another, saying. This man doeth nothing worthy of 
 death or of bonds. And Agrippa said unto Festus, This man 
 might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto 
 Caesar. — Acts xxvii. 
 
 THIS speech resembles the two which precede 
 it in being a personal defence, but it was 
 delivered under circumstances of much less acute 
 personal danger. The speech to the crowd at 
 Jerusalem was spoken when they were clamouring 
 for the speaker's death, and were only restrained 
 by the swords of the Roman soldiery. The speech 
 before the procurator Felix was uttered by a 
 prisoner on trial, with all the risk of condemna- 
 tion by a judge who had few scruples, and was 
 quite open to a bribe. More recently St Paul 
 had been again called into court by the new 
 procurator, Festus, and had been again ac- 
 cused by Jews from Jerusalem. He saw the 
 governor inclining to surrender him to the 
 Jewish Sanhedrim, from a desire to ingratiate 
 himself with his new and very troublesome 
 subjects. A word — a nod — from Festus, and 
 the fate of the apostle would have been sealed. 
 So he cut the matter short, before it should be 
 too late, by claiming his right as a Roman 
 
ST PAUL AT CyESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 223 
 
 citizen to be heard at the emperor's judment- 
 seat. " I appeal unto Caesar." In a moment 
 the Jews were baffled. Festus conferred with 
 the councillors who sat with him as assessors 
 or advisers in the court. They could only 
 assure him that the appeal was well taken and 
 could not be refused. So far as the provincial 
 tribunals were concerned, the case was at an 
 end. The prisoner must be sent to Rome. 
 With a curtness of speech which perhaps came 
 from a feeling of annoyance at this unexpected 
 turn in the affair, the procurator said : " To 
 Caesar shalt thou go ! " From such a Caesar as 
 then occupied the imperial throne, what justice 
 or mercy could this unfriended Jew expect ! 
 
 Now was St Paul quite safe till the appeal 
 should be heard. Therefore, when he was sum- 
 moned once more into the audience-hall of the 
 palace at Caesarea, and found himself in the 
 august presence, not only of Festus himself, but 
 of his guests, the young King Agrippa, with his 
 sister Berenice, surrounded by the chief officers 
 of the garrison and other magnates of the place, 
 he knew that it was not a criminal court in "^ 
 which he stood. He had neither to fear con- ^ 
 damnation nor to hope for liberty. 
 
2 24 ST PAUL AT CESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 The occasion was made by the procurator 
 for two reasons, (i) To gratify his royal guest, 
 who, as one of the Herodian family, knew 
 Jewish matters well, and had expressed a de- 
 sire to hear this famous Paul whom the San- 
 hedrim had for years denounced as an arch- 
 heretic. (2) To find out, if possible, some fault 
 or ground of charge which might be stated 
 against the prisoner in his report to the 
 emperor. Felix had left Paul bound, but had 
 left no record of the offence or offences of 
 which he was alleged to be guilty; and the 
 passionate outcries of the Jews in the trial 
 before Festus had left no distinct impression 
 on the governor's mind. 
 
 St Paul was brought in. He stood alone, 
 pale from long confinement, and wearing 
 fetters ; a startling contrast to the gay com- 
 pany seated or reclining on their gilt couches 
 — the young king, the fair princess, the splen- 
 didly-attired Roman procurator, with all his 
 officers and grandees. But those pomps and 
 dignities had no power to dazzle a mind like 
 his. We may be sure that he bore himself be- 
 comingly, for there never was a more thorough 
 gentleman than St Paul ; but he paid no ob- 
 
ST PAUL AT C.ESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 2 25 
 
 sequious court to those before whom he was 
 brought, and craved no favour or pity at their 
 hands. Festus courteously yielded the initiative 
 to his guest ; so it was Agrippa who broke 
 silence, and bade the apostle speak for himself, 
 Then without hesitation the orator began, and 
 with his habitual earnestness of purpose used 
 the great opportunity thus given to him to 
 make known to the distinguished assembly 
 not merely his own history, but something 
 also of that Saviour and Lord whom he 
 served, and of that Gospel which it was the 
 purpose and passion of his life to proclaim. 
 The entire absence of any tone of complaint 
 or even of selfish anxiety gives a singular dig- 
 nity to this oration. It was Paul who had the 
 princely spirit, though Agrippa and Festus sat 
 in the princely seats. 
 
 The speech opened with that fine tact and 
 courtesy in which the speaker never failed. No 
 word of flattery did he address to the king, but 
 he well and neatly said, that he deemed it quite 
 an advantage to tell his story to one so expert 
 in customs and questions of the Jews. This 
 was strictly true of Agrippa, who was the last 
 scion of the Herodian stock, and had been 
 I' 
 
2 26 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 carefully trained in the Jewish law and 
 casuistry by his father, that Herod Agrippa 
 who killed the Apostle James at Jerusalem, and, 
 when he saw that it pleased the Jews, seized the 
 Apostle Peter also. 
 
 The attitude of St Paul with outstretched hand, 
 and the dignified politeness of his opening sen- 
 tence, must have arrested the attention, not of 
 the young king only, but of all the brilliant" 
 throng. The apostle proceeded to unfold his 
 tale. Once more he went over the story of his 
 early life as a zealous Pharisee, and his bitter 
 persecution of those of his own nation who 
 followed and loved Jesus of Nazareth. He had 
 treated as evil doers those whom he now per- 
 ceived to have been saints. He had done it in 
 a conscientious but grievously mistaken mad- 
 ness of rage against them. He dwelt on this 
 part of his history more fully than in any pre- 
 vious address, for now he understood more 
 clearly and felt more deeply than ever before, 
 what it was to be persecuted by Pharisees, 
 and condemned by the High Priest and the 
 Council, and shut up in prison for the name 
 and faith of Jesus. What he himself had 
 suffered, and was still suffering, recalled more 
 
ST PAUL AT CESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 22 7 
 
 vividly and circumstantially to his memory and 
 conscience what wrongs he had in his blind 
 youth inflicted on inoffensive Christians. 
 
 Then he told of the vision on the way to 
 Damascus, and that also more fully and 
 minutely than before. The additions are in- 
 teresting, e.g. When the apostle addressed the 
 mob at the Temple in Jerusalem, he spoke 
 Hebrew or Hebraic, and, therefore, did not 
 mention, for the people would assume it, that 
 the words which he heard from the Lord as he 
 neared Damascus were spoken " in the Hebrew 
 tongue." But he brought out this particular 
 when speaking in Greek to this company at 
 Csesarea. It is here too that the expression is 
 first reported — " It is hard for thee to kick 
 against the goads," for in the history in Acts 
 ix. it has been interpolated. This seems to 
 have been a proverb among the ancients to 
 denote a vain opposition to superior power. 
 It was taken from the fields, where oxen, used in 
 husbandry, were both guided and spurred for- 
 ward by strong sharp goads. It was vain for 
 the pricked ox to kick. The occurrence of the 
 proverb here shows that, as was His custom on 
 earth, so also in His communication from 
 
228 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 heaven, the Lord Jesus thought best to em- 
 ploy familiar human speech. 
 
 We also gather from this address that the 
 commission for ministry and apostleship which 
 the Lord intended for Saul of Tarsus was re- 
 vealed to him from the beginning with much 
 more fulness than appears from either of the 
 previous accounts of his conversion — whether 
 St Luke's narrative (Acts ix.) or St Paul's 
 own statement (Acts xxii.). It is possible, 
 however, that the speaker, desirous to put be- 
 fore his audience in as brief compass as pos- 
 sible the high commission with which he was 
 charged, joined to the words actually spoken 
 on the way to Damascus the further directions 
 which he received at that city^ and in the sub- 
 sequent vision at Jerusalem. In that case, the 
 words of the i6th verse may be read as a 
 summary of all that the Lord had on several 
 occasions revealed to His servant — "I have 
 appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister 
 and a witness." 
 
 The commission to preach both to the people 
 (Israel) and to the Gentiles, as given in verse 
 1 8, is full of importance, because couched in the 
 very words of the exalted Saviour. The order 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 229 
 
 is significant — beginning at Jerusalem, then 
 going out to all nations — first trying to save 
 the lost sheep of the house of Israel, then 
 rescuing other sheep, not of that fold. The 
 action prescribed to this "minister and wit- 
 ness" is significant also. He was to en- 
 lighten the people and the Gentiles, that they 
 might turn themselves from darkness to light,* 
 and from the power of Satan which brooded 
 over the world, to God. Further, their con- 
 version was to be sought in order that Jews 
 and Gentiles might obtain, through faith in 
 Jesus Christ, the blessings of salvation. These 
 are described under two heads — (i) Forgiveness 
 of sins freely ; (2) An inheritance among the 
 sanctified, or, as this apostle has elsewhere 
 expressed it, to be "fellow citizens with the 
 saints, and of the household of God." 
 
 St Paul then assured the king that, from the 
 day in which he had received this sacred com- 
 mission, he had endeavoured to carry it out 
 both in Judea and in the Gentile countries. 
 He durst not disobey the heavenly vision ; and 
 it was from no restless or turbulent disposition, 
 but because he felt bound to follow the direction 
 
 * Comp. Isa. xlii. 6, 7 ; i Pet. ii. 9, 10. 
 
230 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 of the Lord from heaven, that he had pursued a 
 course which unhappily roused against him the 
 antipathy of Jesus-rejecting Jews. For this 
 course of ministry and testimony, and not for 
 any crime as they pretended, had they tried to 
 kill him at Jerusalem. But, say or do what 
 they might, his conscience was clear, and he 
 rejoiced that thus far God had helped him to 
 publish the Gospel. Let governors and princes 
 beware lest, in detaining him, they should be 
 found fighting against God. None of the plots 
 of the Jews against him had succeeded. He 
 continued till that day, witnessing both to 
 small and great. His testimony in no wise 
 dishonoured Moses and the prophets, but, on 
 the contrary, honoured them by showing the 
 fulfilment of ancient oracles in the Christ who 
 had suffered and risen again. Nor was the 
 light brought to Israel only : it was turned to 
 the Gentiles also. Let the Jewish prince and 
 princess think of it ; let the Roman procurator 
 and his officers think of it. The apostle had a 
 treasure of light and salvation for them all. 
 
 He was in the full tide of ardent speech, 
 when an exclamation from Festus interrupted 
 him. It was a common thing with St Paul to 
 
ST PAUL AT CESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 23 I 
 
 be interrupted, for he was one of those speakers " 
 who draw blood. His words had an edge and 
 force that told upon his hearers, and made it 
 impossible for them to continue apathetic. 
 Often he made some rage, as well as some 
 exult for joy. But Festus did not understand 
 him sufficiently either to rage or to rejoice. The 
 speech had gone quite beyond his reach of 
 ideas. Visions from heaven, fulfilment of old 
 prophecies^ and a resurrection from the dead. 
 What weak stuff is this! thought the heathen 
 Roman. This man's brain must be sick and 
 troubled — perhaps enfeebled by hard treatment. 
 And then, knowing that Paul was a man of 
 study, Festus thought it best to ascribe his 
 strange statements to an over-tasked and un- 
 sound mind. " Thou ravest ! much learning 
 doth turn thee to madness." Thus this man, 
 though meaning no harm, checked and spoiled 
 by his stupid impatience a speech which, even 
 in its broken form, attracts the wonder and 
 praise of many generations, like one of those 
 exquisite columns in the Roman Forum or Athe- 
 nian Acropolis which, though broken by the 
 assault of barbarians, attract us more than 
 many unbroken pillars of inferior art. 
 
232 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 The apostle, always self-possessed, replied to 
 his Excellency that he did not rave, but was 
 " speaking words of truth and soberness." Then 
 he appealed directly to Agrippa, who had been 
 listening with an intelligent appreciation which 
 could not be expected of the heathen governor. 
 The king would not deny that Jesus had suffered, 
 and was believed by many to have risen again. 
 The thing was notorious in the whole country, 
 and had not been done in a corner. The king 
 would not deride an argument founded on the 
 books of Hebrew prophets, for he had been 
 trained to believe those prophets from his 
 youth. 
 
 The procurator could not, with any courtesy 
 to his guest, stop such an appeal as this. It 
 was Agrippa who had given the sign that the 
 speaker should begin ; and so long as the king 
 chose to hear him, he should be allowed to 
 proceed. But now Agrippa spoke. He knew 
 well that the exclamation of Festus was a foolish 
 one, but he did not like to be pressed so hard, 
 as St Paul was pressing him, in regard to his 
 own convictions. In this respect he bore an 
 ominous resemblance to his uncle, Herod Anti- 
 pas, who was desirous to see Jesus as Agrippa 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 233 
 
 had been to see Paul, but treated the most 
 serious matters lightly, and ended all with 
 mockery. Agrippa indeed did not deride the 
 apostle, as Antipas mocked the Saviour, and 
 set Him at nought, but he stopped the sober 
 words of St Paul with a light sarcasm. Here 
 again he makes us think of Pontius Pilate who, 
 hearing the Lord Jesus say that every one who 
 was of the truth would hear His voice, escaped 
 from the gravity of the statement by a sarcastic 
 question, "What is truth.!*" 
 
 Very likely Agrippa had uncomfortable 
 qualms and misgivings while the apostle spoke. 
 The family to which he belonged had been 
 fatally implicated with the name and cause of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. His grandfather, Herod the 
 Great, had tried to kill this Jesus in infancy. 
 His uncle had killed John the Baptist, and had 
 mocked Jesus Himself on the morning of His 
 crucifixion. His father had killed one and im- 
 prisoned another of the three who had been the 
 most intimate friends of Jesus. And now this 
 famous witness for Jesus spoke to him, and 
 wanted to fasten question upon him. What if 
 this earnest man were right, and all the Herods 
 had been wrong ! It was enough to make the 
 
234 ST PAUL AT C/ESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 young prince pause ; but he was one of those 
 men — and they are not few — who hate qualms 
 of conscience, and slip away from awkward 
 questions and disagreeable situations as deftly 
 as they can. 
 
 The exact turn of his expression it is not 
 easy to reproduce in English. "Almost thou 
 persuadest me to be a Christian " reads well, 
 and catches the memory, but is not an accurate 
 translation. The Revised Version is clumsy — 
 "With but little persuasion thou wouldst fain 
 make me a Christian." The meaning certainly 
 is either " with little trouble," or " in little time," 
 i.e.^ "very summarily," or "offhand you are mak- 
 ing a Christian of me ! " Agrippa was more 
 impressed than he wished to acknowledge, and 
 therefore he threw a sort of good-humoured 
 irony into his tone — " Not so fast, good Paul ! 
 You must not think that you will offhand con- 
 vert a king." The many sermons, and the books 
 that have been written on "the almost Chris- 
 tian," have no doubt done good service, but 
 they do not properly rise out of the exclama- 
 tion of Agrippa, who never thought of being an 
 almost or undecided Christian, but declined to 
 be summarily turned into a real Christian. 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 235 
 
 St Paul penetrated the motive of the king, 
 and on the spur of the moment gave an answer 
 worthy of the occasion, and worthy of a servant 
 of God. Serene in temper, devout in spirit, 
 he expressed not a wish only, but a prayer to 
 God, that all who heard him on that day might 
 anyway (by little or by much) become as he 
 was, except as to his bonds. What a man was 
 this by the grace of God ! A solitary prisoner 
 standing before princes and nobles, so sustained 
 by faith and a good conscience, that he felt 
 himself in a region quite above them, and 
 prayed for them all that they might be lifted 
 up to the possession and enjoyment of the same 
 inward peace and heavenly hope ! A prisoner 
 who, though no crime had been proved against 
 him, had been unjustly confined for more than 
 two years, and yet, when he looked at the 
 fetters on his arms, showed no feeling of anger 
 or vindictiveness against any of those who in- 
 flicted on him such suffering and ignominy 
 without cause, desired not that they should ever 
 endure what he had endured, but to his prayer 
 for their salvation calmly added the pathetic 
 words — " except as to these bonds." 
 
 Some sense of the inherent grandeur of the 
 
236 ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 man and his mission fell on the shallow heart 
 of Agrippa, and perhaps on many others in the 
 hall. The king, without a word, rose from his 
 seat ; and it was the signal for all to rise, and 
 for the prisoner to be withdrawn. It was agreed 
 on all sides that Paul was an ill-used man. 
 Agrippa distinctly said to Festus, that but for 
 the appeal to Rome, the prisoner should at once 
 be released. Thus sound advice often comes too 
 late. Felix ought to have seen this long before. 
 Indeed he did see it, but for sordid reasons 
 would not do justice to Paul. Festus should 
 have seen it, and not, through his complaisance 
 to the Jews, have compelled the apostle to 
 take appeal to Caesar. One ruler after another 
 blundered over the case, and did injustice ; but 
 the counsel of God was in all this, that St Paul 
 should go to Rome and bear most memorable 
 and influential witness to Jesus Christ in the 
 capital city of the world. 
 
 " He has done nothing worthy of bonds,'' said 
 the king, and then passed on with his sister to 
 some change of scene, and turned from one 
 pleasure to another, forgetting all. So far 
 as we know, Agrippa never so much as said 
 another word, or lifted a finger to have justice 
 
ST PAUL AT C^SAREA TO AGRIPPA. 237 
 
 done to that saintly man, or ever again in all 
 his life came so near being a Christian as in 
 that short half-hour at Caesarea. 
 
 Those in our own time who defeat the word 
 of the Lord by a superficial habit of thought, 
 or deflect its edge from their conscience with 
 some kind expression toward the preacher, or 
 some light phrase about becoming a Christian, 
 should take warning from the case of Herod 
 Agrippa. He was young and well-instructed 
 in the Scriptures — two important elements in 
 favour of his conversion ; but he was " a lover 
 of pleasures," and the seed sown by St Paul 
 found in him " no depth of earth." There are 
 too many young and well-educated persons 
 still who " like a good sermon," and are quite 
 willing to listen to it, and who say of the 
 preacher — not merely he is not worthy of 
 bonds, but he is worthy of praise, and who 
 sometimes have shooting pains of conscience 
 when the preacher directly appeals to them, 
 but will not yield to persuasion there and then. 
 They rise and go away. Other objects catch 
 their eyes. Lighter themes glide into their 
 thoughts. What comes of all their approval 
 
238 ST PAUL AT CiESAREA TO AGRIPPA. 
 
 of the preacher — his arguments and appeals ? 
 Nothing. Worse than nothing. A heart more 
 hardened still. The flesh and the world win 
 the day ; salvation is neglected, and the Saviour 
 despised ! 
 
XIV. 
 
 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 '• And when they had appointed him a day, they came to 
 him into his lodging in great number ; to whom he expounded 
 the matter, testifying the kingdom of God, and persuading them 
 concerning Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the 
 prophets, from morning till evening. And some believed the 
 things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. And when 
 they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that 
 Paul had spoken one word. Well spake the Holy Ghost by 
 Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers, saying, Go thou unto 
 this people, and say, by hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no 
 wise understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise 
 perceive : for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears 
 are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed ; lest haply 
 they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
 and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I 
 should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that this 
 salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles : they will also hear." 
 — Acts xxviii. 23-28. 
 
 AT last Paul was in Rome. He had long 
 desired to see the Christians there, and 
 his heart was full of solemn joy when, after 
 passing through great perils of the deep, he 
 found himself in Italy, and drew near to the 
 imperial city. At the Market of Appius and 
 
240 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 the Three Taverns, a few miles out, he was met 
 by brethren from Rome, " Whom, when he saw, 
 he thanked God and took courage." Fraternal 
 sympathy was always dear to him, and never 
 more welcome than at the threshold of the city 
 where he must needs " stand before Caesar." 
 
 Even in the dark night on the stormy Adri- 
 atic he had not been allowed to doubt that he 
 would reach Rome. An angel had told him 
 that he would certainly stand before the 
 emperor, and therefore both he and all who 
 were in the ship would be saved from the deep. 
 But other thoughts besides that of his own 
 safety or danger occupied his mind when the 
 brethren met him in the way. If documents 
 regarding Paul had been sent along with him, 
 they had doubtless been lost in the shipwreck, 
 and a long time might elapse before his appeal 
 could be heard by the emperor. How could 
 he best employ the interval for the ends of his 
 ministry } How could he best help those 
 brethren in the faith .? And what could he do 
 to spread the faith, especially among those of 
 his own race who lived in Rome } Then as 
 now, the Jews flocked to populous cities. The 
 number of them then resident at Rome is com- 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 24 I 
 
 puted on good grounds at 60,000. To them 
 the first thoughts of St Paul turned, for this 
 noble-hearted man could not be alienated from 
 his own nation by ever so many injuries 
 inflicted on him in other places by the malice 
 of the Jews. No doubt he spoke with the 
 brethren on their way into the city, of a fresh 
 attempt to win those Jews to Christianity : and 
 soon after he reached the quarters assigned to 
 him by the authorities, he began to take his 
 measures for preaching " first to the Jew." We 
 have seen that at Pisidian Antioch, at Athens, 
 and elsewhere, he repaired to the synagogues, 
 and there found the audience he desired. But 
 this course was not possible at Rome, because 
 he was now a prisoner confined to his quarters 
 in custody of a soldier. He therefore invited 
 the chief men of the Jewish community to the 
 house where he lived ; and, addressing them as 
 brethren, endeavoured by kindly explanation 
 to remove from their minds any unfavourable 
 impression of his attitude towards the nation 
 and its ancestral customs which they might 
 have received from hostile reports. The Jews 
 replied, cautiously enough, that they had 
 received no letters or reports from Judea to his 
 Q 
 
242 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 detriment. They were willing to hear what he 
 had to advance ; but at the same time did not 
 conceal from him that the sect of the Nazarenes 
 with which he was identified had a bad repute 
 everywhere among Jews. Rightly or not, it 
 was "spoken against;" and the manner in 
 which they said this implied that in their 
 opinion, the sect deserved no good opinion. 
 Paul might show them his chains, and represent 
 himself as bound therewith " for the hope of 
 Israel ;" but the current impression among Jews 
 was that Nazarenes rejected the hope of Israel, 
 and turned away from Moses and the pro- 
 phets. 
 
 This was not encouraging to the apostle, but 
 at all events it was a point gained, that his 
 countrymen had come, and were willing to hear 
 him. They were not so furiously prejudiced 
 against him as the mob at Jerusalem who 
 shouted that he was not fit to live. So he 
 closed at once with the offer of his visitors : 
 and a day was fixed on which the house should 
 be open to all Jews who might be willing to 
 come together, and Paul should be patiently 
 heard. We may feel sure that in the interval, 
 the " prisoner of Christ " prayed earnestly, and 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 243 
 
 the Christians in Rome prayed too, that an 
 occasion so critical in view of the future of 
 both Israel and the Church, might be turned to 
 best account. 
 
 The day came, and from an early hour the 
 house was filled with Jews. Then St Paul 
 began. He had not to make a personal de- 
 fence, as at Jerusalem and Caesarea. He had 
 to speak of the hope of Israel. It was a subject 
 which had occupied his thoughts for many years, 
 and which he had thoroughly mastered. So he 
 entered on a full exposition of the writings to 
 which all his hearers attached sacred authority, 
 and showed how the law of Moses and the 
 books of the prophets bore on the now insti- 
 tuted kingdom of God and the now proclaimed 
 name of Jesus. This exposition occupied the 
 whole day from morning till evening, with 
 necessary breaks, no doubt, and pauses for 
 questions and answers. 
 
 But where is the speech ? We are ready and 
 eager to catch the apostle's words, and find to 
 our regret that St Luke has not reported them. 
 In like manner the same writer has informed us 
 that the Lord Jesus delivered a Christian ex- 
 position of the Old Testament to the disciples 
 
244 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 after His resurrection, but has not preserved it, 
 or even a part of it, for our use.* It is quite 
 probable that the explanation of passages from 
 the Old Testament which are found in St Paul's 
 epistles formed part of his exposition by word of 
 mouth at Rome, and were derived from the 
 earlier expositions of the Lord Jesus piously 
 repeated by those who heard Him. But the 
 entire omission of the consecutive discourse is 
 none the less significant. It seems to us to in- 
 dicate that God did not and does not now wish 
 His Church on earth to be furnished once for 
 all with an authorised interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture which should discourage or supersede 
 searching and study of the holy oracles by 
 successive generations of Christian scholars, 
 and reduce the keenness of scrutiny which is 
 excited by the very uncertainty of our exegesis. 
 The multiplicity of suggestions may be puzzling, 
 the diversity of commentaries may surprise and 
 perplex some minds ; but this is better than the 
 suppression of all activity of thought over the 
 pages of Scripture by the dictation of one 
 authorised and infallible interpretation. 
 
 This consideration bears severely on the 
 
 * Luke xxiv, 37, 44-46. 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 245 
 
 claim of authority which is made for the voice 
 of tradition and of the Church as entitled to fix 
 the sense of Holy Writ If it was right to de- 
 prive the early Church of any record in New 
 Testament books of that exposition of the Old 
 Testament which was delivered by the Lord 
 Jesus, or that which was delivered by St Paul, 
 how can it be maintained that an authorised 
 interpretation is good and necessary now ? 
 Even if this could be proved, we should have 
 to inquire further — why the Church of Rome 
 expects us to go to her alone for such authentic 
 and unalterable instruction ? But we dispute 
 the first position that it is according to the 
 Divine intention or desire that all Christians 
 should be put under a prescribed and uniform 
 interpretation of sacred Scripture. So saying, 
 we do not disparage all traditional interpreta- 
 tion or deny the respect due to Christian an- 
 tiquity. The Lord has given teachers to His 
 people ; and what is inculcated by a succession 
 of teachers is the more on that account entitled 
 to attention. But complete and infallible com- 
 mentary there is none. Neither ancient fathers 
 nor modern clergy have a right to claim such 
 authority for their expositions ; and^those of 
 
246 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 Jesus Christ and His servant Paul, to which 
 all must have deferred, have been purposely- 
 omitted from the sacred record. 
 
 Though we have not St Paul's speech on this 
 occasion, and the relevancy of this chapter in a 
 study of apostolic speeches may be called in 
 question, we know the great themes on which 
 he spoke while supporting all his statements 
 from Moses and the prophets. They were 
 two — 
 
 I. He ^^ testified the kingdom of God'' — And 
 subsequently, during " two whole years " at 
 Rome, receiving all comers, he preached the 
 kingdom of God. He was at Rome, the seat 
 of empire. Living near the Pretorian camp, he 
 must have heard constantly the tread of legions 
 and the clang of arms — signs of the military- 
 power which had subdued the world. But the 
 spirit of the good apostle occupied itself far 
 more with thoughts of a greater kingdom — one 
 which makes very little of the things on which 
 the Roman Empire rested, but very much of 
 "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy- 
 Ghost" Caesar's kingdom was soon to dwindle, 
 but the kingdom of God was to extend far 
 beyond the bounds of the Empire as its utmost 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 247 
 
 stretch, to " regions Csesar never knew/' to cast 
 its skirt over all nations, and reach to the utter- 
 most parts of the earth. It was easy for St 
 Paul to show to his Jewish audience that David, 
 Isaiah, and other prophets whom they professed 
 to honour, had foretold such a kingdom — a 
 reign of God over men, not in little Palestine 
 only, but in every region under heaven. 
 
 This kingdom the apostle testified and 
 preached. He announced that the time long 
 appointed for its beginning had arrived. Al- 
 ready it was among men. And, as for himself, 
 far from preferring the imperialism of Csesar, 
 which appeared to dominate the world; far 
 from being disposed to abandon hopes which 
 the prophets had breathed from days of old 
 into the Hebrew breast ; he was there to pro- 
 claim that God was now commencing the ful- 
 filment of that hope, and making known the 
 powers of a kingdom of heaven on the earth, 
 into which it was the privilege of the Jews to 
 enter first, if they would repent and believe the 
 . Gospel. 
 
 2. He persuaded his hearers '' concernhig 
 Jesus.'' — So also for two years thereafter St 
 Paul taught to all comers " the things concern- 
 
248 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 ing the Lord Jesus Christ." Indefinite as the 
 statement is, we can easily conjecture the course 
 which the apostle followed. He showed from 
 the Scriptures, as at other times, that the 
 Messiah was destined to be rejected and slain, 
 and thereafter to be raised from the dead. 
 Then he told, as recent matter of fact, how 
 all this was fulfilled in Jesus, who was con- 
 sequently exalted as Lord and Christ ; and 
 raising his own thought and the thoughts of his 
 hearers above the power of that human incar- 
 nation of absolute authority, the Caesar who 
 ruled from his throne in that city over so many 
 realms and nations, he expatiated on the 
 dominion and glory of an unspeakably greater 
 and better Lord and Ruler — Prince of life, and 
 King of kings. He showed that this Jesus was 
 the king whom God had anointed, and who was 
 able to order and rule the kingdom of God with 
 consummate wisdom and power. The Roman 
 Emperor was indeed an impersonation of human 
 pride and self-will; but this Ruler over the 
 kingdom of God was and is the bright expres- 
 sion of the Divine will, which is good-will to 
 men. He is Lord to the glory of God the 
 Father. 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 249 
 
 So the earnest apostle taught the live long 
 day in that primitive St Paul's cathedral — " his 
 own hired house;" and the day's labour was 
 not in vain. Some of the Jews were persuaded 
 by the exposition and argument, and, it is to be 
 presumed, cast in their lot with the Christians 
 at Rome, and often repaired to St Paul's house 
 for further instruction and for prayer. But 
 some were not convinced ; and in the evening 
 the assembly broke up with discordant views 
 and feelings ; not, however, before the apostle 
 pronounced a heavy reproof on the blindness of 
 the Jews, and intimated that the salvation would 
 be preached, and with more success, to the Gen- 
 tiles. The close of his address to the Jews at' 
 Rome resembled the close of his speech to the 
 Jews and proselytes at Pisidian Antioch. The 
 circumstances were very similar, but the occa- 
 sion at Rome was for obvious reasons the more 
 critical for the Jews themselves, and for the 
 future attitude of Israel towards the New Testa- 
 ment truth and liberty. At Antioch St Paul 
 concluded with a warning from the book of 
 Habakkuk. At Rome he quoted from the 
 sixth chapter of Isaiah in the Greek version. 
 The infatuation of Israel in the old times when 
 
250 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 prophets brought messages from Jehovah and 
 were not heeded now reappeared in a more in- 
 tense and fatal form, when the testimony re- 
 garding the kingdom of God, and the teaching 
 concerning the Lord Jesus was brought to their 
 ears, and they would not believe. As the pro- 
 phesying in a former age, so the preaching now 
 only served to stupify and blind the Jews more 
 and more, through the grossness and hardness 
 of their hearts. 
 
 St Paul had made proof of this infatuation 
 on the part of his kinsman after the flesh in 
 many cities — in Antioch, Iconium, Thessa- 
 lonica, Corinth, Ephesus, and Jerusalem. Now 
 he saw it in Rome also. He must have often 
 traced in his own mind the correspondence be- 
 tween this and the obduracy which the ancient 
 prophets had so much lamented and reproved ; 
 and now with a heavy heart he recognised that 
 Israel was surpassing all its former inveteracy, 
 by closing its eyes and hardening its heart 
 against the Gospel of Christ. True; he was 
 aware that the falling away of the Jews at that 
 time from the knowledge and favour of God did 
 not involve the final rejection of the nation. 
 He ad already treated of that subject in his 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 25 I 
 
 Epistle to the Romans. He had given reasons 
 for clinging firmly to the hope that the chosen 
 nation will ultimately be recovered to God, and 
 all Israel be saved. But, by the quotation 
 from Isaiah, which he sounded in the ears 
 of the unbelieving Jews at Rome, he indicated 
 the position into which the people so long 
 favoured by heaven must fall through their 
 persistence in refusing the apostolic testimony, 
 and the opening of those '' times of the Gen- 
 tiles," during which Israel which was nigh to 
 God is far off, and nations which were far from 
 God are brought nigh. 
 
 With what deep emotion, what grief at heart, 
 must Paul as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 
 have spoken these parting words! He had 
 more than the natural chagrin of a clear 
 thinker and teacher who perceives that the 
 minds of his hearers are shut against him, and 
 all his exposition and reasoning are thrown 
 away. He had the vexation of a son of Israel, 
 who was obliged for the truth's sake to separate 
 from the leaders of the synagogues, and to see 
 them with the bulk of the Jewish people turn 
 away from him as from a false Rabbi or a 
 renegade. No Israelite ever loved Israel more 
 
252 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 than Paul of Tarsus did. Yet he had to pro- 
 nounce on his nation a woe which has now 
 lasted more than eighteen hundred years. So 
 far as Judaism is religious now, it is a dry sap- 
 less thing, pervaded by a tone of monotony 
 and melancholy, with no power or desire to 
 propagate itself. But, to a large extent, it is an 
 irreligious and unspiritual thing in the modern 
 world — its heart made gross by worldliness, and 
 its influence closely allied with the growth of 
 rationalism. 
 
 No sinister feeling of triumph touched the 
 apostle as he made known to those unbelieving 
 Jews the fate which was befalling their nation. 
 He had long foreseen this as a likely issue ; 
 he fought against it to the last moment ; and 
 the perception that it was now inevitable caused 
 him poignant sorrow and unceasing pain at his 
 heart. Such pain, such sorrow, lies in a 
 measure on the heart of every Hebrew Chris- 
 tian in the world to-day, as he thinks of his 
 own nation, so separate, so indestructible, so 
 unique, and yet spiritually so infatuated and 
 hardened — their hearts waxed gross, their ears 
 dull, and their eyes closed. 
 
 Gentile Christians but imperfectly enter into 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 253 
 
 this feeling. They are apt to be not sorry so 
 much as indignant at the bitter and prolonged 
 hostility of the Jews to the Lord Jesus, and 
 the testimony of His holy apostles. Martin 
 Luther had much of the evangelical thorough- 
 ness and fervour of St Paul, and Gentile as he 
 was, felt deep concern at the opposition of the 
 Jews in Germany to the Gospel. At first he 
 cherished a hope that when the Reformation 
 had exhibited to them a Christianity purged 
 from image worship and other heathen prac- 
 tices, they would be drawn to the faith which 
 he and his co-reformers professed. In this ex- 
 pectation he was quite disappointed, and then 
 he showed how far he fell short of St Paul, 
 not only in Jewish feeling, but in Christian 
 patience, for he broke out in severe invective 
 against the German Jews, and called for violent 
 measures against them. 
 
 Violent measures, however, taken with any 
 people or class of men on the score of their 
 religion, are, as all intelligent persons now 
 know and admit, wrong and ineffective. The 
 case of the Jews requires firm argument, but 
 also great patience. It is our duty to bear 
 witness to them, as some of their race bore- 
 
254 ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 
 
 witness to the ancestors of the present Gentile 
 nations long ago. As we have opportunity we 
 are to show them the kingdom of God, and the 
 claims of the Lord Jesus Christ out of their 
 own Scriptures — but with much long-suffering, 
 for their hearts really are gross, and their eyes 
 and ears shut against such truth as we incul- 
 cate. Even if we had all the scriptural know- 
 ledge of St Paul, and all his yearning sympathy, 
 we should still have disappointments in preach- 
 ing to Jews ; but let us learn from him the 
 right temper and attitude of the Church to- 
 wards desolate and scattered Israel — praying 
 for Israel, warning Israel, offering to show to 
 Israel the fulfilment in our Lord Jesus Christ 
 of ancient hopes and promises ; and however 
 long the time of obduracy, waiting with far- 
 stretching hope for the day of restoration — the 
 healing of the chosen nation, and the joy and 
 peace of Jerusalem. 
 
 A sad sight this after St Paul's all-day 
 teaching — hearers going hardened away! A 
 rather mournful close to our study of the apos- 
 tolic speeches ! But it really is a sight which too 
 probably the angels see at the close of every 
 public discourse on the truth of the Gospel. 
 
ST PAUL TO JEWS AT ROME. 255 
 
 Lamentations are being made over the neglect 
 of many to go to the house of prayer and in- 
 struction when the doors are open. It seems 
 to us a more sad thing still, that so many enter 
 in and hear the Gospel, and then go out just as 
 they entered — without conviction, without faith. 
 Some believe ; howbeit some believe not. 
 
 In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the 
 reason of this unbelief is not intellectual but 
 moral. Men resist impression and submission to 
 the truth because they wish still to follow their 
 own pleasures, and they love the world. They 
 come and hear the Word because others come 
 and hear ; but they shut the avenues of con- 
 viction, and bar the door at which Christ might 
 enter. Thus they repeat the sin of those Jews 
 who went away from the ministry of St Paul 
 unbelieving, and they do it with less excuse. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE do not dispute that St Luke's history 
 may have been written with an ireni- 
 cal purpose. St Paul to whom he was strongly 
 attached had been more perversely misrepre- 
 sented, and assailed than any one of the ser- 
 vants of Christ ; and therefore he wrote to ex- 
 hibit the harmony of St Paul's Christianity with 
 that of the earlier apostles, as well as the process 
 by which he had been led to take a wider scope 
 of thought and ministry, and the wise resolution 
 with which he had rescued the Church from the 
 trammels of Jewish restriction. The book of 
 the Acts of the Apostles tells us exactly what 
 it is indispensable for us to know in order to 
 understand and appreciate the epistles which 
 follow. It is a wonderful tale, well told ; and 
 all the more satisfactory that it allows the 
 apostles Peter and Paul to speak for themselves, 
 and so allows us to catch their sentiments in 
 
CONCLUSION. 257 
 
 their own words, while we seem to see their 
 gestures and hear their tones. 
 
 It is of some importance to remember that 
 our holy religion originated in a spoken not a 
 written Word. In the days of old, God spoke 
 to Abraham, to Moses, and to the prophets ; and 
 they spoke what He spoke to and through 
 them. The record of those words was an after 
 arrangement for the preservation of the truth 
 so revealed, and its transmission in an authentic 
 form to future generations. We open the New 
 Testament, and find John the Baptist preaching, 
 not writing, then our Saviour speaking such 
 words as mere man spake, not writing — project- 
 ing Himself orally on the world which He 
 would save, and leaving it to others to put 
 those words on record. So the Church began 
 with and by the word of God — an oral testi 
 mony not a written book. Christ spoke ; thei. 
 His apostles and prophets spoke. At least a 
 score of years passed before the primitive 
 Church had any authorised written report of 
 those sayings and discourses. The word of the 
 Lord which grew and multiplied was the word 
 spoken by those who had the mind of Christ. 
 It was "the word of good tidings preached," 
 
 R 
 
258 CONCLUSION. 
 
 and to be preached, to every creature. After 
 the Church was formed, some of the more im- 
 portant speeches of the apostles were put on 
 record by St Luke, and several of the apostles 
 themselves wrote or dictated letters which have 
 been reverently preserved, for the admonition 
 and edification of the saints. 
 
 This original characteristic our religion can- 
 not afford to lose. It may be greatly served 
 by the pen, but it can never lay aside the sword 
 of the mouth. Let Christian periodicals and 
 books be ever so much multiplied, let copies of 
 Holy Scripture be ever so widely diffused, 
 nothing can supersede personal oral testimony 
 to Jesus Christ and the Gospel. It is often 
 said, and truly, that the Church needs more 
 Power from on high, such as she received at 
 the beginning. Rely upon it, that the Power 
 will use the same organs and instruments as at 
 the beginning, viz., apostolic men and apos- 
 tolic speeches. 
 
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 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION: 
 
 A Course of Lectures delivered in St George's Free Church, 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 The special object of these Lectures is, as the title indicates, to ex- 
 hibit the genius of the Evangelical Principle ; to trace its manifestation, 
 development, and vicissitudes in various ages of the church and human 
 history ; and to illustrate its ruling and moulding povi^er over diverse 
 types of national, intellectual, and spiritual character. The Lectures 
 are biographical, historical, popular, and distinctly evangelical. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 EAUL THE APOSTLE. 
 
 By the Rev. Principal RAINY, D.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO. 
 
 By the Rev. MARCUS DODS, D.D., Glasgow. 
 
 COLUMBA, FOUNDER OF lONA. 
 
 By the Rev. JAMES C. MAC PH AIL, Edinburgh. 
 
 ANSELM OF CANTERBURY. 
 
 By the Rev. Professor THOMAS SMITH, D.D.,? Edinburgh. 
 
 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX. 
 
 By the Rev. Professor THOMAS M. LINDSAY, D.D., 
 
 Glasgow. 
 
 JOHN WICLIFF. 
 
 By the Rev. Principal BROWN, D.D., Aberdeen. 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER. 
 
 By the Rev. Professor Sx\LMOND, D.D., Aberdeen. 
 
 [32 PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
Date Due