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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

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STUDIES

THE BOOK OF ACTS

.MortDStssima GKiutas Dei
BY
J. WILLIAMS, D.D., LL.D.
\ n b
BISHOP OP CONNECTICUT

SECOND EDITION

NEW YORK
THOMAS WHITTAKER
2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE
1888

W(_75

Copyright, 1888,
By THOMAS WHITTAKER.

RAND AVERY COMPANY, BOSTON,
MADE THIS BOOK.

PREFACE.

The writer of the following pages has for a long time felt
that if the Acts of the Apostles could be generally read in
the orderly way in which people usually read history, a great
gain would result, not only for the better understanding of
the New Testament, but for the more intelligent comprehen
sion of the origin, organization,- and early development of the
Church. It has seemed to him, that even the printing of
the book arranged under proper divisions and subdivisions,
with proper titles prefixed to each, would accomplish a good
deal in the direction just indicated. This, therefore, is the
first thing he has endeavored to do ; preserving, however, for
convenience of reference, what otherwise would have been
dispensed with, — the division into verses.
The fragmentary and desultory way in which all Holy
Scripture is too often read is everywhere disastrous ; but it
is especially so in those parts in which we are presented with
continuous history. No man would dream of reading ordinary
history, whether ecclesiastical or secular, in the way in which
many read the Acts of the Apostles. And it ought to be
remembered that this book is history just as much as are
the works of earlier or later writers of church history. The
difference between it and the ordinary church histories does
not lie in the character or subject-matter of the several writ
ings, but only in the conditions under which they were com
posed ; the Book of Acts being written under the guiding

IV PREFACE.
presence of the Holy Spirit, and the others having and
claiming no such presence.
Moreover, it is only by grasping the fact, so easy to take
up when it is once stated, and so completely ignored by
vast numbers of readers, that all the events recorded must
have taken place before the record was made, that we attain
correct ideas of the relations of the church with its organiza
tion, doctrine, sacraments, and worship, to the Scriptures of
the New Testament. Then, and not before, we learn what
so many miss of learning, the great truth that in Acts and
Epistles we are not to look so much for commands as to
what was to be done, as for recognition of what had already
been done. Had this matter been fully understood hardly
three centuries ago, a good deal of Hooker's immortal work
need not have been written.
This volume is in no sense (nor was it intended to be) a
commentary on the Book of Acts. It is simply what its
name imports. Nor is it designed for scholars, though the
writer hopes there is nothing contrary to sound scholarship
in it. It is written in the firm and abiding belief that Chris
tianity came into the world not merely as a doctrine, or a life,
or an idea, or a book ; but as an Institution, comprising in
itself all the things just named, — being, indeed, the " Mount
Sion, the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem."
These studies end with the twelfth chapter and fourth
division of the book, and do not touch the last and largest
portion, the Mission to the Gentiles. The change in the
history, however, makes it possible to stop at this point
without leaving work half done. Whether this volume will
be followed by another, must depend on circumstances
beyond the control of the writer.
Berkeley Divinity School, February, 1S88.

LAY-OUT OF THE BOOK.

The Book of Acts, regarded as a history of the foundation
of the Christian Church and of its early propagation, naturally
divides itself into five parts : —
I. A brief summary of events and transactions during the
forty days that intervened between the resurrection and
ascension of our Lord ; with special notice of what occurred
in the ten days which separate the ascension, from the
descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.
Chapter i.
II. The story of Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian
Church. Chapter ii. to ver. 42.
III. The Mission to the Jews, beginning at Jerusalem, and
extending to Judaea and Samaria. Chapter ii. ver. 42, to
chapter ix.
IV. The preparations for the Mission to the Gentiles.
Chapters ix. to xii. inclusive.
V. The Mission to the Gentiles. Chapters xiii. to xxviii.
inclusive. These different parts, it is hardly necessary to say, must
be subdivided into various sections.

VI LAY-OUT OF THE BOOK.
Thus, as we may readily see, the entire book becomes a
commentary on the words of our Lord, " Ye shall be wit
nesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." * These
words present the law for the proper arrangement of the
book, and enable us to reduce its contents to an harmonious
order. 1 Acts i. 8.

CONTENTS.

Part ff.
THE FIFTY DA YS.
SECTION I. — A Brief Summary of the Great Forty Days . . 3
SECTION II.— The Ten Days of Expectation  11
Part Iff.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
The Birthday of the Christian Church  23
Part III.
THE MISSION TO THE JEWS, BEGINNING IN JERUSALEM
AND EXTENDING TO JUDAEA AND SAMARIA.
SECTION I. — The Earliest Days of the Church in Jerusalem . 51
SECTION II. — The Earliest Trial from without; the First
Persecution  80
SECTION III. — The Earliest Trial from Within; Ananias and
Sapphira  89
SECTION IV. — The Second Persecution  92
SECTION V. — The Institution of the Diaconate  97
SECTION VI. — The Third Persecution  102
SECTION VII.— The Mission to Samaria  no
yii

VU1 CONTENTS. Part W.
THE PREPARA TIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES.
SECTION I. — The Conversion of Saul, and its Consequences . 125
SECTION II. — Travels and Labors of St. Peter  135
SECTION III. — The First-Fruits of the Gentiles  137
SECTION IV. — Reception at Jerusalem of the Intelligence
that the Gentiles were admitted to the
Church  147
SECTION V. — Other Preparations for the Mission to the
Gentiles  154
SECTION VI. — The Fourth Persecution  162

PART I.
THE FIFTY DAYS.

STUDIES IN THE BOOK OF ACTS.

Part ff.
(Chapter I.)
SECTION I.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
{Chap. i. vv. i-ii.)

I The former treatise have I made, O
Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to
do and teach,
2 Until the day in which he was taken
up, after that he through the Holy Ghost
had given commandments unto the apostles
whom he had chosen :
3 To whom also he shewed himself alive
after his passion by many infallible proofs,
being seen of them forty days, and speak
ing of the things pertaining to the kingdom
of God :
4 And, being assembled together with
them, commanded them that they should
not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the
promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye
have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water;
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost not many days hence.
6 When they therefore were come to
gether, they asked of him, saying, Lord,
In connection with this summary should always be care
fully read those portions of the Four Evangelists which re
late to the period covered by it. Here, however, only the
summary can claim attention.
I. We are at once presented with the fact that our Lord

wilt thou at this time restore again the
kingdom to Israel ?
7 And he said unto them, It is not for
you to know the times or the seasons, which
the Father hath put in his own power.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that
the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye
shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusa
lem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and
unto the uttermost part of the earth.
9 And when he had spoken these things,
while they beheld, he was taken up ; and a
cloud received him out of their sight.
io And while they looked stedfastly to
ward heaven as he went up, behold, two men
stood by them in white apparel ;
II Which also said, Ye men of Galilee,
why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? this
same Jesus, which is taken up from you
into heaven, shall so come in like manner
as ye have seen him go into heaven.

4 A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
" shewed Himself alive after His passion " to the apostles,
"being seen of them forty days." Not that He was with
them continually, or continuously, during that period ; but
that from time to time He appeared to them. " As He was
forty days after His birth before He was presented in the
temple in the earthly Jerusalem, and, again, forty days after
His baptism before He entered on His ministry, so now
He waits forty days after His birth from the grave before
He presents Himself in the temple of the heavenly Jeru
salem, and enters on His priestly ministry in the true
Holy of Holies, where He ever liveth to make intercession
for us." '
2. Two purposes of these appearances are very distinctly
indicated, and we need not seek for others : first, that by many
proofs He might convince the apostles of the verity of His
resurrection ; and secondly, that He might speak to them of
the kingdom of God, and the things pertaining to it, and
give them His commandments.2
3. The first of these purposes brings to mind the words of
St. Peter, " Him God raised up the third day, and shewed
Him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen
before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with Him
after he rose from the dead ; " 3 and these words suggest
several questions. Why should the proofs have been given
to witnesses chosen before, and not to all the people ?
Does not the selection of witnesses suggest the idea of prac
tising and collusion ? Would not the evidence have been
stronger and more irresistible had it been offered to all alike ?
Unbelief has not been slow to raise these difficulties, and
undoubtedly believers have often been staggered at them.
The following considerations may, in at least some degree,
relieve them : —
In the first place, we must not be misled by the words
of our version, "shewed Him openly," into supposing that
the apostle in any way contradicts what he says, immedi-
* Bishop Wordsworth. 2 Acts i. 2, 3. 3 Acts x. 40, 41.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS. 5
ately afterwards, concerning selected witnesses ; all that the
words in the original mean is that our Lord was distinctly
seen by, made clearly visible to, those who saw Him. There
is no reference at all to the number of beholders, but only
to the clearness, distinctness, and freedom from any thing
like obscurity, which characterized His appearance.
Secondly, the number of witnesses selected was by no
means small. St. Paul speaks of our Lord as having been
seen " by more than five hundred brethren at once," * many
of whom were alive when he wrote. When this appearance
took place, we are, of course, unable to say. The persons to
whom it was granted are called brethren ; and this would
indicate a personal knowledge of our Lord. The number is,
at the same time, so great, that its testimony could scarcely
be gainsaid ; and St. Paul's implied challenge, if it were no
more than an unreal bravado, could be as easily met as it
was plainly made.
Thirdly, a selection of individuals, by whom the person of
one who is to be identified is well known, must secure a
more trustworthy identifying testimony than could be secured
from a miscellaneous crowd, many of whom had never known
him, others of whom had barely seen him, while only a few
of all the number were really capable of testifying intelli
gently. " Public appearances could have added nothing to
the testimony of the chosen witnesses. By diminishing the
precision of the story, they might have diminished the efficacy
of its proper evidence." 2 Under such circumstances, selec
tion, especially the selection of such competent witnesses as
the Apostles and disciples were, is a guaranty of trustwor
thiness and correctness.
4. The second purpose of our Lord's appearances was that
He might give "commandments unto the apostles whom He
had chosen." And this He did by "speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God." Obviously the entire
• 1 Cor. xv. 6.
1 See Bishop Horsley's Pour Discourses on tlie Evidences of the Resurrection.

6 A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
meaning of these statements depends on the signification of
the phrase, "the kingdom of God."
We can scarcely fail to recall at once the fact, that when
John Baptist began his preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
his words were, " Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand." Nor can we forget that when our Lord began His
ministry, it was with the self-same words.1 It will hardly
be questioned that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom
of God are identical terms. Teaching, moreover, about this
kingdom, enters largely into the instruction given by our
Lord in His parables.
These exhibit to us the kingdom of God under two distinct
aspects. It appears as an outward, visible, organic body,
growing and spreading in the world ; and it is also a living
power in human souls. The one view, we may say, looks at
the kingdom objectively, the other subjectively. But to keep
the balance true, neither should be omitted or neglected.
The entire Church, as represented by St. Paul, is the temple
of the Holy Ghost, its Vitalizer and Administrator ; and
yet each individual Christian is also said to be a temple of
the Holy Ghost. Anyhow, the kingdom of God is the Church
of God, of which our Lord is the Head and King.
Moreover, He became King of this kingdom and Head of
this body in the Resurrection and Ascension ; and the king
dom was given to Him because of His voluntary humiliation
and obedience. He "died and rose and revived that He
might be Lord both of the dead and living," and God raised
Him from the dead, "and gave Him to be Head over all
things to the Church." 2 And the cause, so to speak, of this
exaltation, was His humiliation and obedience. " He hum
bled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
Him and given Him a Name which is above every name."3
Just here, in order to avoid confusion, some necessary dis
tinctions must be kept in mind. There are two natures, the
1 Matt. iii. i, 2, iv. 17. s Rom. xiv. 9; Eph. i. 22. 3 Phil. ii. 8, 9.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS. 7
divine and human, united in our Lord. He is perfect God,
and He is perfect man.
As God, the eternally begotten Son, the Word, the Second
Person in the adorable Trinity, He is the Creator and the
Upholder of the creation. " By Him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisi
ble," even " the worlds ; " and again we are told, "All things
were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing
made that was made." ' Moreover, what He has created
He sustains ; " by Him all things consist," and He is ever
and always " upholding all things by the word of His power." 2
In Him, therefore, as its Creator ,and Upholder, is vested
"the supreme and universal dominion of the world."
But, besides this dominion, inherent in our Lord's Divine
nature, and connected with his Creatorship, there is another
dominion which Holy Scripture tells us was given to Him.
He was "made both Lord and Christ;" the Father "set
Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places," and
"gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church ;" and
to Him are applied the words of the Psalmist, " Thou crown-
edst Him with glory and honor, and didst set Him over the
works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things in subjection
under His feet." 3
This last, then, is the kingdom given Him because of His
humiliation and obedience, and it is His mediatorial kingdom
of which he said, "All power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth."4 Still it was not, as Bishop Pearson says,
"actually given Him at once, but part while He lived on
earth, part after His death and resurrection ; " the first gift
enabling Him for His work, the second full and complete in
its exaltation, power, and dominion.
Moreover, this kingdom is partly, and under one aspect,
economical, that is, it is ordained to carry out and complete
a certain work, the work of redemption ; and when that work
* Col. i. 16 ; Heb. i. 2 ; John i. 3. 3 Acts ii. 36; Eph. i. 20, 22 ; Heb. ii. 7, 8.
¦ Col. i. 17 ; Heb. i. 3. * Matt, xxviii. 18.

8 A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
is effected, that part of the power given to our Lord will end,
(that aspect of the kingdom will pass away. This is what
St. Paul has in view when he says, "He must reign till He
'hath put all enemies under His feet ; " and again, " When
He shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power,"
then He shall deliver up " the kingdom to God, even the
Father," "that God may be all in all." '
But there is another aspect of this kingdom, in which it
does not appear as economical, but as abiding and eternal.
The immediate work of redemption may end, but the glorious
issues of redemption abide ; and they still centre in the
eternal King, and the unchanging Priest. This aspect of
the kingdom is clearly brought out in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, where the Father speaking to the Son says, "Thy
throne, O God, is for ever and ever."2 It is of this aspect
that the angel spoke to the Virgin Mary, when he said, " Of
His kingdom there shall be no end."3 This is the kingdom
of glory, in which, after the Lord has judged the world in
righteousness, and when "the kingdom of this world is
become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, He
shall reign for ever and ever." 4
Our Lord, then, during the period in vie Vv, was teaching
His apostles concerning this kingdom of which they were to
be the heralds, and, under Him, the founders upon earth ; in
asmuch as it was " built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner
stone." s So that we are quite warranted in saying that what
they did, in preaching the Word and establishing the Church,
was the outcome of the instructions and commandments
which were, during this time, imparted to them. Nor should
we here forget the promise touching the Holy Ghost, that He
should teach them all things, and bring all things to their
remembrance, which He, their Master, had said unto them.6
The record of their doings under these instructions is con-
¦ i Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28. » Luke i. 33. s Eph. ii. 20.
2 Heb. i. 8. * Rev. xi. 15. * John xiv. 26 ; comp. xvi. 13.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS. 9
tained in this Book of Acts, which is therefore the fountain
and source of Christian history, — of the history of the Church
of the Redeemer of mankind.
These instructions, however, concerning the establishment
and ordering of the kingdom, do not seem to have conveyed
at once, to the eleven, an adequate and full conception of the
character of this universal Church of God. The living power
of the Holy Ghost seems to have been needful to accomplish
this. The question, " Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel ? " besides the improper and
prying curiosity which it exhibits, shows also that the Apos
tles were still influenced by carnal and Jewish notions con
cerning that kingdom. Our Lord rebukes each fault : the
first, by telling that it was not theirs "to know the times
and the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own
power," that is, has kept in His own authoritative counsel ;
the second, by bidding them look beyond Jerusalem and
Judaea, "unto the uttermost part of the earth ; " for even so
far was their witness to be borne, carrying the kingdom
with it. Nor was it till they had been " baptized with the
Holy Ghost," till the "promise of the Father" had been
made good, till they had "received power" ' after that the
Holy Ghost had come upon them and guided them into the
overwhelming truth, that they understood the true character
of the kingdom. Then, not before, they ceased from narrow,
carnal views, and, rising to the fulness of the Divine ideal,
became the large-minded, large-hearted apostles of a world
wide faith and a universal Church.
5. The section concludes with the account of the Ascen
sion. The Lord ascended both as a King and a Priest. As
a King, " when He ascended up on high, He led captivity cap
tive, and gave gifts unto men."2 As a Priest, "by His own
1 Readers of the original will observe that the word " power " in ver. 8 is not the same
word as in ver. 7, though our version does not make the difference apparent. In ver 7,
it is i(ov>r;a, that is, authority ; in ver. 8, it is Swajii., that is, the living inspiration,
strengthening and enabling, of the Spirit.
* Eph. iv. 8.

10 A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained
eternal redemption," and there "He ever liveth to make inter
cession " * for us. Thence, too, He is to come in like manner
as He went away, "in the clouds of heaven," with "all the
holy angels with Him." 2 This awful coming will be His
final manifestation, " the Epiphany of the glory of the great
God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ." 3
1 Heb. ix. 12, vii. 25. s Matt. xxvi. 64, xxv. 31 3 Tit. ii. 13.

THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION.

II

SECTION II.
THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION.
{Chap. i. ver. 12 to the end.)

12. Then returned they unto Jerusalem
from the mount called Olivet, which is from
Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey.
13. And when they were come in, they
went up into an upper room, where abode
both Peter, and James, and John, and
Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew,
and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus,
and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother
of James.
14. These all continued with one accord
in prayer and supplication, with the women,
and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with
his brethren.
15. If And in those days Peter stood up
in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the
number of names together were about an
hundred and twenty,)
16. Men and brethren, this scripture
must needs have been fulfilled, which the
Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake
before concerning Judas, which was guide
to them that took Jesus.
17. For he was numbered with us, and
had obtained part of this ministry.
18. Now this man purchased a field with
the reward of iniquity ; and falling head
long, he burst asunder in the midst, and all
his bowels gushed out.

19. And it was known unto all tne dwell
ers at Jerusalem ; insomuch as that field is
called in their proper tongue, Aceldama,
that is to say, The field of blood.
20, For it is written in the book of
Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and
let no man dwell therein : and his bishoprick
let another take.
21. Wherefore of these men which have
companied with us all the time that the
Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
22. Beginning from the baptism of John,
unto that same day that he was taken up
from us, must one be ordained to be a wit
ness with us of his resurrection.
23. And they appointed two, Joseph
called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus,
and Matthias.
24. And they prayed, and said, Thou,
Lord, which knowest the hearts of all
men, shew whether of these two thou hast
chosen, 25. That he may take part of this minis
try and apostleship, from which Judas by
transgression fell, that he might go to his
own place.
26. And they gave forth their lots ; and
the lot fell upon Matthias ; and he was
numbered with the eleven apostles.

1. The upper room to which the Apostles repaired, after
returning to Jerusalem, is mentioned with a definiteness that
indicates a marked and well-known place. Very possibly it
may have been the " large upper room " where the Eucharist
was instituted, and where, after the crucifixion, the disciples
were accustomed to assemble.' It can hardly have been a
room in the temple, though the Apostles evidently continued
1 Mark xiv. 15 ; Luke xxii. 12; John xx. 19, 26.

12 THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION.
to go up to the temple at the hours of prayer. Wherever it
was, it was the seed-plot of the Christian Church.
2. In the catalogue of the eleven here given, the names of
" Peter and James and John " head the list. These three
are also conspicuous in the Gospels. They witnessed the
Transfiguration "in the holy mount," and they were with
the Lord in His agony in the garden.1 After the descent of
the Holy Spirit, Peter and John appear prominently in Jeru
salem and Samaria. Nothing especial is said of James till we
are told that he was killed by Herod "with the sword."
To St. Peter it was given to open the door to the Gentiles,
that by his "mouth they might receive the word of the
gospel and believe ; " 2 and this might lead us to regard
him as the Apostle of the uncircumcision. That, however,
was not so to be. St. Paul tells us that " He who wrought
effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision,
the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles." 3 Where
fore, St. Paul becomes the Apostle of the uncircumcision in
the place of St. Peter; a position recognized by "James,
Cephas, and John," who agree to go to the circumcision,
while Paul and Barnabas are to go to the heathen.4 It is
noticeable, too, that St. Peter, thus relegated to the apostle
ship of the circumcision, is named after James of Jerusalem,5
and from the time of the Council of Jerusalem disappears
from the history in the Book of Acts. All this is utterly
irreconcilable with the theory of a divinely appointed
supremacy over the Church, given by our Lord to St. Peter.
St. John, in accordance with our Lord's prediction,6 sur
vived the destruction of Jerusalem, and outlived all his
brethren. We may say, I think, that St. Peter represents
the Jewish element in the Church, and that aspect of the
Church under which it appears as the completion and fulfil
ment of the Mosaic economy ; that St. Paul represents the
1 Matt. xvii. ; 2 Pet. I. 18 ; Mark xiv. 33.
2 Acts xv. 7. 3 Gal. ii. 8. « Gal. ii. 9.
s Gal. ii. 9. Not at all the James whom Herod slew. 6 j0hn xxi. 22,

THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION. 1 3
Gentile element and that aspect of the Church in which it
comes to us as the new creation for the Gentiles ; while St.
John represents the fusion of these two elements and aspects,
which, as they had " a common root in the full life of Christ,
the Saviour of both Gentiles and Jews, so they grew together
into the unity of the Catholic Church, the true Israel of
God." Out of this great and impressive truth there has grown
up the perverted notion of two opposing schools of doctrine
in the Apostolic Church, which were reconciled in a third.
But there were no such schools. The Faith was one. St.
Paul is as clear on that point as St. Peter, and St. John as
either of the other two. Nor is there any real opposition in
these aspects of the Church, in themselves considered. Men
might push them into opposition by pressing one into promi
nence to the exclusion of the other, and so, no doubt, those
did at Corinth who said, on the one side, " I am of Peter,"
and on the other, " I am of Paul ; " * but there was no such
opposition between the Apostles themselves, nor in the
aspects of the Church which they represented. Any such
opposition is simply imaginary.
3. The great event of this brief period is the selection
of Matthias to fill the vacancy occasioned by the treachery
and death of Judas. The narrative is a very simple one.
The Apostles and other disciples are together, doubtless in
the "upper room." St. Peter, after urging the prophetic
application of two passages in the Psalms to the case of
Judas, declares that it is "necessary " that one who had been
with them during our Lord's earthly ministry, and who had
seen Him after He rose from the dead (even " from the bap
tism of John unto that same day that He was taken up"),
should be added to the eleven "to be a witness of His resur
rection." Two persons are selected, and the choice between
them is solemnly left to the ascended King and Head of the
Church. His decision is invoked ; lots are given forth, and
* 1 Cor. i. 12.

14 THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION.
" the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the
eleven Apostles."
Just how the lot was cast, we are not told. But there can
be no doubt that our Lord's direct intervention was sought.
The prayer offered is most certainly addressed to Him who
is the "one Lord Jesus Christ." ' He is invoked as knowing
" the hearts of all men," and this is peculiarly insisted on
in the Gospels as one of His special characteristics.2 Again,
He is asked which of the two He has "chosen;" and this
word is the same which is used in ver. 2 of this chapter,
where mention is made of "the Apostles whom He had
chosen," and also by our Lord Himself when He said, " Ye
have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." 3 Moreover, the
term " Lord," as applied to Jesus Christ, is " the keynote to
the history of the Acts of the Apostles." So that the first
recorded prayer of the followers of Christ, after the Ascension,
was addressed to Him, their Lord.
An objection has of late years been made to regarding
this transaction as a designation of Matthias to the aposto
late. It arises, no doubt, from the conviction that it is desir
able, if not essential, to the theory of ministerial parity, to
limit the number of the Apostles strictly to twelve. In order
to this, since St. Paul, to name no others, was undoubtedly
an Apostle, it was considered necessary to exclude Matthias
from being numbered with the eleven ; for his admission
would carry with it the admission of an extended apostolate,
and this extension would furnish an argument, or the basis
of an argument, for the continuance of the apostolic office in
the Church. Matthias, therefore, must be got rid of.
The riddance was attempted on this wise. It was said
that not until the Day of Pentecost did the Holy Spirit
descend on the Apostles "to teach them all things, and to
bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever the Lord
had said unto them ; " 4 that any act of theirs during the ten
1 i Cor. viii. 6. 3 j0hn xv. 16.
2 Matt. ix. 4, xii. 25 ; Luke vi. 8 ; John ii. 24, 25. * John xiv. 26.

THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION. 1 5
days of waiting was the act of uninspired men ; and that
the appointment of Matthias was only a precipitate, almost
thoughtless, suggestion of St. Peter, — always hasty in word
and deed, — accepted and acted on without deliberation, and
therefore destitute of warrant or authority.
But, surely, such a theory, or whatever it is to be called,
can only be read into the narrative : it can never be deduced
from it. Not only is there no intimation that the transac
tion was not accordant with the will of our Lord, but the
impression is certainly left on the reader's mind that the final
selection of Matthias was His own act ; while the solem
nity of the prayer which was offered to Him precludes the
thought of haste and carelessness. Moreover, we are told
that on the Day of Pentecost, St. Peter stood up " with the
eleven ; " and later on, but long before the conversion of St.
Paul, that "the twelve called the multitude of the disciples
unto them." ' Who are the eleven in the one case, or the
twelve in the other, if Matthias is not to be reckoned as
an Apostle ?
But there is still more to be said. Granting that the act
was not done under the direct guidance and inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, the question immediately arises, Was it done
simply at the individual instance of St. Peter, or is it to be
regarded as due to instructions given by our Lord Himself ?
We can only balance probabilities, since no definite infor
mation is given us.
When one considers the strictness of the command to
wait at Jerusalem for " the promise of the Father," a com
mand recorded by St. Luke not only in the Acts but also in
his Gospel ;2 and the fact that the Apostles were to be "en
dued with power from on high," to enable them to do what
our Lord had appointed them to do, only when that promise
was fulfilled in the descent of the Holy Spirit, — the great
improbability of any action, unless under special direction,
in the mean time, becomes apparent. When, therefore, St.
1 Acts ii. 14, vi. 2. * Compare Luke xxiv. 49 with Acts i. 4.

1 6 THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION.
Peter says one must be designated to take the place of Judas,
using a word [S_i] which almost always in the Gospels and
Acts indicates Divine appointment or ordering, does he not
seem to be communicating a direction which he has received,
rather than merely giving utterance to a conviction of his
own mind ? And does not the ready acquiescence of the
others in his proposition point in the same direction ?
Besides, he very distinctly applies two prophecies, from as
many Psalms, to Judas.1 Granting that he was not speaking
by inspiration, — for the reason given above, — is this a " pri
vate interpretation " of his own ? or had he been taught it,
and if so, by whom ? St. Luke, in his Gospel, mentions two
occurrences which seem to throw some light upon this query.
He tells us that on the resurrection evening our Lord met
two of His disciples walking towards Emmaus, and, " begin
ning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded unto them in
all the scriptures the things concerning Himself ; " especially,
as the context shows, the things relating to His sufferings
and entrance into glory.2 On the same evening, the two
disciples having returned to Jerusalem and told what had
occurred, the Lord appeared to the eleven and those who
were with them, and, having " opened their understanding
that they might understand the scriptures, said unto them,
Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and
to rise from the dead the third day." 3
All this shows that our Lord, immediately after His resur
rection, expounded with great fulness, to the Apostles and
others, the scriptures relating to His cross and passion, His
death and burial. Is He likely to have done this without
expounding those that related to the self-destroyed son for
whom in His marvellous Eucharistic prayer He had uttered
words of wailing,4 declaring that his loss of himself had ful
filled the scriptures? What scriptures had it fulfilled,
except those quoted by St. Peter ? And if those scriptures
• Ps. lxix. 25, cix. 8. 3 Luke xxiv. 33-46.
" Luke xxiv. 26, 27. . j0hn xvii. 12.

THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION. IJT
were in His mind in that great prayer, would He be likely to
leave them out of view in expounding the scriptures of His
passion ? Is it not, under all the circumstances, altogether
more probable that St. Peter's application of the two Psalms
to Judas — and, if that, then also his proposition to fill the
traitor's place — came from our Lord's teaching, than that it
was a " private interpretation " of his own ? All these con
siderations furnish, I think, a sufficient answer to a theory
which has been thrust upon this passage, rather than deduced
from it.
4. We meet here (ver. 14) with the last mention in the
sacred histories, of the Virgin Mother. Indeed, the reticence
of Scripture, all along, concerning her who was to be called
by all generations Blessed, is most noteworthy. May we
not say that it seems to have been purposely so ordered, to
leave as little ground, and therefore as little excuse, as possi
ble for the frightful perversions of later times ? How little
we are told in the Gospels we are apt to forget until we
search it out and put it by itself. We find such mention of
the conception, the birth, and the early years of Jesus, as is
necessary to set clearly out to us the Incarnation of our
Lord, — the great fundamental fact that the Eternal Son
" took man's nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of
her substance," so that in very truth she became the God-
bearer [---toko.], because she bare in her womb, and bore
into the world, Him who in His one person was God as well
as man ; and we find no more. All that is told us is told
because of our Lord, and not because of Mary. The end
and purpose of all is the truth about Him, not information
about her. This is the obvious law that shapes the Gospel
narrative of His earlier years in their connection with His
earthly mother.
When we reach the story of the Lord's ministry, the scanty
notices of His mother become more scanty still, almost to
the extent of utter silence. We find her with Him at the
marriage at Cana, where her interference, from whatever

1 8 THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION.
motive it may have proceeded, is gently rebuked in the
words, " O woman, what have I to do with thee ? mine hour
is not yet come." After that the silence is unbroken till
His hour did come. Once when He was told that His
mother and His brethren sought speech of Him, He replied,
" Who is my mother, and who are my brethren ? " and then,
pointing to His disciples, He said, " Behold my mother and
my brethren ! for whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and
mother." J Again, when one, overpowered by His words
and works, exclaimed, " Blessed is the womb that bare thee,
and the paps which thou hast sucked," He answered, " Yea,
rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep
it." 2 What do these words mean, unless they exhibit a
higher spiritual relationship — higher because it is spiritual —
between every Christian believer and his Lord and Master,
than even that which subsisted between the Divine Son and
His earthly mother ; a blessedness of every obedient child of
God, greater even than that of her whom all generations
were to call Blessed ?
When the Lord's hour 3 came, — it was by that word that
He was wont solemnly to designate His passion and death,4 —
His mother is seen again, but only for a moment; and in that
moment He commends her to the charge of the beloved
disciple. How full of meaning are these utterances and these
silences ! Enough is told to set before us, in its fulness, the
divine mystery of the Incarnation, and to show us that not
in His circumcision only, but in all His life before He entered
on His ministry, our Lord became " obedient to the law for
man." Then, when we reach that ministry, we learn how
He lived on a plane whose earthly relations were merged
1 Matt. xii. 46-50. » Luke xi. 27, 28. ¦' John xix. 26, 27.
• This remark applies especially to the Gospel of St. John. Compare with the ex
pression already quoted (recorded only by St. John), these passages in his Gospel : vii.
30, viii. 20, xii. 23, 27, xiii. 1, xvii 1 ; compare also vii. 6, 8, the word here being not ilpa,
hour, as in the other places referred to, but „aip6s, time or season.

THE TEN DAYS OF EXPECTATION. ig
in higher spiritual ones. At last, in the supreme moment of
His earthly life, the early relation to His mother is again
recognized, but only that it may be transferred, with all its
duties and its privileges, to the disciple whom Jesus loved.
How exactly in accordance with this is the striking fact,
that there is no record of any appearance of the risen Saviour
to His mother ; no mention of her, indeeH, after the resur
rection, except the incidental one in this passage ! Is not all
this a prophetic protest against the falsehoods and perver
sions that man's pravity has heaped upon the name of her
who by the Holy Ghost conceived in her womb, and bore into
the world, the God-man Jesus Christ ?

PART II.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

Part Iff.
(Chapter II. to ver. 42.)
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

I. And when the day of Pentecost was
fully come, they were all with one accord in
one place.
2. And suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting.
3. And there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them.
4. And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and began to speak with other
tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem
Jews, devout men, out of every nation under
heaven. 6. Now when this was noised abroad, the
multitude came together, and were con
founded, because that every man heard
them speak in his own language.
7. And they were all amazed and mar
velled, saying one to another, Behold, are
not all these which speak Galilaeans r
8. And how hear we every man in our own
tongue, wherein we were born ?
9. Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,
and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in
Juctea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and
Asia, 10. Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt,
and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene,
and strangers of Rome, Jews and prose
lytes, 11. Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them
speak in our tongues the wonderful works
of God.
12. And they were all amazed, and were
in doubt, saying one to another, What
meaneth this ?
13. Others mocking said, These men are
full of new wine.
14. TI But Feter, standing up with the

eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto
them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that
dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto
you, and hearken to my words :
15. For these are not drunken, as ye sup.
pose, seeing it is but the third hour of the
day. 16. But this is that which was spoken by
the prophet Joel ;
17. And it shall come to pass in the last
days, saith God, I will pour out 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 :
18. And on my servants and on my hand
maidens I will pour out in those days of my
Spirit ; and they shall prophesy :
19. And I will shew wonders in heaven
above, and signs in the earth beneath ;
blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke :
20. The sun shall be turned into dark
ness, and the moon into blood, before that
great and notable day of the Lord come :
21. And it shall come to pass, that who
soever shall call on the name of the Lord
shall be saved.
22. Ye men of Israel, hear these words ;
Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God
among you by miracles and wonders and
signs, which God did by him in the midst
of you, as ye yourselves also know :
23. Him, being delivered by the deter
minate counsel and foreknowledge of God,
ye have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain :
24. Whom God hath raised up, having
loosed the pains of death : because it was
not possible that he should be holden of it.
25. For David speaketh concerning him,
I foresaw the Lord always before my face,
23

24

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

for he is on my right hand, that I should
not be moved :
26. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and
my tongue was glad; moreover also my
flesh shali rest in hope :
27. Because thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy
One to see corruption.
28. Thou hast made known to me the
ways of life ; thou shalt make me full of joy
with thy countenance.
29. Men and brethren, let me freely speak
unto you of the patriarch David, that he is
both dead and buried, and his sepulchre
is with us unto this day.
30. Therefore being a prophet, and know
ing that God had sworn with an oath to him,
that of the fruit of his loins, according to
the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on
his throne ;
31. He seeing this before spake of the
resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not
left in hell, neither his flesh did see corrup
tion. 32. This Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof we all are witnesses.
33. Therefore being by the right hand of
God exalted, and having received of the
Father the promise of the Hoiy Ghost, he
hath shed forth this, which ye now see and
hear.

34. For David is not ascended into the
heavens : but he saith himself, The Lord
said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right
hand, 35. Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
36. Therefore let all the house of Israel
know assuredly, that God hath made that
same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both
Lord and Christ.
37. Now when they heard this, they were
pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter
and to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, what shall we do ?
38. Then Peter said unto them, Repent,
and be baptized every one of you in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost.
39. For the promise is unto you, and to
your children, and to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall
call. 40. And with many other words did he
testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves
from this untoward generation.
41. If Then they that gladly received his
word were baptized: and the same day
there were added unto them about three
thousand souls.

1. The first thing to be considered here is the time at
which the great miracle of Pentecost occurred. Not that
the day itself is not clearly fixed, but for other reasons which
will appear as we proceed.
The three great festivals of the Mosaic dispensation were
the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and Pentecost. It
was a characteristic of all these seasons, that they were both
commemorative and anticipatory. They looked back, but
they looked forward also.
The Passover commemorated the deliverance of the Israel
ites from the punishment which fell on Egypt when the
death-angel smote its first-born ; and their deliverance, also,
from the enslaving power of Egypt when they were taken
from the land of their bondage. It looked forward to the
time when the spiritual Israel, the true seed of Abraham,

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 2$
should be freed from the punishment of sin and the power of
sin by the death and resurrection of Him " who was deliv
ered for our offences, and was raised again for our justifica
tion." At this season, also, on the day following the Paschal
Sabbath, " a sheaf of the harvest " was waved by the priest
before the Lord. Thus was this great festival connected
with the natural year, a characteristic not singular to itself,
but marking, as we shall see, the two other festivals as
well. We trace in this ritual act a commemorative, and with
it an anticipatory, significancy. For while it constantly
recalled, as a commemorative symbol, the sanctification of
the first-born child of an Israelite, its meaning found its full
expression only in that First-born of all creation, who, hav
ing died and risen again, became the "first-fruits of them
that slept." ' So the Jewish Passover carries itself over to,
and is completed in, the Christian Easter.
The Feast of Tabernacles is specially presented to us as
a thanksgiving for the harvest.2 In this regard it stands
connected, on the one side, with the Passover, the Feast of
Abib, the month of green ears, when the sheaf oi barley was
offered before the Lord; and, — as we shall see, — on the
other, with Pentecost, when the first loaves of the year were
waved before the altar.3 But, besides this, this festival
carried the Israelites back, by its booths of green branches
and boughs, to their dwelling in booths after their deliver
ance from Egypt.4 It also commemorated — it could not
fail to do so — the tabernacling of God with His people "in
the wilderness," when
" By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow :
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow."
Surely, therefore, it looked on to a greater and more awful
presence of God among men, even to that day when " the
' Lev. xxiii. io, ii j Exod. xiii. 2, 4; 1 Cor. xv. 20. 3 Lev. Xxiii 10, 11, 17, 20.
* Lev. xxiii. 39, 40, 41. * Lev. xxiii. 42, 43.

26 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Word was made flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled, lo-Krf. eao-e. ] among
us, and we beheld His glory." ' If Passover became Easter,
did not Tabernacles become Christmas ?
Pentecost (called also the feast of harvest, the feast of
weeks, the day of first-fruits) 2 is specially connected with
the Passover, in that the sheaf of the last-named festival is
made complete in the two Pentecostal loaves.3 It is also, as
has been said, connected, as the Passover is, with the thanks
giving of the Feast of Tabernacles. Later on, the Jews
called it " the concluding assembly," because it brought to
its culmination the teaching of the Passover. How this cul
mination was reached, we may see by bringing together the
Paschal sheaf and the Pentecostal loaves, which showed that
" He who had delivered His people from Egypt, who had
raised them from the condition of slaves to that of freemen
in covenant with Himself, was the same that sustained them
with bread from year to year." 4
Moreover, as this day, the fiftieth after the Passover, was
the day on which the Lord "made a covenant in Horeb"
with His people,5 and gave them the code of Sinai, this great
festival commemorated the giving of the law. But if it com
memorated the ordering of the law of the old covenant,
"written and graven in stones," it also looked on to the new
covenant, of which God said to His true Israel, " I will put
my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." 6
And this covenant became a living institution, this promise
was fulfilled, when "in fiery pomp " the Holy Spirit descended
to be with the Church forever, " another Comforter." 7 With
what a true insight Keble brings together the two thoughts
we have been dwelling on !
" When God of old came down from heaven,
In power and wrath He came :
Before His feet the clouds were riven,
Half darkness and half flame ;
1 John i- 14- 2 Exod. xxiii. 16, xxxiv. 22 ; Num. xxviii. 26 ; Deut. xvi. 10.
3 Lev. xxiii. 17, 20. * The Rev. Samuel Clark, in Smith's Dictionary ofthe Bible.
3 Deut. v. .. 6 Jer. xxxi. 31-34 ; Hos. ii. 23 ; Zech. viii. 8 ; Heb. viii. 8, 9, 10.
7 John xiv. 16.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 2J
" Around the trembling mountain's base,
The prostrate people lay ;
A day of wrath, and not of grace,
A dim and dreadful day.
"But when He came the second time,
He came in power and love ;
Softer than gale at morning prime,
Hovered His Holy Dove. •
" The fires that rushed on Sinai down
In sudden torrents dread,
Now gently light a glorious crown
On every sainted head."
What wonder that the Jewish Pentecost was vitalized into
the Christian Whitsunday ? What wonder that Easter and
Whitsunday are the earliest annual festivals of the Christian
Church ? In the former, the very Paschal first-fruits were
presented before God. In the latter, the old Pentecostal
loaves found their complete interpretation in the " one bread
and one body," into which, "by one Spirit, we are all
baptized." *
2. No definite information is given as to the place where
the Pentecostal miracle occurred. Tradition makes it " the
upper room." The fact that the miracle occurred at the
"third hour," when the Apostles were accustomed to resort
to the temple for prayer, would indicate that as the locality.
The use of the word house [o7ko_] is not conclusive for either
place ; for it might be used of the entire temple,2 or for any
one of the thirty cells which surrounded it,3 as well as for a
private habitation.
In favor, then, of the upper room, we have the unvarying
testimony of tradition, and the improbability — whatever it
is to be counted at — that the Apostles would be likely to
assemble in the temple. In favor of the temple, we have
the facts, that the Apostles, whether together or not, were
1 i Cor. ._. 17, xii. 13. " Josephus, Antiq., viii. 2, 3.
2 Kings and Chronicles, passim.

28 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
wont to resort thither at the hour mentioned ; that they do
not appear just then to have been the subjects of any special
animosity ; and that the apartments around the temple were
open to all comers and goers.
"The solemn inauguration of the Church of Christ " might
well — we may venture to think — take place " in the sanc
tuary of the elder covenant." '
3. As there are two opinions touching the place where the
miracle was wrought, so there are two answers to the ques
tion, Who were the subjects of it ? Some confine the mirac
ulous action to the Apostles, others extend it to the whole
body of the disciples. And a factitious importance has been
given to the matter by its supposed bearing on questions
relating to the Christian ministry. It has no such bearing
or connection. If all the disciples were the subjects of the
miracle, that would not disprove the existence of a divinely
appointed ministry, " stewards of the mysteries of God." If
only the twelve were the subjects of it, that would not touch
the truth that all the members of the Church of God are
intrusted with "a royal priesthood."2 It is worse than
foolish to drop one of two unquestionable truths, because of
some merely imaginary discrepancy between them. It only
increases the folly to attempt to connect them with questions
of interpretation with which they are totally unconnected.
The promise that they should be " baptized with the Holy
Ghost," and should " receive power after that the Holy Ghost
had come upon them," in which power they were to be wit
nesses to Christ, was certainly made to the apostles ; and
this would seem to limit the miracle to them. On the other
hand, we are told, "they were all with one accord in one
place ; " and while this may be spoken only of the twelve, it
seems more likely that it is designed to include all the dis
ciples. Again, in the account of the Ascension, the Apostles
are called Galilaeans; and here the question is asked, "Are
not all these which speak Galilaeans ? " Probably, however,
1 Olshausen on Acts ii. 1. a 1 Cor. iv. 1 ; 1 Pet. ii. 9.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 29
this expression ought not to be pressed in either direction.
Nor is the question itself important, when once it is under
stood that it has no possible bearing on any theory concerning
the constitution of the ministry, or its relations to the laity.
4. Far more important than any considerations relating to
place or persons, are those which involve the nature and
effects of the miracle itself. All miracles appeal to the
senses, and the testimony of the senses is the ground of
their acceptance. Were the miracle of transubstantiation
true, it would be the one exception to this universal law.
First, then, there came " a sound from heaven, as of a mighty
rushing wind," — not a wind, but a sound like one, — "and
it filled the house." There seems to be here a, symbol of
the way in which the Holy Spirit was to fill the Spirit-
bearing Church in all the world, " Their sound is gone out
into all lands, and their words into the ends of the world ; "
and also of the fulness of the outpouring of the Spirit,
"which He shed on us abundantly."1 Then came the
separated "tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of
them." The appearance as of fire fulfilled the prophecy
of John Baptist, " He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost
and with fire." 2 The original Greek does not warrant the
common idea that each tongue of fire was cleft. It only
means that the tongues were parted off as from one common
source ; while the expression " it sat," or rested, not only
points, in its use of the singular number,3 to the oneness of
the source, the Holy Spirit, and intimates that the entire
gift was received by each person, — a singulis in solidum,
by each in completeness, to use Cyprian's words^ — but also
indicates permanency and continuance. "Thou art gone up
on high, Thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts
for men ; yea, even for thine enemies, that the Lord God
might dwell among them."
1 Psa. xix. 4 ; comp. Rom. x. 18 ; Tit. iii. 6. 2 Matt. iii. 11 ; Luke iii. 16.
3 The word translated " cloven " is -t_j_t<pi£d/-ei _i. It suggests at once St. Paul's
declaration, "There are diversities — juupnrnc — of gifts, but the same Spirit."

30 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Says Bishop Andrewes, speaking of the fitness of a " sol
emn, set, sensible, descending " of the Spirit : It was " meet
that no less honor should be done to this law of Sion, than
to that of Sinai, which was public and full of majesty ; and
so was this to be. Meet, that having once before been upon
Christ the Head, it should be so once more on the Church
too, the Body. It pleased Him to vouchsafe to grace the
Church, His Queen, with a like solemn inauguration to that
of His own, when the Holy Ghost descended on Him in
likeness of a dove ; that she might, no less than He Himself,
receive from heaven like solemn attestation. Lastly, meet
it was that it should remain to the memory of all ages testi
fied, that a day there was, when, even apparently to sense,
mankind was visited from on high, and that this wind here,
and these tongues, came not for naught, at so high a feast,
in so great an assembly." '
Whatever may be said of the " kinds of tongues " spoken
of by St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, or of
our Lord's words, " They shall speak with new tongues," 2
no one who reads the Book of Acts as a history can doubt
that the persons of different nationalities and languages then
present heard the Apostles speak, " every man in their own
tongue wherein they were born ; " that is, those who spoke,
spoke in the various languages represented. To suppose
that the "miracle consisted in the multitude hearing in
various languages that which the believers spoke in their
native tongue ; " or that there was some unexplained " mag
netic relation between the speakers and hearers ; " or that
the words mean "speaking with the tongue only, that is,
inarticulately ; " or that they who spoke did so " in unusual,
enthusiastic, or poetical phraseology ; " or that they spoke in
" an entirely new spiritual language," — is only to encumber
1 First Sermon on the Sending Of the Holy Ghost. Sermons, vol. iii. p. 116, new
edition. The bishop, according to common usage in his time, by " apparently " means
"evidently." 2 i Cor. xii. io, 28 ; Mark xvi. 17. The phenomenon in Corinthians is barbarously
called Glosollaly I

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 3 1
it with endless difficulties. Such conjectures may (probably
they were designed to) exhibit the ingenuity of those who
make them ; beyond that, they accomplish nothing.
The miracle is, so to speak, the correlative of that of Babel.
There, in one tongue, was proposed a wonderful work for
men : here, in manifold tongues, were declared the wonder
ful works of God. There the one tongue, broken into many,
scattered men abroad : here the many tongues, uttering one
truth, drew them together. Babel tells of human discords :
Pentecost proclaims Divine unity.
5. The coming of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, to estab
lish and abide with the Church even to the end,1 fulfils the
promise of our Lord, and is the solemn inauguration of the
dispensation of the Spirit, — the final dispensation from God
to man. This great truth needs to be well considered and
understood, for on its comprehension depends a full under
standing of the true character of the new covenant in the
blood of Jesus Christ.
To guard at once against a misunderstanding which would
be fatal, let it be said that the descent of the Holy Spirit on
the Day of Pentecost does not at all imply that it had not
before that wrought in men, both Jews and Gentiles. We
are told, indeed, that the " Holy Ghost was not yet, because
that Jesus was not yet glorified;" 2 and our Lord said, "If
I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." 3
But on the other hand, we know that in the "old time . . .
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost;"4 that David prayed, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit
1 " In prayer for the assistance of the Holy Ghost, we should avoid expressions which
ignore the great fact of Pentecost, when He was sent to earth, by our agcended Lord, to
establish the Church and to abide with it forever. . . . We might as well pray for the
creation of the universe, or the incarnation of Christ, as for the descent of the Holy Spirit
in any sense that overlooks His indwelling in the Church, and all the true members
thereof." — Sprott, Worship and Offices of the Church of Scotland, p. 26. "Christ's
errand being done, and He gone up on high, the Spirit this day visibly came down for
Him, and in His name and stead, to take the charge, and to establish an order in the
Church." — Andrewes, Sermon XV., On the Holy Ghost.
2 John vii. 39. 3 John xvi. 7. • 2 Pet. i. 21.

32 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
from me;"' that Joshua was one " in whom was the
Spirit ; " 2 and that, even before the deluge, God had said,
" My Spirit shall not always strive with man." 3 Have we
here a contradiction ? How are these apparently diverse
passages to be reconciled ?
The answer is not far to seek. To our Lord in His hu
manity the Holy Spirit was given " not by measure ; " 4 so
that He dwelt in the Man Christ Jesus, " not as in other
men, divided severally according to the will of God, but
entirely, absolutely, without separation of office or distinc
tion of gift." In like manner, in a fulness unknown before,
the Spirit was to be sent first on the Apostles, then on the
Church, to abide forever, with all powers and functions, per
sonal and administrative, in " diversities of gifts . . . differ
ences of administrations . . . diversities of operations."
Here, then, lay the difference. It was not "that all the
special influences by which holy men spake at any time as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; all the imperfect, yet
hopeful, feeling after God, if haply they might find Him,
among the heathen ; all the zeal, of God which St. Paul
acknowledges, even in the midst of error and blindness,
among the Jews ; all the willingness and eagerness to receive
the message of salvation, when once it was preached, whether
in Jews or Gentiles," s — it was not that all these things came
from any other than the Holy Ghost. They did all come
from Him. The presence of the Holy Ghost was even the
crowning glory of unfallen man.6 His restoration was a chief
purpose of God's plan for man's redemption and salvation ; 7
and that restoration came in its fulness, when, under the new
covenant, the Holy Ghost was "shed on us abundantly."
As Leo the Great says, " That the disciples on the day of
Pentecost were filled with the Holy Ghost, was not the
beginning of the gift, but the addition of abundance ; for patri-
1 Ps. Ii. ii. 2 Num. xxvii. 1 8. 3 Gen. vi. 3. * John iii. 34.
s Moberly, Bampton Lectures, p. 40, second edition.
6 Bishop Bull, State of Man before the Fall.
7 Bishop Jolly, Baptismal Regeneration.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 33
archs, and prophets, and priests, and all holy men that ever
lived, were quickened by the sanctification of the Spirit." *
Thus much we must have clearly in mind at the outset.
Next, let us observe the full import of the statement just
quoted, that the Holy Spirit was not given " by measure "
to our Lord, when this expression is taken in connection
with His words and works. His human nature received a
twofold unction of the Holy Ghost. He was anointed first
at His conception, when the angel said to the Virgin Mother,
"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee;" next at His
baptism, when "the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily
shape, like a dove, upon Him," after which He was " full of
the Holy Ghost." 2
In that fulness He preached, prophesied, and wrought
His miracles, applying to Himself the prophecy of Isaiah,
"The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed me," and declaring
that He casts out devils "by the Spirit of God."3 Never
till we grasp this truth, so mighty and overwhelming, shall
we comprehend all that is meant in applying to our Lord
the words of the Psalmist, "O God! Thy God hath anointed
Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows." 4
Turning now to our Lord's words addressed to His Apos
tles on the last evening of His mortal life, we find Him
saying, " I will not leave you comfortless [orphans] ; I will
come to you. ... It is expedient for you that I go away ;
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you,
but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." 5 The Lord's
coming, then, of which He here speaks, cannot be His
return to judgment, of which the angel said to the Apostles,
" This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven,
1 Serm. II., De Pentecoste. See also Canon Ashwell's Lectures on the Holy Catholic
Church, p. 38.
2 Luke iii. 22, iv. 1.
3 Isa. Ixi. 1, ff. ; Luke iv. 17-21; Matt. xii. 28; comp. Luke xi. 20. St. Matthew
says, " If I by the Spirit of God ; " St. Luke, " If I by the finger of God." This explains
a line in the Veni Creator Spiritus, and the longer version of it in the Ordinal : Dextra
Dei tu digitus, " The finger of God's hand."
4 Ps. xiv. 7; Heb. L 9. ! John xiv. i8,jiX-7.— ---. .
' cary of f/,e" ^.

siYALE MVitftY SCHOOL^

34 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into
heaven." Far from it. He returns not (as the heavens have
received Him) "until the times of restitution of all things;"1
but, in and by the Holy Ghost whom He sends, whom the
Father sends, to work in the Church the presence of the
risen Lord, the resurrection life of His anointed Spirit-
bearing humanity, which is thus to abide with the Church
forever. Let us understand, however, that the Holy Spirit does not
come to the Church to be a substitute for an absent Lord,
to supply Christ's absence, but to bring His abiding pres
ence, the " unspeakable gift " 2 of God. So Christ Himself
ordains His ministers, and yet the Holy Ghost makes them
"overseers over the flock;" Christ is "in us the hope of
glory," and yet we become "the temples of God" by the
indwelling Spirit ; we are " members of His body, of His
flesh, and of His bones," and yet " by one Spirit we are all
baptized into one body." 3 As, in the natural world, God
the Father created all things, and yet " all things were
made " by the Son ; so in the realm of grace Christ is ever
present, ever working) but it is by the Holy Ghost. Where
fore St. Paul in one place says that by our Lord Jesus
Christ "we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand ; " and in another place, that through Christ we
" have access by one Spirit unto the Father." 4
Says Richard Hooker, "They which belong to the mys
tical body of our Saviour Christ, and be in number as the
stars of heaven, divided successively, by reason of their
mortal condition, into many generations, are, notwithstand
ing, coupled every one to Christ their Head, and all unto
every particular person among themselves, inasmuch as the
same Spirit which anointed the blessed soul of our Saviour
Christ doth so formalize, unite, and actuate His whole race,
1 Acts iii. 21. _ 2 Cor. ix. 15.
3 Acts xx. 28 ; Col. i. 27 ; 1 Cor. iii. 16 ; Eph. v. 30 ; 1 Cor. xii. 13.
* Rom. v. _, 2; Eph. ii. 18.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 35
as if both He and they were so many limbs compacted into
one body, by being quickened all with one and the same
soul ; " and again, " We see . . . what communion Christ
hath with His Church, how His Church, and every member
thereof, is in Him by original derivation, and He personally
in them by way of mystical association, wrought through the
gift of the Holy Ghost. . . . As for any mixture of the sub
stance of His flesh with ours, the participation which we have
of Christ includeth no such kind of gross surmise." '
Let these truths be well apprehended ; and, while all
materialistic views of the sacraments will be excluded, we
shall rise to the full meaning of those great words that tell
us how the Church of the living God, the dispensation of
the Holy Ghost, " is built upon the foundation of the apos
tles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
corner-stone ; in whom all the building, fitly framed to
gether, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord ; in whom
ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit." 2
6. It has been remarked, that the arrangement of the
names of the tribes at this time represented in Jerusalem,
" follows the order of the three principal dispersions of the
Jews throughout the world. The earliest dispersion was
that of the ten tribes in Media and Assyria, and of the two
tribes in the neighborhood of Babylon, then subject to the
Parthians, who are therefore placed first. The second was
the dispersion of Jews in Asia Minor, the dwellers in Cap
padocia, etc., an offshoot from the Assyrian dispersion.
The third was the Egyptian dispersion, planted by Ptolemy
Lagus." 3 We cannot fail, also, to be reminded of the
wonderful prophecy of Isaiah, which so nearly corresponds,
though with a different arrangement, to the words of St.
Luke: "In that day there shall be a .root of Jesse, which
shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to it shall the
1 Eccl. Pol., Book V., c. lvi. §§ 11, 13. 2 Eph. ii. 20.
3 Bishop Wordsworth. See also Pearson, Condones ad Clerum, ilL

36 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glorious. And it shall
come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand
again, the second time, to recover the remnant of His
people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt,
and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from
Hamath, and from the islands of the sea." * The Root of
Jesse, the ensign for the nations, was now exalted to His
seat of glory at the right hand of God ; and Isaiah's proph
ecy began to be fulfilled. But all prophecies, as Lord Bacon
says, "being of the nature of their Author, with whom a
thousand years are as one day, are not punctually fulfilled
at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment
throughout many ages." 2 Wherefore we look for its entire
fulfilment to that coming day of which St. Paul speaks,
when, " the fulness of the Gentiles " having " come in . . .
all Israel shall be saved."3
Asia here, and throughout the Acts, means Proconsular
Asia, of which Ephesus was the capital, and which com
prised the south-western part of the peninsula of Asia
Minor. It never means either the continent of Asia, or the
entire of Asia Minor.
The persons assembled from these various tribes in Jeru
salem are spoken of as "Jews and proselytes." The former
were those who were Jews by birth, descendants of Abra
ham ; and these appear in this book under two designations,
Hebrews and Hellenists ; usually in our version, Grecians.4
The Hebrews were those Jews who were pure Jews, " not
necessarily of unmixed Jewish descent, nor necessarily resi
dent in Palestine, but rather distinguished by language, as
speaking the Syro-Chaldaic, and using the Hebrew Scrip
tures." 5 The Hellenists were either Jews proper, who, living
1 Isa. xi. io, n.
2 Advancement of Learning.
* Rom. xi. 25, 26.
* In our version the word " Greeks " usually, not always, is applied to the Gentiles ;
and the word " Grecians," to the Hellenists or Graecising Jews, including the proselytes.
5 Alford on Acts vi. i.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. %"J
" in foreign countries, had adopted the prevalent form of the
current Greek civilization, and with it the use of the com
mon Greek dialect," and who used the Septuagint version of
the Scriptures ; or else, as included under the same name,
proselytes.1 It is not a little difficult to reach satisfactory conclusions
concerning the proselytes who are mentioned here. The
subject has been greatly confused by "the technical distinc
tions and regulations of the later rabbins." It would seem,
however, that at this period there were two classes of pros.
elytes, — proselytes of righteousness, who were circumcised
and also baptized ; and proselytes of the gate, who did not
receive circumcision.
The former were Jews in every thing except in descent,
and would appear to have been more Jewish than the Jews,
more pharisaical than the Pharisees (a phenomenon not alto
gether unusual in the case of converts),2 and, if Justin
Martyr may be believed, utterly inimical to the disciples of
Christ. The latter, finding that the Apostles preached the same
God in whom they already believed, rejected the legal cere
monies which they did not accept, and declared, with greater
clearness and assurance, the eternal life to which they looked
forward, would naturally be drawn towards the newly founded
Church ; the rather, because in it they were received to equal
place and privileges with all others, while by the Jews they
were regarded as unclean, and admitted only to the Court of
the Gentiles.3
7. St. Peter's sermon suggests some thoughts concerning
the methods and characteristics of Apostolic preaching.
Where a volume would hardly suffice for a full treatment of
the subject, only some salient points can be touched.
The first thing that strikes one, whether in the preaching
' Dr. Westcott in Smith's Did. of the Bible.
2 Matt, xxiii. 15. See also Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chap, exxii.
3 Bishop Pearson, ///. Concio ad Clerum.

38 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
of St. Peter or St. Paul, is the way in which they always
present, at the outset, something held in common by them
selves and their hearers. It is hardly necessary to go into
details. An inspection of the different discourses of these
Apostles will sufficiently exhibit this characteristic, which
is very much more than an illustration of the old rule of
rhetoric, that a speaker must put himself into relations
of sympathy with his hearers.
It is grounded on two most important truths : the first,
that Christianity is the completion of Judaism, the latter
without the former being a meaningless episode in the his
tory of the race ; the second, that Christianity is equally the
completion of natural religion, — that is, it is, to use Bishop
Butler's phrase, "a republication of natural religion."1 But
this phrase, it must be remembered, only states one aspect
of our holy religion. Christianity not only republishes the
great truths and laws of natural religion ; it also carries
them out from the meagreness of the letter to the fulness
of the spirit, and in from the mere overt act to the desires
and purposes of the heart. Nor is this all. Over and be
yond this, dealing with those relations and duties which
inhere in and grow out of man's creation, it reveals truths
which could in no other way be known ; it brings to every
man a vital power, even the Holy Ghost, which he had not
in himself, " animating, stimulating, and sanctifying indi
vidual souls ; " and this same Spirit also organizes " a society
of men, not merely working in men as individuals, but, over
and above that, animating a society, through the influence of
which society the good which He worketh in individuals
is brought out into a higher perfection than without social
influences could be produced." 2 Indeed, membership in this
society or body is the means of attaining, as it is " shed on
us abundantly," the vitalizing and renewing power of the
• Analogy, Part II. chap. i.
2 Ashwell, Lectures on the Holy Catholic Church ; Bishop Butler, ut sup. ; Barry,
The World's Witness to Christ.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 39
Holy Ghost. These last-named topics will recur again and
again, as we advance. Here it is enough to point out the
way in which the faith and the Church of our Blessed Lord
come in contact with Judaism and natural religion, so en
abling the Apostles to find some common ground on which
to place themselves, in addressing either Jews or Gentiles.1
Secondly, if Apostolic preaching always begins from some
thing held in common by preacher and hearers, the discourse
or teaching always ends with the risen Jesus and the resur
rection of the dead. A cursory inspection of the discourses
and teaching recorded in the Acts will fully exhibit this
characteristic, which has, indeed, been often remarked upon.
The first and obvious reason for this insistance is, that,
unless the resurrection of the Lord had really occurred, the
Apostles were "false witnesses of God." They might, in
such case, be simply deceivers, or they might be themselves
deceived. Great, however, as the difference of result in
regard to their own characters would be under the one or
the other of these alternatives, there would be no difference
of result so far as their hearers were concerned. The wit
ness, whether consciously or unconsciously on their part,
would still be false witness.
But there seems to be another and a deeper reason for
this striking characteristic. When our Lord began His
ministry, " He came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the
kingdom of God ; " when He sent out His twelve apostles,
" He sent them to preach the kingdom of God ; " when
Philip preached in Samaria, following Apostolic example,'
1 The English Puritans, with their exaggerated notions of the condition of man
after the fall, greatly ignored the light of reason and the duties and obligations of
natural religion. Writing in 1656, John Evelyn says, " There was now nothing practical
preached, or that pressed reformation of life, but high and speculative points and strains
that few understood, which left people very ignorant and of no steady principles." As
extremes beget extremes, this state of things probably produced ., revulsion, and "gave
rise to the excessive zeal for enforcing natural religion, and for mere moral preaching, to
the exclusion of the distinguishing doctrines of Christ, and particularly the operation
of the Holy Ghost " (Vicesimus Knox, Christian Philosophy, sect, iii.), which charac
terized a later period.

40 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
he " preached the things concerning the kingdom of God ; "
when St. Paul preached in the synagogue at Ephesus, he
" disputed and persuaded the things concerning the kingdom
of God;" when he bade adieu to the elders of Ephesus, he
reminded them that he had gone among them, "preaching
the kingdom of God ;" and, finally, for two years in Rome
he "received all that came to him, preaching the kingdom
of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord
Jesus' Christ." * These are only instances illustrating the
point here made, namely, that the preaching of the gospel is
the preaching of the kingdom of God.
But, of course, this kingdom was not preached apart from
the King ; rather, they who preached the kingdom preached
it because of the King. The kingdom was a living body
vitalized by the Holy Ghost ; but it was such a body only
because of its risen Head and Lord, whom " God exalted with
His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour," giving Him
"to be Head over all things to the Church, which is His
body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." 2 Therefore
there was preached not merely a Saviour that once died upon
the cross, making by his death forgiveness, sanctification, and
salvation possible ; but a risen and living Lord and King,
who by His resurrection and ascension, and the outpouring
of the Spirit, made those possibilities actual gifts, in that one
Body, into which, by one Spirit, we are all baptized.3 Here ,
we find the deepest and most underlying reason why the
Apostolic preaching always culminated, so to speak, in the
assertion of our Lord's resurrection. And, more than this,
we learn how far they have departed from the Apostolic
model who take men individually only to the cross, and leave
them there with, it may be, nothing but an abstract doctrine
of the atonement for the food of their souls, and do not take
them to the light and life and glory of the risen Jesus at the
right hand of God ; or, if they do take them thither, still
* Mark i. 14 ; Luke ix. 2 ; Acts viii. 12, xix. 8, xx. 25, xxviii. 31.
2 Acts v. 31 ; Eph. i. 22, 23. 3 1 Cor. xii. 13.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 41
take them in their individual isolation and separation, with
no efficient teaching as to that "body of Christ," in which —
not out of it, and by ourselves — we are to come "unto a
perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ." '
Thirdly, in the Apostolic preaching our Lord was never
preached apart from His institutions and the means of grace.
This follows, almost necessarily, from what has just been
said concerning the preaching of the King and His kingdom ;
but some further explanation may be desirable.
The instruction given by Philip the deacon to the Ethi
opian eunuch sets this matter in a very clear light.2 The
evangelist, beginning at the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah,
"preached unto him Jesus." And yet the first outcome of
this teaching was, that the eunuch asked that he might
receive holy baptism. It is, therefore, utterly impossible
that Philip should have "preached Jesus" after that fashion
in which many, who value themselves for their spirituality,
would preach Him now. This illustrative instance may
suffice for the present, inasmuch as the topic must be referred
to again.
Fourthly, there was in Apostolic preaching no exclusion
of teaching touching moral duties and obligations. We are
told that Felix, the Roman procurator of Judasa, " sent for
Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ." But we
are also told, that, in preaching the faith in Christ, St. Paul
"reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to
come."3 In these words are comprised the duties which
man owes to himself, his fellow-men, and to God. They
answer directly to St. Paul's words in his Epistle to Titus,
bidding him to teach men, " that, denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world."4 How often, in days far later than
Apostolic times, has this sort of preaching been stigmatized
1 Eph. iv. 7-17. 3 Acts xxiv. 24, 25.
2 Acts viii. 27-35. * Tit. ii. 12.

42 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
as cold, dead, unevangelical, and not in any sense the preach
ing of Christ !
Such were four prominent characteristics of the preaching
that once won multitudes of men to Jesus. May it not be,
and is it not worth some thought, that a recurrence to this
teaching might meet men's wants to-day as it met them
eighteen hundred years ago, and give to the preaching of
to-day some of that power which characterized the witness
that the apostles bore to Christ ?
8. The result of St. Peter's preaching is next to be con
sidered ; and what first challenges attention is the answer of
the apostle to the question, " Men and brethren, what shall
we do ? " It brings together what God's Word joins together,
and what, in God's plan for man's sanctification unto life,
ought always to have been kept together (but what men
have been perpetually separating and keeping asunder), —
inward preparation of heart, and visible ordinance of God;
the individual act, and the corporate life. "Repent, and be
baptized, every one of you ; " such is the answer to the first
question, after the descent of the Holy Ghost, touching the
way of salvation. Of course faith, belief in what had been
heard, is distinctly implied, we might say asserted, in what
is immediately said of the glad reception of the Apostles'
teaching. And this is exactly in accord with what we are
taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews, concerning " the prin
ciples of the doctrine of Christ," — the "foundation " of the
Christian life, — in the words, "repentance from dead works,
and faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms." The Apos
tolic practice, of which we have here a very striking instance,
explains the statements of the Epistle ; the statements of the
Epistle present a summary of the Apostolic practice. And
the result is a view of the foundations of the Christian life
and experience, as unlike many present notions of spiritual
religion as it is possible to conceive.
In proceeding to the remainder of St. Peter's answer (for
we have as yet considered only one of its three parts), cer-

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 43
tain fundamental truths concerning man and his needs must
not be forgotten.
It has often been said that fallen man requires two things
to restore him to what he was before the fall : first, deliv
erance from the punishment due to sin, by forgiveness ; sec
ondly, deliverance from the power and bondage of sin, in
sanctification of life. These are the great gifts of God in the
new covenant made in the blood of His only begotten Son.
These cover all the needs and all the possibilities of human
life. Together they make up that state of deadness to the
law, of which St. Paul speaks in such wonderful words.* For
he is not "dead to the law," in the Apostle's meaning, who
is "dead in trespasses and sins," nor yet he who sets aside
God's law as a bondage from which we are released by the
Spirit ; but he, and only he, who by habitual obedience in
the grace of the Spirit has so taken into himself the law of
God that he has transmuted law into life, — the life which
"Christ liveth in him,"2 — and lives it without remembrance
or thought of life, even as he lives the physical life of the
body under and by a law of which he never thinks. In times
not long past, the first of these deliverances was insisted on
and pressed as if it were the one only promise of the new
covenant, while the second was neglected and passed by, or
sometimes perverted into practical antinomianism, that is,
into a denial of the binding obligation, under a dispensation
of grace, of the moral law of God. At present, in the revul
sion from this imperfect and erroneous teaching, there is a
tendency, while taking juster views of the second deliver
ance, to ignore the first, and so to be carried off into inade
quate ideas of sin and of man's need of forgiveness. The
remedy for either difficulty must, obviously, be found in
holding both truths together, and not in dropping now one
and then the other.
If we look more carefully at the deliverance from the
power and bondage of sin, which man's necessities require,
1 Rom. vii. 4, 5, 6. 2 Gal. ii. 20.

44 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
we shall find that two things seem needful to give it com
pleteness : first, a rule for living (which will be more complete
if it shall be embodied in an example), and secondly a living
power of action to make the rule and the example effec
tive to the individual soul. Thus, then, we find man's needs
set before us in their full extent : provision for forgive
ness ; a rule of life embodied in a perfect example ; a living
spiritual power enabling man to keep the rule and follow the
example. All this our Lord announced clearly and solemnly
when He said to Thomas, " I am the Way and the Truth
and the Life." ' As the Priest, He opened the way for man
into the new covenant in His blood. As the Prophet, He
taught the perfected law of life, and embodied it in the per
fect example of the human life of the God-man Himself.
As the ascended King, He gave, and gives, the spiritual
power without which man could never live the law or follow
the example. To accomplish this, man was to be taken out
of the sphere of his natural relations to God as his Creator,
and lifted to a higher one, wherein he would come into new
relations to the Redeemer and the Sanctifier ; to Him who
has restored man through His humanity, and sanctifies him
by dwelling in him by His Spirit ; who comes, as has been
said before, " not to supply the absence, but to accomplish
the presence," of the Son of God and Son of man, the
second Adam. Into this new sphere of relation and gift,
man is brought by holy baptism, which, as " the circum
cision made without hands," 2 places him within the new
covenant, even as the circumcision made with hands placed
the Israelite within the old.
We can now bring intelligently together the first two of
the three divisions of St. Peter's answer to the question,
What shall we do ? The question itself, as we have seen,
implies faith ; and the Apostle enjoins repentance, thus set
ting forth "repentance from dead works, and faith towards
God." The next step is holy baptism : "Be baptized, every
1 John xiv. 6. a Col. ii. n, 12.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 45
one of you." Then follows the evangel, the promise of the
new covenant, the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy
Spirit. Thus, then, we find here, what everywhere in the
New Testament underlies the ideal of a Christian life, —
the transplanting of a soul from the sphere of the natural
life into that of the supernatural ; the removal of it from
its individual isolation, into the corporate union of the body
of Christ ; its new birth from the world into the Church ;
"the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy
Ghost." Is it necessary to say that all this may be made
void and of none effect by the bars of impenitence and un
belief at the beginning, or by disbelief, disobedience, and
unrepented sin afterwards ?
There still remain for consideration the Apostle's con
cluding words, " For the promise is unto you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the
Lord our God shall call." Obviously he declares the union
of Jews and Gentiles in the new election, or calling, from
God. The old election was the Jewish nation, and all the
circumcised were the elect. The new election is the Chris
tian Church, and all the baptized are the elect. Whether
St. Peter yet knew, whether he knew before his vision at
Joppa, that the Gentiles were to be called, and to come into
the Church as Gentiles, and without being circumcised, may
well be doubted, nor is it worth our while to inquire.
The special question just here relates to the words "your
children." Are we to understand them as signifying your
descendants in coming generations, or your little ones? The
word " children " [.<_<. ois] settles nothing, for it may be used
of either ; ' and we are to look elsewhere for answer, if answer
is to be made.
Now, we must remember that St. Peter's reply to the
question of those who had been "pricked in their heart" is
not to be taken as if it stood alone and unconnected with
any thing else, but as connected with the sermon which he
1 See Acts xiii. 33.

46 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
had just been preaching. In that discourse, he had dis
tinctly asserted that Jesus, whom they had crucified, was
the Messiah, and, as Messiah, "by the right hand of God
exalted " to the throne of David,1 where he was to reign in
an everlasting kingdom. There could surely be no question
in the minds of those who heard the discourse, as to the
continuance and permanency of the kingdom announced ; no
doubt that it was to be from generation to generation.
On the other hand, how natural would it be for the Apostle
to tell them that the new covenant, like the old, was to
embrace them and their little ones ! How entirely does it
fall in with the fact that the circumcision of the old cove
nant passed over into the more highly gifted baptism of the
new, to say to those anxious questioners that their little
ones were to be the subjects of baptism, as they had been
of circumcision ! If they were to be excluded, here was the
place and time for excluding them. The absence of any
distinct excluding declaration makes the inclusion of the
little ones, in the word children, a moral certainty. Indeed,
it may be doubted whether this interpretation would ever have
been questioned, had not a modern sect been compelled by
its chief article of faith, or rather of denial, to question it.
Says Dean Alford, "We have a providential recognition
of infant-baptism at the very founding of the Christian
Church." 9. The final result of the teaching given on the Day of
Pentecost was the baptism of about " three thousand souls,"
and the establishment of the Christian Church. As con
stituted on that day, the Church consisted of the twelve
Apostles and the three thousand baptized persons. This
statement may seem to be a very simple one ; but when
we examine it carefully and in detail, we shall find that it
contains historical facts of the last importance.
The Apostles held their place, and received their authority,
directly from the Lord Himself. They did not choose Him,
• Comp. Luke i. 32, 33.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 47
but he chose them. They were not designated by the
Church, for they were appointed before the Christian Church
came into being. The Lord chose them, made them,
appointed them, sent them, gave them authority and com
mission to make disciples of all nations and to preach the
Gospel to every creature, gave to them the words which
the Father had given Him, appointed unto them a kingdom
as the Father had appointed unto Him, and gave them com
mandments and directions concerning that kingdom.1 Such
are the words in which Holy Scripture sets forth their
appointment, and they clearly exclude any human agency in
accomplishing it. God, by His Son, set them first in the
Church.2 The appointment of Matthias does not invalidate this
statement, because it was not a selection by the one hundred
and twenty, or even by the eleven, but a choice by the Lord
Himself, as is proved by the words, " shew whether of these
two thou hast chosen." 3
At this point of time, however, all the powers of the
Christian ministry are gathered up in the twelve. All that
is contained in our Lord's commissions, wheresoever given ;
all that St. Paul can mean when he says, " Let a man so
account of us as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the
mysteries of God,"4 or when he speaks of "ambassadors for
Christ," 5 or when he says that apostles, prophets, evangel
ists, pastors, and teachers are all " given for the perfecting of
the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ,"6 — all that is included in these or in any
other words that speak of the Christian ministry, the Apos
tles had. They were the ministry. They held it all together,
1 John xv. 16; Mark iii. 14, where our version reads "ordained," but the original is
«„ ol-qarj = made ; Matt. _.. 5, xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 15; John xvii. 8; Luke xxii. 29;
Acts i. z, 3.
2 1 Cor. xii. 28.
3 Note the Greek e£e\<£_ ; the same word which occurs in John xv. 16 and Acts i. 2,
in connection with the twelve.
« 1 Cor. iv. 1. » 2 Cor. v. 20. 6 Eph. iv. 11, ff.

48 THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
and each held it in its totality. As men, they differed in
character, in personal gifts, in various ways ; but in this
aspect each held the grace of their common calling entire
and complete.1
All this proves, beyond a question, that the ministry, ori
ginally derived upon and concentrated in the Apostles, was
not an after-thought, or a development from the Church. On
the contrary, it preceded the existence of the Church.
On the morning of that Day of Pentecost, there was an
apostolate, but the Christian Church was not yet. On the
evening of that day, there was a Christian Church, consisting
of a ministry and a people, a clericy and a laity, the Apostles
and the three thousand. This division therefore is original
and constitutive in the Church. And in the dry light of this
historic fact, all theories like those of Congregationalism,
touching the origin of the Church and the ministry, disappear.
First the ministry in the Apostles, then the Church consti
tuted by their agency ; first the Church at Jerusalem, then
the churches ramifying from it, — these are the things which
the Book of Acts exhibits, and the order in which they come.
To put the Church first, and next the ministry ; the churches
first, and then the Church, — is as contrary to the teaching
of the Scriptures as it is to the convictions of right reason
and the truth of history.
1 This fact is the basis of the famous Cyprianic statement : Episcopatut est unus,
cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur.

PART III.
THE MISSION TO THE JEWS, BEGINNING IN
JERUSALEM AND EXTENDING TO
JUD.EA AND SAMARIA.

Part IH.
(Chapter II. ver. 42, to Chapter IX.)
SECTION I.
THE EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
{Chap. ii. ver. 42, to chap, iv.)

42. And they continued stedfastly in the
apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread, and in prayers.
43. And fear came upon every soul : and
many wonders and signs were done by the
apostles. 44. And all that believed were together,
and had all things common ;
45. And sold their possessions and goods,
and parted them to all men, as every man
had need.
46. And they, continuing daily with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread
from house to house, did eat their meat with
gladness and singleness of heart,
47. Praising God, and having favour with
all the people. And the Lord added to the
church daily such as should be saved.
1. Now Peter and John went up together
into the temple at the hour of prayer, being
the ninth hour .
2. And a certain man lame from his moth
er's womb was carried, whom they laid daily
at the gate of the temple which is called
Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered
into the temple ;
3. Who seeing Peter and John about to
go into the temple asked an alms.
4. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him
with John, said, Look on us.
5. And he gave heed unto them, expect
ing to receive something of them.
6. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have
I none ; but such as I have give I thee : In
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise
up and walk.
7. And he took him by the right hand,

and lifted him up : and immediately his feet
and ancle bones received strength.
8. And he leaping up stood, and walked,
and entered with them into the temple,
walking, and leaping, and praising God.
9. And all the people saw him walking
and praising God :
10. And they knew that it was he which sat
for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple :
and they were filled with wonder and
amazement at that which had happened
unto him.
11. And as the lame man which was
healed held Peter and John, all the people
ran together unto them in the porch that is
called Solomon's, greatly wondering.
12. T| And when Peter saw /'/, he answered
unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why
marvel ye at this ? or why look ye so ear
nestly on us, as though Nby our own power
or holiness we had made this man to
walk? 13. The God of Abraham, and of Isaac,
and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath
glorified his Son Jesus ; whom ye delivered
up, and denied him in the presence of
Pilate, when he was determined to let him
go- 14. But ye denied the Holy One and the
Just, and desired a murderer to be granted
unto you ;
15. And killed the Prince of life, whom
God hath raised from the dead ; whereof
we are witnesses.
16. And his name through faith in his
name hath made this man strong, whom ye
see and know: yea, the faith which is by
51

52 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
him hath given him this perfect soundness unto you of your brethren, like unto me j
in the presence of you all. him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever
17. And now, brethren, I wot that through he shall say unto you.
ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. 23. And it shall come to pass, that every
18. But those things, which God before soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall
had shewed by the mouth of all his proph- be destroyed from among the people.
ets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so 24. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel
fulfilled. and those that follow after, as many as have
19. If Repent ye therefore, and be con- spoken, have likewise foretold of these
verted, that your sins may be blotted out, days.
when the times of refreshing shall come 25. Ye are the children of the prophets,
from the presence of the Lord ; and of the covenant which God made with
20. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in
before was preached unto you : thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth
21. Whom the heaven must receive until be blessed.
the times of restitution of all things, which 26. Unto you first God, having raised up
God hath spoken by the mouth of all his his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in
holy prophets since the world began. turning away every one of you from his
22. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, iniquities.
A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up
1. We find ourselves, at this point of the history, in Jeru
salem, with the newly founded Church, its ministry, and
people. It is in the world, and among men. It comes into
contact with human life in all its varying conditions and
environments. It is to act on men under those conditions.
It is not an abstraction, but an institution embodying a living
power and charged with a wonderful mission. It is to be God's
appointed agent in carrying on to its final issues the work of
man's redemption. It is to be God's family, into which men
are to be adopted; His school, in which men are to be
trained ; His hospital, in which they are to be cured of their
manifold diseases. It is to embrace in its beneficent work
all human needs, whether they are needs of body or of soul.
Many persons, neglecting the obvious fact that the Church
was sent into the world to do its work among and with the
diversified conditions of humanity, have sought its origin in
the pressure of those conditions on human life, and in men's
attempts to meet the wants that were thus pushed to the
surface. Because the Church immediately set herself to
remedy a patent evil in the then existing conditions of soci
ety, — poverty, and the suffering consequent on poverty, —
it has been imagined, that, under the pressure of this evil,

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. S3
men united themselves together in a sort of financial asso
ciation to relieve it, and that this was the origin of the
Church of God ! It has even been urged, that the fashion,
so prevalent at that time in the Roman Empire, of com
bining in associations for all sorts of purposes, suggested the
supposed financial association. It is needless to say that this
theory, and all others like it, put entirely to one side, on one
or another pretence, the testimony of the Book of Acts and
other scriptures of the New Testament, and substitute a
priori possibilities and assumptions in place of historic facts.
Their shallowness is equalled only by their disloyalty to
truth. It will not serve to say, in reply, that such a theory does
not deny the Divine origin of the Church because it is ad
mitted to be "Divine, just as the solar system is Divine," or,
we may add, as every thing which God has created is Divine.
This misses or evades the real point at issue. The question
is not whether, putting to one side all the testimony and
statements of the New Testament, the Church presents her
self as a "natural society" merely, "the natural outcome of
natural causes," no more than "one of the guilds of the
empire," working for good and beneficent ends. But it is
whether, taking into account the testimony and statements
of the New Testament, — which, it must be remembered, are
contemporary evidence, — we can regard the Church of God
as any thing but that which she has always regarded herself ;
namely, a society directly constituted by Almighty God,
endowed with the supernatural life of the Holy Ghost, and
sent into the world to leaven the world, indeed, with a new
life, but to do this by applying to individual souls the aton
ing and sanctifying virtue of the death and life — the death
of the cross and the resurrection life — of our Lord Jesus
Christ.1 Now, one who receives the plain declarations — which
1 Compare, to illustrate the different characters of the two views here brought out,
Hatch's Bampton Lectures, 1880, and the Rev. C. Gore's The Church and the Ministry.

54 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
require no more exegetical skill to interpret them than is
required in interpreting an historical statement of Justin
Martyr or Eusebius — (i) that the Church is the body of
Christ, (2) that the Almighty Father gave our Lord to be
the Head of this body, and (3) that this Head and Lord
" gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangel
ists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of
the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ," ' can accept no theory concerning the origin
and constitution of the Church, which questions, directly or
by implication, the fact that they are supernatural and
Divine. 2. The first description which is given us of the newly
established Church is a very comprehensive one, though it
is contained in a few words. Its members, the baptized,
"continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellow
ship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." We cannot
suppose that these things were characteristics of the life of
believers only for the moment, and do not, rather, bring
before us what was to be abiding and continuous. In the
concentrated life of a small community, such as the Church
then was, in the first freshness of a new faith acting on the
life, any characteristics are likely to stand out with a definite
ness and prominence that will become less distinct as the
community spreads in space, and lives in time, becomes less
obviously one community, and loses, it may be, in the " active
habit " some of the earliest " passive emotion," or even
leaves its "first love," and "waxes cold." That the four
characteristics named above, therefore, appear more dis
tinctly in the period of the Church's life now under consid
eration, neither proves them to be only temporary, nor makes
the study of them unimportant.
First, then, we hear of the apostles' teaching, or doctrine,
being steadfastly adhered to. Without insisting too strongly
on the phrase "the doctrine," it is still evident that this
1 Eph. i. 22, 23, iv. 11, 12.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 55
implies something more definite than any mere general impres
sion or ideas, such as one gets from sermons or lectures, or
any thing of the sort. And this becomes more evident when
we take into account the way in which this teaching is
spoken of in the Epistles, especially in the pastoral Epistles
of St. Paul.
If we look carefully over the Epistles and the Revelation,
we shall find that St. Paul, writing to Timothy, alleges as one
chief ground of comfort, in view of his approaching martyr
dom, that he has "kept the faith," and exhorts Timothy to
hold fast " the faith ; " that St. Jude exhorts all Christians to
" contend earnestly for the faith ; " that the Lord commends
the angel of Pergamos because he has " not denied my faith,"
and makes a promise to the angel of Philadelphia, because
he has "kept my word." * Elsewhere, we shall find St. Paul
speaking of " the doctrine " and the " good confession " which
Timothy had "confessed before many witnesses." 2 Again,
we find him in another place calling this "the deposit," and
"the good deposit," which Timothy is to "keep" or watch.3
Especially shall we be struck with the passage in which
St. Paul calls on Timothy to " hold fast the form of sound
words," 4 remembering that the principal word in the exhor
tation [wot- _¦_>._.], translated "form" in our version, can only
mean a pattern, mould, or archetype. In entire accordance
with this striking expression, having evidently the same idea
in mind, we shall find St. Paul commending the Roman
Christians in these words : " Ye have obeyed from the heart
that mould of teaching into which ye were delivered." 5
The figure implies a matrix, or mould, into which the belief
of the Roman Christians was cast, and by which their belief
was shaped and formed. And, finally, turning once more to
the instructions to Timothy, we shall find St. Paul commanding
him " to commit " this faith, doctrine, deposit, form of sound

1 2 Tim. iv. 7 ; 1 Tim. i. 19 ; Jude 3 ; Rev. ii. 13, Hi. 8, 10.
2 1 Tim. iv. 13, 16, vi. 12. * 2 Tim. i. 13.
3 1 Tim. vi. 20 1 2 Tim. i. 14. s Rom. vi. 17. Our version is very defective here.

56 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
words, mould of doctrine, to "faithful men who should be
able to teach others." ' All this assuredly looks towards a
definite summary of the faith, something of the nature of
a creed, rather than away from it.
This view is confirmed by the fact that early writers speak
of such a summary as having come from the Apostles them
selves. Thus Irenaeus says, " The Church, though dispersed
throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth, has
received from the Apostles and their disciples this faith ; "
and then he proceeds to give a formula which marvellously
resembles the Apostles' Creed as we term it.2 The same
writer also speaks "of the unalterable rule of faith which
each received in baptism." 3 Tertullian also mentions the
"rule of faith," and, giving it in almost the words of
Irenaeus, says further that it came from the Apostles, and
is questioned by no one but heretics. He also calls it the
"rule of the sacrament of baptism."4 These witnesses,
the one representing the East as well as Gaul, and the other
representing Africa, show how pervasive this view was. It
can scarcely be doubted that it was universal.
If we proceed to inquire into the probable form of this
summary, or whatever we may choose to call it, we naturally,
almost necessarily, are led to the baptismal formula, "the
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
Into this Name persons were to be baptized, and also dis-
cipled ; and discipling into a name must, surely, imply belief
in the doctrine which the name carries with it. It has been
well said, that "the idea of the 'Name' has a far deeper
significance in Biblical language than in our own." The
writer here quoted adds that the "Divine names in the
Bible give in a broad outline the course of revelation."5
1 2 Tim. ii. _.
2 Against Heresies, Book I. t. x. i. The entire chapter is well worth a careful
reading. 3 Ut sup., Book I. c. ix. 4.
* On Prescription against Heretics, xiii. See note C. on p. 462 of Tertullian, vol. L
in Library of the Fathers, and also note P., p. 496.
s Westcott: The Epistles of St. John, p. 232.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 57
First, the names El and Elohim reveal the Creator. Then
the names Adonai and El Shaddai declare the " sovereign
might of God for the fulfilment of His counsel." Then, again,
the name Jehovah reveals the covenant God, who keeps and
fulfils His promises. And, lastly, the last and complete reve
lation is given in the name Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
which declares that the " God who had revealed Himself as
One, was henceforth to be known as not less One, but in
some mysterious manner Three." ' In this formula, then,
is revealed the Catholic faith; for "the Catholic faith is
this, that we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity in
Unity." Further confirmation may be found in the fact, easily
ascertained by an inspection of the old historic creeds, that
all really catholic symbols are readily arranged under the
three Names of the baptismal formula.
The second characteristic of the early Apostolic Church
is that its members continued steadfast "in the fellowship of
the Apostles." There is some difficulty both in translating
and interpreting this word "fellowship." But the simplest
explanation would seem to be the best. They who received
the doctrine of the Apostles, and were baptized, were thereby
incorporated into a fellowship or society, the sacred minis
trations in which were rendered either by, or under authority
from, the Apostles, and which, therefore, might well be called
the Apostles' fellowship.
The third note or mark of the Apostolic Church was
steadfast continuance in the "breaking of bread." It is not
worth while to waste time in asking whether the direct
reference of these words is to the Holy Communion or to
the agape or love-feast, which, later on, we find connected
with it. In the first place, it can never be proved that the
love-feasts had come into existence at this early period ;
and in the next place, even were their existence proved,
' Moberly, Great Forty Days, Discourse IV. Compare Westcott, ut sup., and
Pearson, On the Creed, Art. u.

58 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
since, by the confession of their most strenuous advocates,
they were inseparably connected with the Holy Communion,
and never held apart from it, the question becomes simply
one of the curiosities of interpretation, an exegetical puzzle
and nothing more. At all events, a grammatical possibility
can hardly be allowed to supersede all moral probabilities
and all historical testimony. Be the direct reference what
it may, we are led up finally to the Eucharist.
Fourthly, These first Christians were steadfast in "the
prayers." That they were in the habit of going up to
the temple at the hours of prayer, is plain enough ; while
even those who wish to reduce every thing named here to
a minimum, are still willing to admit that we "need no.
altogether exclude prayer among themselves ; " a condescen
sion of admission for which we are bound to be duly grateful.
How could the Eucharist have been administered, " the cup
of blessing" blessed, the Amen uttered at the giving of
thanks, without worship, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving?
Was baptism likely to be administered without prayer?
Were they to whom their Master had taught the Lord's
Prayer, likely to omit its use, or to forget to teach it to
others ? Were they to whose united worship the Lord had
made so glorious a promise,' likely to neglect the assembling
of themselves together ? And are not the hints scattered
through the Acts and the Epistles, confirmed as they are by
the immemorial usage of the Church, more to the purpose
than all the guesses of those who seem to think themselves
nothing if they do not differ from everybody else, and espe
cially from the witness of the Church of God ?
We may sum up these four characteristics of the early
Apostolic Church in the words of Bishop Pearson : " We
have presented to us the form and image of the Church as
it was gathered, constituted, and governed by the Apostles.
Admitted to the Church by baptism, they frequented the
public assemblies, sedulously attended to the doctrine of
1 Matt, xviii. 19, 20.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 59
the Apostles who taught them the way of God more per
fectly, partook of the Eucharist, and worshipped God in
public and common prayers, thus giving an example to all
churches to the end of the world." '
3. The next record made of the Church in the freshness
of its early life speaks of "the wonders and signs done by
the apostles." And this leads on to some thoughts concern
ing, first, the miracles of our Lord, and, next, those wrought
by His Apostles and others. Now, there are in the New
Testament three words which are specially used of what
we call generically miracles, namely, "wonders," "powers,"
and " signs ; " z and these words present to us three dif
ferent aspects, so to speak, of a miracle. The appellation
" wonder " recalls to us the act itself, and the impression
it produces on one who witnesses it. The word " power "
brings before us the ability or force by which the act is
accomplished. The name "sign" fixes our thoughts on the
moral and spiritual teaching which comes out from the mir
acle. In every miracle of the New Testament, these three
things meet. Each one is a wonderful act, wrought by
superhuman power, and containing spiritual and moral teach
ing. This fact alone lifts them quite above the level of all
mere thaumaturgic tales and fables, and gives them at once
a position entirely their own.
When we look at our Lord's miracles under these three
aspects, we are brought face to face with results that are
well worth attentive consideration.
The action — so to speak — of the miracles is always
dignified, severe, free from any thing that is puerile or
trivial ; and the impression produced on the beholder is
entirely accordant. There is nothing in them like the
1 Pearson, Minor Works, vol. i. p. 326.
2 In the original, tc!j>_t_, Svxa^eic, vr)ni~ia. The three words occur together in Acts
ii. 22, and Heb. ii. 4 ; though Waj-eis is, in our version, unfortunately translated " mira
cles," and not "powers." They also are found in 2 Cor. xii. 12, where Suvdj-ei? is trans
lated " mighty deeds ; " and, again, in 2 Thess. ii. 9. St. John often calls them simply
" works."

60 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
childish tricks and petulancies of the miracles of the Apoc
ryphal Gospels,1 or the sometimes ludicrous pettiness of the
wonders attributed in the Roman Church to the use of
chaplets, scapularies, medals, chains of safety, and amulets.2
In like manner, the impression produced on those who
witnessed them is always one of solemnity, and even awe.
No one who beheld them ever questioned their reality,
or seems to have thought of attributing them to any thing
but to supernatural power. Those who received their attesta
tion saw in'them "the finger of God." Those who rejected
their attestation could only say, " He casteth out devils
through the prince of the devils." 3
When we consider our Lord's miracles as powers, we can
hardly fail to be struck with two things : first, the authority
by which He works ; and, secondly, the wide extent of the
powers exhibited in action.4
In regard to the former of these, namely, the authority
by which the miracles are wrought, we meet at once an
apparent difficulty if not a contradiction. On the one hand
our Lord says of Himself, "The Son can do nothing of
Himself, but what He seeth the Father do ; " and again,
speaking of His works, He says, " The works that I do in
my Father's name, they bear witness of me." s On the
other hand, He declares, that " whatsoever things He [the
Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise;" that "as
the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even
so the Son quickeneth whom He will;" and that "as the
Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son
to have life in Himself."6 Moreover, when He works a
miracle, He speaks of no other than Himself. He speaks
as He teaches, "with authority." It is an instance either of
fearful presumption or of inherent power.7
1 See especially the Gospel of the Infancy.
2 V Arsenal de la Devotion. 3 Matt. ix. 34.
4 Persons versed in theology will recall the distinction between potestas and potentia.
s John v. 19, x. 25. 6 John v. 19, 21, 26.
7 See Trench, Notes on the Miracles of our Lord, Preliminary Essay, chap. iv. 1.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 6 1
How is all this to be explained ? or are we to say that no
explanation is possible ? To one who holds the Catholic doc
trine of the Trinity, the explanation ought readily to occur,
and to present no difficulty. Whatever the Son of God is
or has, He is or has from the Father. " There is but one
fountain or principle of Deity, God the Father, who only is
God of and from Himself, the Son and Holy Ghost deriving
their Deity from Him," and yet " so derived from the fountain
of the Deity as that they are not separated or separable from
it, but do still exist in it, and are most intimately united to
it." ' As the life which the Son has in Himself, and by which
He is God, is yet not of Himself, — in which case He would
be a second and separate God, — but of the Father ; so, also,
the power by which He works is in Himself, but of the
Father. Read in the light of this great truth of our holy faith, the
passages and facts above mentioned are harmonized, while
the words of St. John, in the wonderful fifth chapter of his
Gospel, meet and correct sundry errors. They teach " that
Christ is the Son because He does nothing of Himself" (ver.
19) ; that He is God, because whatever the Father does He
does (ver. 19) ; that He is one with the Father, because all
men must honor Him as they honor the Father (ver. 23) ;
and that He is not the Father, because He is sent by the
Father (ver. 37)." 2
The words that principally concern us here are these :
"What things soever he [the Father] doeth, these also doeth
the Son likewise." They should be carefully examined.
They do not assert that the Son does things similar to those
done by the Father, but that He does the very same things
which the Father does. They do not assert, or allow the
assertion, that, though the Father and the Son do the same
things, they yet do them in different ways ; for the word
1 Bull, Doctrine of the Catholic Church, etc. Works, vol. ii. p. i. Oxf., 1846.
2 The words are Hilary's. They are quoted in Catena Aurea, from his Treatise ok
the Trinity, Lib. VII. c. 21.

62 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
" likewise," in our version, is not a mere extension of, or
pleonastic addition to, the word " also." It has its own
separate force, and expresses the way or manner in which
the things are done. Our Lord, therefore, here claims for
himself the powers of Omnipotence.1
Do His miracles bear out this claim ? A classification of
those that are recorded — possibly suggesting the reason
why the record contains just the selection of all the works
" which Jesus did " that it presents to us — will answer that
question affirmatively. It will then be seen that they exhibit
power over inanimate things and irrational beings ; over the
forces of the natural world ; over men in their bodies and
their souls, in life and after death ; and over the angelic hosts,
unfallen or fallen. It will be further seen that under each of
these divisions, powers of the most varied and wide-reaching
character are exercised. For instance, and simply for pur
poses of illustration, — which is all that can be attempted
here, — in the world of nature our Lord controls alike the
productive and destructive forces ; in the case of the human
body, there is no disease or trouble that he does not heal ; in
the realm of death he raises persons from the dead at all the
stages of the progress of decay. Indeed, the more we study
these wonderful phenomena, the more we shall be convinced
that the powers which our Lord exercised are co-extensive
with any ideas which we can form of the Divine Omnipotence.
When from the miracles of our Lord we turn to those of
the Apostles, recorded in the Acts, two differences, to name
no more, are very apparent. In the first place, the Apostles
not only make no claim of any authority inherent in them
selves, but they most carefully and anxiously repudiate such
a claim. Our Lord says to the winds and waves, " Peace, be
still;" to the widow's son, "Young man, I say unto thee,
Arise ; " to the deaf ear and the dumb tongue, " Be opened ; "
1 The two points here made, together with the conclusion from them, come out more
clearly in the original than in our version. Augustine, De Trinitate, Lib. XX., treats the
matter at length.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 63
to the dead man in the sepulchre, "Lazarus, come forth."
But the Apostles act, solely*and ever, " in the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth," and they disclaim any "power or holi
ness" of their own." There are only two exceptions to this
otherwise universal rule. When St. Peter raised Dorcas, he
said to her, " Tabitha, arise ; " but he was then alone, no
spectators were present, and there was no danger that he
would be misunderstood, or supposed to be claiming anything
for himself.2 St. Paul also said to the cripple at Lystra,
" Stand upright on thy feet ; " but when this was misunder
stood, and the people took him and Barnabas for gods, they
made haste to correct the error by saying, " We also are
men of like passions with you." 3 These exceptions only
serve to make their rule of action more impressive.
In the next place, we find the range of the powers exer
cised by the Apostles and others greatly circumscribed, as
compared with that exhibited in the miracles of our Lord.
St. Peter and St. Paul each work a miracle of resurrection and
a miracle of punishment, and all the other miracles recorded
are those of healing to the bodies or the souls of men. These
two differences in regard to authority of action and range of
operation are surely most striking and suggestive.
It remains to say something of the third aspect of a mir
acle, expressed in the word "sign." In this regard, every
miracle may be termed an acted parable ; that is, the outward
act, by which the emotions of the spectator are aroused, and
the power of the worker of the miracle is exhibited, contains
a spiritual truth ; and this truth relates to some work of the
Holy Ghost wrought in human souls, analogous to the physical
work which the miracle presents to us.
It is impossible, here, to go into full details. Two illus
trations must suffice. As our Lord healed "all manner of
diseases " by which men's bodies are afflicted, so the Holy
Spirit brings forgiveness and healing to all sins by which
men's souls are burdened. As He raised to life human
1 Acts iii. 6, 12. 2 Acts ix. 40. 3 Acts xiv. 8-16.

64 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
bodies in different stages of decay, — the centurion's daugh
ter when the breath had just left her lips, the widow's son
as he was borne to the sepulchre, Lazarus after his entomb
ment, — so the Holy Spirit raises human souls from all
depths of sin into lives of righteousness. These miracles of
grace, perpetually wrought in the Church of God, continue
and bear witness to the miracles of the Gospels. Do they
not, also, explain and fulfil our Lord's words, " He that
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and
greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto
my Father " ? '
Says Augustine, speaking of the miracles/ of our Lord,
" These things the Lord once did, that He might call men to
belief. This faith now glows in the Church, spread abroad
throughout the world. And now He works greater cures, for
the sake of which He disdained not to work those lesser ones.
For, as the soul is better than the body, so the health of the
soul is greater than the health of the body. The blind flesh
does not now open its eyes by a miracle of the Lord, but the
blind soul doth open its eyes to the word of the Lord. The
dead corpse does not now arise ; but the dead soul, which lay
in a living corpse, does arise. The deaf ears of the body are
not now opened, but how many have the close-shut ears of
their hearts opened to the Word of God ! " 2
This fact, namely, that any miracle contains under its out
ward reality a spiritual verity, explains the possibility of the
theory that the miracles of the Gospel are only instructive
" myths," and presents to us the half-truth which that dis
torted and imperfect theory takes up as the ground of its
specious denials.
Finally, from this inside view — if so one may call it — of
our Lord's miracles, there comes out to us an argument,
of no slight cogency, for the truthfulness and accuracy of the
Evangelists who record them. What is the likelihood that a
deliberate forger or a fanatical enthusiast could contrive,
1 John xiv. 12. 2 Sermon lxxxviii. {alias xviii.) on Matt. xx. 30, sect. iii.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 65
with conscious purpose to deceive on the one hand, or under
strong delusion on the other, a series of miracles which
should always be dignified and lofty, never puerile or belittling
in their character and results ; which should bring to our
view powers that in their aggregate are co-extensive with
any ideas we can form of omnipotence ; and which should
always carry with them symbolic teachings that have been
visible in human lives for eighteen centuries ? Surely there
can be but one answer to that question ; and that answer
must lead us to the conclusion that the Evangelists were
neither deceivers nor deceived, but that they honestly, and
in good faith, recorded works done by Him " by whom were
all things created, that are in heaven and in earth," and
" who upholdeth all things by the word of His power." '
4. "There were, in the ancient Church, some heretics,
who, under pretence of greater heights in religion, would
allow no men to possess any thing as their own right and
property in this world, but obliged all men to renounce their
title to every thing, and to have all things in common ;
pronouncing a peremptory sentence against all rich men, that
unless they gave up their possessions, and forsook all that
they enjoyed, they could not enter into the kingdom of
heaven. These men called themselves Apotactici, from
renouncing the world ; and Apostolici, from their pretended
imitation of the Apostles ; and Encratitce, from their ostenta
tion of temperance and abstinence above all other men." 2
The Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, and other fanatics
since, have followed in the same track.
These erorrists sustain their theories by the statement
here made, that " all that believed were together, and had
all things common ; and sold their possessions and goods,
and parted them to all men as every man had need ; " and
further on, that "as many as were possessors of lands or
houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things
that were sold, and laid them down at the Apostles' feet ;
» CoL i. 16; Heb. i. 3. 2 Bingham, Antiquities, etc., Book XVI. t. xii. § 1.

66 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
and distribution was made unto every man according as he
had need." *
If we did not look beyond the words just quoted, and
isolated them from every thing else in the New Testament,
they might seem to warrant the conclusions drawn from them.
But this method of exposition, though it unfailingly charac
terizes all known sects, is contrary to all right reason, and to
the declarations of Scripture itself. It is perfectly clear from
the words of St. Peter to Ananias, " Whiles it remained, was
it not thine own ? and after it was sold, was it not in thine
own power ? " 2 that, whateve.r gifts were made, they were
entirely voluntary, and obligatory only so far as it is always
a duty to minister to the wants of the poor. Besides, St.
Paul's exhortation, " Charge them who are rich in this world
. . . that they be ready to distribute, willing to communi
cate ; " St. James's denunciation of distinguishing between
rich and poor in the assemblies of Christians ; St. John's
warning, " Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his
brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ? " 3 all
show that there was inequality, and therefore not community,
in their possessions, among the members of the Church in
the days of the Apostles.
There is a passage in the First Apology of Justin Martyr,
and another in the Apology of Tertullian, which, taken by
themselves, may seem to afford some support to the theory
of a community of goods in the early Church, but which,
fairly examined, really give none.
Justin Martyr in one place says, " We who valued above
all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now
bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate
to every one in need." 4 But in another place, describing
the weekly worship of the Christians, he explains himself as
follows : " They who are well to do and willing, give what
1 Acts ii. 44, 45, iv. 34, 35. 3 , Tim. vi. 17, 18; Jas. ii. 1-4; 1 John iii. 17.
2 Acts v. 4. * Apol., I. xiv.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 6f
each thinks fit ; and what is collected is deposited with the
president, who succors the orphans and widows, . . . and, in
a word, takes care of all who are in need." '
So, too, Tertullian says, in even stronger words than those
of Justin, " We, therefore, who are united in mind and soul,
doubt not about having our possessions in common. With
us all things are shared promiscuously, except our wives." 2
But this statement is explained by what he has just before
said : " Every man placeth there a small gift on one day in
each month, or whenever he will, so he do but will, and so
he be but able ; for no man is constrained, but contributeth
willingly." 3 And he goes on to say that these deposits are
disbursed for the poor and suffering. Clearly, neither Ter
tullian nor Justin had in mind any community of goods
which was not consistent with inequalities of possessions
and voluntary gifts, according to St. Paul's rule of individual
ability. Abundant, most abundant, almsgiving was the only such
community known in the Church of Apostolic times. But
abundant, most abundant, it assuredly was ; furnishing here
in an example to all coming ages. No man called his
possessions his own.4 Each held them, that is, as a steward
ship in trust, not for himself only, but for others also. And
this, in a vastly higher way than could have been reached
by any compulsory community of goods, made "all things
common " among the believers, and lay at the root of their
abounding ministrations. Such a conviction, indeed, must
always lie at the root of all true almsgiving. He who holds
all that he has simply as God's steward will, assuredly, so
minister his stewardship as to fulfil the law of Christ in
helping others to bear their burdens.5
5. The new believers seem to have been in the habit of
gathering together in the temple, probably at the third and
ninth hours, the times of the morning and evening sacrifices.
1 Apol., I. Ixvii. 3 Apol., I. as before. ' Gal. vi. _.
2 Apol., I. xxxix. * Acts iv. 32.

68 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
" Although Moses did not, in the law, distinctly order
prayers, nevertheless the pious Jews were in the habit
of praying, especially at the hours of the offering of the
sacrifices." The evening sacrifice was offered at the ninth
hour, and with it the prayers at that time began.1 The
reason for going up to the temple at the ninth hour would
equally apply to the third hour, so that these would appear
to have been the hours when the believers met in the temple
for daily prayer. Further on it will be necessary to say
something of the way in which the Mosaic and Christian
dispensations, so to speak, overlapped each other ; but that
subject does not come into view here.
6. The miracle of healing the lame man requires — after
what has been said above — no special notice. But some
things in St. Peter's address to the people ought not to be
passed by.
(a) The Apostle attributes the denial of the " Holy One
and the Just," and the death of "the Prince of life," to the
ignorance of the Jews and their rulers ; and then adds, " But
those things which God before had shewed by the mouth of
all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so ful
filled." These words carry us back at once to the wonder
ful prayer of our Lord on the cross, " Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do." 2
That this ignorance, whatever it may have been, did not
nullify the responsibility or remove the sin of all the Jews
and all their rulers, is clear from our Lord's 'words to the
Pharisees, " If ye were blind, ye should have no sin : but
now ye say, We see ; therefore your sin remaineth ; " and
also to the Apostles, " If T had not come, and spoken unto
them, they had not had sin ; but now they have no cloke for
their sin. ... If I had not done among them the works
which none other man did, they had not had sin."3 No
doubt the ignorance asserted applies in different degrees to
1 Pearson, Minor Works, vol. i. p. 330.
2 Luke xxiii. 34. 3 j0hn ix. 41, xv. 22, 24.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 69
different classes and individuals among the Jews. " It admits
of all degrees, — from the unlearned, who were implicitly led
by others, and hated Him because others did, up to the
most learned of the scribes, who knew and rightly inter
preted the Messianic prophecies, but, from moral blindness
or perverted expectations, did not recognize them in our
Lord." * Who were exempted from responsibility, and who
were not exempted, under this plea of ignorance, is not for
us to say. All are in the hands of a merciful Judge, whose
judgments are always guided by perfect equity. There we
may be well content to leave them.
This question, however, touching ignorance as an excuse
for wrong-doing, is a very practical one ; and probably its
solution cannot be better stated than it has been stated by
Bishop Sanderson, that prince among casuists.2 " For our
clearer understanding of which point, — viz., whether or no,
or how far, ignorance and error may excuse or lessen sinful
actions proceeding therefrom, in point of conscience, — let us
first lay down one general, certain, and fundamental ground,
whereupon, indeed, dependeth especially the resolution of
almost all those difficulties that may occur in this and many
other like questions. And that is this : It is a condition so
essential to every sin, to be voluntary, that, all other circum
stances and respects laid aside, every sin is by so much
greater or less by how much it is more or less voluntary.
For, whereas there are in the reasonable soul three prime
faculties from which all human actions flow, — the under
standing, the will, and the sensual appetite or affections, —
all of these concur, indeed, to every action properly human ;
yet so as the will carry eth the greatest sway, and is, there
fore, the justest measure of the moral goodness or badness
thereof. In any of the three there may be a fault, all of
them being depraved in the state of corrupt nature ; and the
' Dean Alford, on the passage.
2 Charles I. was wont to say, " I carry my ears to hear other preachers, but I carry
my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson."

70 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
truth is, there is in every sin, every complete sin, a fault in
every of the three. And, therefore, all sins, by reason of
the blindness of the understanding, may be called igno
rances ; and by reason of the impotency of the affections,
infirmities ; and by reason of the perverseness of the will,
rebellions. But, for the most part, it falleth out so that,
although all the three be faulty, yet the obliquity of the
sinful action springeth most immediately and chiefly from
the special fault of one or other of the three. ' If the main
defect be in the understanding, not apprehending the good
it should, or not aright, the sin arising from such defect we
call more properly a sin of ignorance. If the main defect
be in the affections, some passion blinding or corrupting the
judgment, the sin arising from such defect we call a sin of
infirmity. If the main defect be in the will, with perverse
resolution bent upon any evil, the sin arising from such
wilfulness we call a rebellion, or a sin of presumption. And
certainly these sins of presumption are the greatest of the
three, because the wilfullest ; and those of ignorance the
least, because there is in them the least disorder of the will,
which doth its office, in some measure, in following the
guidance of the understanding : the greater fault being,
rather, in the understanding for misguiding it. And of sins
of ignorance, compared one with another, that is ever the
least wherein the defect is greater in the understanding, and
in the will less." *
From these clearly worked-out premises, the bishop draws
two " material conclusions, — the one, that error and igno
rance doth not always and wholly excuse from sin ; the other,
that some kind of ignorance and error doth excuse from sin,
sometimes wholly, but very often at least in part."
(b) We have next to consider the important passage con
tained in vv. 19, 20, and 21 of this third chapter. The first
thing to be noted is the inadequacy of our version, where
1 Bishop Sanderson, Sermon VI., Ad Populum. Montgomery's ed., vol. i. pp. 502,
5°3-

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 7 1
it reads, " Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your
sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall
come from the presence of the Lord." The correct render
ing would be, " in order that seasons of refreshing may come,"
etc. By these words the Apostle declares that the coming
of the "seasons of refreshing" and, also, the "times of res
titution," or restoration "of all things," have been made "to
depend on the repentance of the Jews, and their reception of
the gospel."
One must tread warily, and speak "with bated breath,"
when he enters the field of unfulfilled prophecy. But we
can hardly go astray if we take into our thoughts, just here,
St. Paul's words where he says, " that blindness in part has
happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be
come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved." * Of course he
here speaks of Gentiles and Israel — as he usually does in
the Epistle to the Romans — as a whole, in the gross, and is
not dealing with them severally or individually.
It may suffice to say that the declarations of St. Peter and
St. Paul together teach us that on the incoming of the Gen
tiles shall follow the conversion of Israel, which shall again
be followed by the seasons of refreshing and the times of
restoration of all things ; that we are then led on and up to
the great and final " Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ."2
With the revelation thus made to us, it will be wisest to rest
content, and not to wander into speculations of our own.
(c) The prophecy of Moses which St. Peter (in verses 22
and 23) quotes, freely, from Deuteronomy,3 and which St.
Stephen also quotes in his defence before the Sanhedrim,4
must not be carelessly passed by. It was a prophecy well
known to the Jews in the time of our Lord, as is shown in
the question to John Baptist (after he had declared that he
was neither the Christ nor Elias), "Art thou that prophet ?"s
1 Rom. xi. 25, 26. 3 Deut. xviii. 18, 19.
* 1 Tim. vi. 14 ; 2 Tim. iv. 1 ; Tit. ii. 13. * Acts vii. 37.
5 John i. 20, 21 ; comp. John vi. 14, vii. 40, 41 ; Matt. xvi. 14. See also Davison, Dis
courses on Prophecy, pp. 149-153.

72 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
There was, however, a difference of opinion as to the per
sonality of "the prophet." Some seem to have identified
him with Messiah, others to have distinguished him from
Messiah. And this last-named class appear to have believed
that he would be one of the " old prophets risen from the
dead." For us, there can be no doubt as to the application of the
prophecy to our Lord. He Himself declares that Moses
wrote of Him,1 and these are "the only words in which
Moses, speaking in his own person, gives any such pre
diction;" St. Peter and St. Stephen, as has been said, both
apply the prophecy to Him ; and it is the basis of the argu
ment contained in the third chapter of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. Taking this point, then, as settled, before we go on to con
sider the resemblances and contrasts between Moses and our
Lord, we must bear in mind that prophecy " distinguishes
itself into two parts, which may be called the moral or
doctrinal, and the predictive." In like manner, the prophets
are teachers of doctrinal and moral truth, as well as foretellers
of the future. They carry on, and enlarge into specialty of
detail, the original promise given in Paradise of a Redeemer,2
till its general and indeterminate prophecies touching the
bruised head and the bruised heel expand into Isaiah's
wonderful words which describe Messiah the Conqueror and
Messiah the Sufferer ; till in "the Wonderful, the Counsellor,
the Mighty God, the Father of a new age or dispensation,
the Prince of Peace," 3 we learn the meaning of the bruised
head; and in "the Man of sorrows, despised, rejected, and
cut off from the land of the living," 4 we are taught the
mystery of the bruised heel. But these same prophets also
carry on, unfold, and enlarge the doctrinal and ethical truths
that were given men under the patriarchal and Mosaic cove
nants, in a way parallel to that in which they enlarge the
1 John v. 46 ; comp. John i. 21. * Isa. ix. 6.
" Gen. iii. 15. * Isa. liii. 3, 8.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 73
predictions of the same dispensations. " And it is remark
able that the prophet who of all others [Isaiah] is the most
full and explicit in delineating the Messiah's kingdom of
redemption, is equally distinguished for the copiousness and
variety of his lessons of holiness." ' It is only by thus keep
ing in view the full scope and significancy of the words
"prophecy" and "prophet," that we can intelligently ap
proach the resemblances and contrasts between Moses and
our Lord.
The resemblances are manifold ;2 but without entering into
special details, the great thing to be observed — underlying
as it does every thing else — is the fact that Moses was the
Apostle and Mediator of the Jewish covenant, and that Jesus
Christ is the Apostle and Mediator of the Christian cove
nant ; so that each was a revealer of a new dispensation ;
and, moreover, each "was faithful to Him that appointed
him." 3 Several subjects are here presented to our consider
ation. I. The two covenants : " the one from Mount Sinai, which
gendereth to bondage," the other the "Jerusalem which is
above, free, [and] the mother of us all ; " 4 the one a covenant
"which decayeth and waxeth old, [and] is ready to vanish
away,"5 the other "a better covenant," even an everlasting
one, "established upon better promises;"6 the one "dedi
cated " or inaugurated with " the blood of bulls and goats,"
the other with " the blood of Christ." ?
II. Each of these covenants is called the 'house of God ;"8
the former being " the Church in the wilderness," the latter
"the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of
the truth."9 Of the former, Moses was the apostle; of the
1 Davison, Discourses, etc., p. 47.
2 See Denton, Commentary on the Acts, vol. i. p. 113.
3 Heb. iii. 2 ; comp. Gal. iii. 19. * Gal. iv. 24, 26.
s Heb. viii. 13. 6 Heb. viii. 6. 7 Heb. ix. 18, 19, 14.
8 See, for the Mosaic covenant, Num. xii. 7, compared with Heb. iii. 2 ; and for the
Christian, 1 Tim. iii. 1 5, compared with Heb. iii. 6.
9 Acts vii. 38 j 1 Tim. iii. 15.

74 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
latter, Christ, and not the apostle only, but also the divinely
appointed and living Head.' In these different houses, or
Churches, both Moses and our Lord "were faithful."2 But
there the resemblance ends, and the contrasts begin. And
those contrasts are very striking and instructive.
Our Lord, the Word of God the Father, created all things,
and, in especial, built and (so to speak) furnished the house
of God in which he was faithful. This is distinctly declared
in the Epistle to the Hebrews,3 which also, by its silence as
to Moses in these regards, asserts impliedly that he did not
build the house, "the Church in the wilderness," in which
he was faithful.
Then, again, Moses was a " servant " in the house which
he did not build ; while our Lord was " a Son over His own
house." 4
And, moreover, Moses testified of a revelation to be made ;
Christ made the revelation of which Moses testified.5
To these contrasts, we must add further that Moses, while
he was an Apostle and Prophet, was neither Priest nor King.
In the old covenant, the priesthood went in the line of
Aaron, and God was the only true King of Israel. But our
Lord is not only the Prophet greater than Moses, He is the
Priest also, greater than Aaron, because He is after the order
of Melchisedec, which is superior to the Levitical order;5
because His priesthood is unchangeable ; 7 because He needs
not to offer for his own sins, since He alone of men was
sinless;8 and because His offering is not imperfect and
repeated, but perfect, and offered once for all, the " one sac
rifice for sins forever."9 And He is also King, "heir of all
things," as well as Maker of the world ; King in the realm
not of nature only, but in that of grace as well ; " Head over
1 On the term apostle, as applied to Moses, see Exod. iii. io, 13, 14 ; as applied to our
Lord, John xx. 21. Justin Martyr calls our Lord "our Teacher, both Son and Apostle
of God." Apol., i. 12.
2 Heb. iii. 5, 6. s Heb. iii. 5 ; comp. i. _, and xii. 25.
3 Heb. iii. 3, 4. 6 Heb. vii. 8 Heb. vii. 26, 27.
* Heb. iii. 5, 6. 7 Heb. vii 24. 9 Heb. ix. 28, x. 12.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 75
all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of
Him that filleth all in all." '
III. It may not be out of place to conclude what has been
said of Moses and the greater Prophet, with a word or two
touching the difference between the revelations made under
the two covenants. The great difference, and the only one
that will be noted here, is plainly set forth in the first two
verses of the Epistle to the Hebrews : " God, who, in divers
portions and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath, in these last days, spoken
unto us by His Son."
In this pregnant passage, we have to consider (a) "time
past," as over against " these last days ; " (b) the " divers por
tions" and "divers manners" of the revelation made by the
prophets, as over against the silence, in that regard, as to
the revelation made by the Son of God; (c) the "prophets,"
as over against "His Son."
(a) The "time past" covers all time in which there were
revelations made by prophets ; that is, from antediluvian
days down to the time when our Lord's ministry on earth
began. If this stretches beyond the beginnings of the
Israelitish covenant, it nevertheless includes it.
The "last days" include all time from the beginning of
our Lord's ministry on earth till His return to judgment.
They mean the same thing as the "ends of the world,"
which St. Paul tells the Corinthians are come upon us ;2 the
same thing as those " last days " in which the same Apostle
tells Timothy that "perilous times shall come."3 In other
words, the " last days " are the days of the Christian, the
final, dispensation.
(b) The mention of "the divers portions" recalls to us
the fact that under the old covenant the revelation was pro
gressive, and not given once for all. Something has already
been said touching this matter, but a little more detail may
not be undesirable. All that was revealed to the prophets
1 Eph. i. 22, 23. 2 1 Cor. x. 11. 3 2 Tim. iii. 1.

76 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
was not revealed at once and to a single person, nor was
the whole revelation declared and published by any one such
person. Truths were revealed to and declared by Isaiah,
which were not revealed to or declared by Moses ; so that
the old revelation was not, at any one point, complete and
perfect. Not that there was any contradiction between these
different parts, or that they were not in entire harmony with
each other ; but only that one part carried on towards com
pletion, and filled out, another part. Two instances, which
shall be given even at the risk of repetition, may serve to
put this matter in a clearer light.
If we look back to the first prophecy of the suffering
Messiah, how dim and destitute of any thing like detail are
the words, "Thou shalt bruise His heel " ! But follow along
the Old-Testament Scriptures through its line of prophecies,
and see how the revelation grows, until " the advent of the
Redeemer was but the visible appearance of the divine light
with which the radiant cloud of prophecy had long been
ready to break forth." 1 And yet the revelation was not
complete until the Redeemer came. Prophecy was, indeed,
"a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn."
But our Lord was " the day-star " arising in men's hearts.2
Or, again, take the great ethical subject repentance, and
consider how the revelation concerning it grows from the
law to, and in, the prophets. " The law includes a general
promise of pardon to the people when in captivity, in case
of their national repentance, the pardon to comprehend a
restoration to their land. The prophets address the in
dividual, and guarantee the promise to every soul 'turning
from the error of his ways.' The law, in this point, regards
the nation as the object of the grace. The prophets do
more; they descend to the interests of personal religion."3
Great, however, as the advance was in this important matter,
the revelation was not yet complete ; not even when John
1 Davison, Discourses, etc., p. 74. 3 Davison, Discourses, etc., p. 61.
* 2 Pet. i. 19.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. JJ
Baptist came, preaching " the baptism of repentance for the
remission of sins :" not, in truth, until the Lord said, "Thy
sins be forgiven thee;" not till St. Paul wrote, "in whom we
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." *
These instances, with what has been said before, explain
the statement that the older revelation was made in " divers
portions." This older revelation was also given in " divers manners,"
i.e., by various methods. Says Bishop Andrewes, " One man
ner, by dreams in the night ; another manner, by visions ;
and then again of two manners, either presented to the
outward sense, as Esay vi., or in an ecstasy represented to
the inward, as Dan. x. ; another yet, by Urim in the breast
of the priest ; and yet another, by a still small voice in the
ears of the prophet ; and sometimes by an angel speaking
in him. But most-what by His Spirit. And, to trouble you
no more, very sure it is that, as for the matter in many
broken pieces, so for the manner in many diverse fashions,
spake He unto them." 2
(c) "The prophets " are contrasted with " His Son." Who
are meant by the prophets ? In answering that question, we
must take into account not only the prophets themselves,
but also the fathers to whom they spoke. " By the fathers
must be meant not merely the patriarchs, but all former gen
erations of Israel ; in a word, the forefathers. The idea
implied in prophets must be taken in an equally wide sense.
. . . Prophets here, according to the context, comprehends
all Old-Testament organs of revelation, so far as they were
mere organs of God, in opposition to the Son, who was
more than an organ,"3 being "the brightness of" the Father's
"glory, and the express image of His person." And it must
also, one would think, include John Baptist.
Now, over against the progressive revelation made by the
prophets, in " divers portions " and in " divers manners," is
1 Eph. i. 7. 3 Olshausen on Heb. i. 1.
2 Bishop Andrewes, Sermon VII., On the Nativity.

78 EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM.
set that revelation which God has made by His Son. Obvi
ously, these two revelations are intended to be placed in
striking contrast ; and as obviously the contrast, in regard
to the latter, centres in the words " His Son." There are no
words or phrases which are put in direct contrast with the
divers portions and manners. At first thought, then, it may
seem as if the contrast limped, if it did not actually fail.
But is this so ? Are not the missing words necessarily
implied ? Are they not involved in the character of the
Son ? To quote Bishop Andrewes again, " God, in time past,
spake by the prophets ; and but by prophets He spake not
from Moses to John Baptist, who was the horizon of the
law and gospel. I will not stand to run through them all.
And now the Apostle, when he is come to us 'in the last
days,' when he should oppose three more to match the
former three, he doth not, but passeth by the two first, —
the parts and the manner, — and so insinuates thus much,
that He hath spoken to us entirely without reservation, and
uniformly without variation. . . . God spake once and twice,
a third time He will not speak. This is His last time : He will
speak no more. Look for no more pieces, nor fancy no more
fashions. It is finished : there are no more to look for." '
So we reach the great, underlying difference between the
revelation made under the old covenant, and that made by
our Lord under the new : the former, progressive, and, up
to the very last, incomplete ; the latter, once for all, complete
and final.
7. The beautiful, peaceful picture of the growth of the
Church, "praising God and having favor with all the peo
ple," which this section exhibits, is summed up in the words,
" And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be
saved." 2 The words " such as should be saved " are a most
1 Sermon VII., On the Nativity.
2 I have retained the words " to the Church," because, even if, as is most probable,
the true reading is not rjj e__A,)<ria, but e.l to ai™, the result is the same. If they were
added to the Church, they were together in unity ; if they were added together, it was in
the Church.

EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH IN JERUSALEM. 79
imperfect and unfortunate translation of the Greek (to..
o-_>£o/_e. ous). The word is " a present participle in a middle
sense." By neglecting this very obvious fact, the expression
has been perverted in the interests of Calvinism. On the
contrary, it is directly opposed to Calvinistic notions. " It
is remarkable that the tense used (viz., the present) is the
only tense which excludes the Calvinistic interpretation.
Both the future and the past would have favored it." ' The
passage simply means that they who were added to the
Church (or together) were, as coming under the new cove
nant, placed in a state or way of salvation. Nothing is inti
mated as to the final result in the cases of individuals, or as
to their final perseverance, or as to their being predestinated
to eternal life. Among those added, as we learn farther on,
were Ananias and Sapphira. Were they gifted, as being
predestinated, with final perseverance ? Rightly interpret
ed, the passage has not the slightest tincture of Calvinism
in it, 1 Bishop Middleton : On the Greek Article, p. 269, Rose's ed.

8o

THE FIRST PERSECUTION.

SECTION II.
THE EARLIEST TRIAL FROM WITHOUT; THE FIRST PERSECUTION.
{Chap. iv. i-3'.)

i. And as they spake unto the people,
the priests, and the captain of the temple,
and the Sadducees, came upon them,
2. Being grieved that they taught the
people, and preached through Jesus the
resurrection from the dead.
3. And they laid hands on them, and put
them in hold unto the next day : for it was
now eventide.
4. Howbeit many of them which heard
the word believed ; and the number of the
men was about five thousand.
5. H And it came to pass on the morrow,
that their rulers, and elders, and scribes,
6. And Annas the high priest, and Caia
phas, and John, and Alexander, and as
many as were of the kindred of the high
priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem.
7. And when they had set them in the
midst, they asked, By what power, or by
what name, have ye done this ?
8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy
Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the
people, and elders of Israel,
9 If we this day be examined of the good
deed done to the impotent man, by what
means he is made whole ;
10. Be it known unto you all, and to all
the people of Israel, that by the name ot
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye cruci
fied, whom God raised from the dead, even
by him doth this man stand here before
you whole.
11. This is the stone which was set at
nought of you builders, which is become
the head of the corner.
12. Neither is there salvation in any other :
for there is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be
saved. 13. If Now when they saw the boldness
of Peter and John, and perceived that they
were unlearned and ignorant men, they

marvelled; and they took knowledge of
them, that they had been with Jesus.
14. And beholding the man which was
healed standing with them, they could say
nothing against it.
15. But when they had commanded them
to go aside out of the council, they con
ferred among themselves,
16. Saying, What shall we do to these
men ? for that indeed a notable miracle
hath been done by them is manifest to all
them that dwell in Jerusalem ; and we
cannot deny it.
17. But that it spread no further among
the people, let us straitly threaten them,
that they speak henceforth to no man in
this name.
18. And they called them, and com
manded them not to speak at all nor teach
in the name of Jesus.
19. But Peter and John answered and
said unto them, Whether it be right in the
sight of God to hearken unto you more
than unto God, judge ye.
20. For we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard.
21. So when they had further threatened
them, they let them go, finding nothing
how they might punish them, because of
the people : for all men glorified God for
that which was done.
22. For the man was above forty years
old, on whom this miracle of healing was
shewed. 23. 1] And being let go, they went to their
own company, and reported all that the
chief priests and elders had said unto them.
24 And when they heard that, they lifted
up their voice to God with one accord, and
said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that
in them is :
25. Who by the mouth of thy servant

THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 8 1
David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, 29 And now, Lord, behold their threat-
and the people imagine vain things ? enings : and grant unto thy servants, that
26. The kings of the earth stood up, and with all boldness they may speak thy word,
the rulers were gathered together against 30. By stretching forth thine hand to
the Lord, and against his Christ. heal ; and that signs and wonders may be
27. For of a truth against thy holy child done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.
Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both 31. And when they had prayed, the place
Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gen- was shaken where they were assembled
tiles, and the people of Israel, were gath- together; and they were all filled with the
ered together, Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of
28. For to do whatsoever thy hand and God with boldness.
thy counsel determined before to be done.
1. It is obvious to remark that our Lord foretold tribula
tion, suffering, and persecution for His Church. And early,
almost, indeed, before the sights and sounds of Pentecost
have passed away from eye and ear, does the fulfilment of
the prophecy begin. It sprung from hatred of that doctrine
in which the Apostolic preaching always culminated. The
Sadducees were sorely offended because St. Peter and St.
John "preached through Jesus the resurrection from the
dead ;" for "the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection,
neither angel nor spirit." These trifling unbelievers appear
at that time to have had control of the Sanhedrim, or great
council of the Jews, and to have carried with them the
principal members of the priesthood.
So begins the fulfilment of our Lord's words, " They will
deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in
the synagogues, and ye shall be brought before governors and
kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the
Gentiles." ' This first persecution exhausts itself, however,
in imprisonment and threatenings ; there is neither scour
ging nor death. These will come in time, but they are not
yet. The testimony, too, is as yet against the Jews only.
That against the Gentiles will come, also, in time.
Let us also notice that the testimony which the Apostles
bear, like the word they preach, is a "two-edged sword."2
It is a testimony for them that receive it, against them that
reject it. And even so the word preached is a " savour of
1 Matt. x. 17, 18. 2 Rev. i. 16, ii. 12.

82 THE FIRST PERSECUTION.
life unto life " or of "death unto death," ' as it is received or
rejected. The testimony or the preaching the same ever
and always ; but with what different results ! So " the
same fire reddens the gold, and burns the dross ; under
the same threshing-sledge the grain is cleansed, and the chaff
is crushed out ; by the same press-beam the oil is separated
from the dregs.2
2. The closing words of St. Peter's reply to the questions
of the Sanhedrim, "Neither is there salvation in any other,
for there is none other name under heaven given among men,
whereby we must be saved," have given rise to many search-
ings of heart, and have been perverted to most unwarrantable
conclusions. " The Apostle does not say there is no salva
tion except in our hearing of Christ, but that there is no
salvation except in and through Christ." 3
When the protevangel was given, the blessed promise of
a coming Redeemer made to our first parents in paradise,4
no child of Adam had been born into the world. Every
human being, therefore, born or to be born since, has been
born, or will be born, under the beneficent operation of that
promise, and, in so far as that promise involves a covenant,
under some sort of covenant with God.
If the Mosaic covenant could not, after the lapse of four
hundred and fifty years, disannul the covenant with Abraham
" confirmed of God in Christ," so that it should " make the
promise " given to Abraham " of none effect " (and so St.
Paul reasons in his Epistle to the Galatians),4 no more can it
disannul and make of none effect the covenant promise made
in Paradise. No doubt, in the case of any descendant of
the twelve sons of Jacob, if one of them refused the Mosaic
covenant, he would be precluded from pleading that he was
still under the Abrahamic promise or the older one made in
Paradise. But, surely, all Abraham's descendants who were
1 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. * Gen. iii. 15.
2 Augustine : City of God, Book I. c. viii. 5 Gal. iii. 15-18.
3 Denton, Comment, on Acts, vol. i. p. 126.

THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 83
not also descended from the twelve patriarchs were under
the promise made to their great ancestor ; and all mankind
were under that older promise, and, therefore, the subjects
of our Lord's redemption.
In the same way, all to whom the Christian covenant is
offered, and who knowingly and wilfully reject it, put them
selves out of all covenant relation to God. But do not those
to whom the Christian covenant has never been duly offered,
still come under the original paradisaic promise ? If any
man is saved, he is not saved away from Christ, apart from
Christ, but in Christ and by the power of His name.' If the
intensely subjective individualism which Puritanism has en
gendered incapacitates men from understanding or appre
ciating the objective value and power of Christ's redemption,
and so leads them to "wrest the Scriptures," the fault is not
in Scripture but in themselves, victims as they are of an
utterly unscriptural system. May we not believe that Cor
nelius, whose prayers and alms came up as a memorial before
God, might have been saved had he died before the gospel
was preached to him ? And if saved, could he have been
saved but by virtue of the sacrifice and in the power of the
Name of Jesus Christ ?
Says Jeremy Taylor, " There are many secret and unde
served mercies of which men can give no account till they
come to give God thanks at their publication ; and of this
sort is that mercy which God reserves for the souls of many
millions of men and women, concerning whom we have no
hopes if we account concerning them by the usual propor
tions of revelations and Christian commandments. . . . The
effect of this consideration I would have to be this : that we
may publicly worship this mercy of God which is kept in
1 This is really all that is asserted in the Eighteenth Article of Religion. It anathe
matizes — and so did St. Paul (Gal. i. 8, 9) — those who preach a gospel which grounds
salvation on what one does " in a law or sect," as having power in itself, and it asserts that
all who are saved are saved in Christ. But it does not say that none can be saved but
those who have heard the gospel. Writers differing as widely as Bishops Burnet, Har
old Browne, Forbes of Brechin, and Dr. Hey agree in this.

84 THE FIRST PERSECUTION.
secret, and that we be not too forward in sentencing all
heathens and prevaricating Jews to the eternal pains of hell,
but to hope that they have a portion in the secrets of the
Divine mercy, where, also, unless many of us have some
little portions deposited, our condition will be very uncertain
and sometimes most miserable." '
It may be said that this contradicts the well-known prin
ciple Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, no salvation outside the
Church. But, surely, that phrase is to be regarded not as
absolute, but as conditional ; and conditional in this regard,
that it presupposes the offer of covenant grace and salva
tion in the Church, and its rejection. Till the offer has been
made, there can be no rejection. Till there is wilful rejec
tion, there can be so far forth no actual sin committed. But
more than this. Was the Holy Spirit never working among
men before the Day of Pentecost ? " Far, far from that.
The Spirit worketh ever, and we see His work and His
teaching all down the Old Testament dispensation ; and I for
one would gladly believe that the Spirit had also worked on
many a heathen sage and moralist before the coming of the
Lord." 2 Before Pentecost His work was done in individual
souls, while after Pentecost He organizes a society of men,
the Church of God, and in that organization works in a
higher way, and through more powerful influences, than He
did on individuals, and moreover is in it " shed on us abun
dantly," 3 in a measure before unknown.
Even Augustine distinguished between the soul of the
Church, the Holy Ghost, and the body of the Church, the
external profession of the faith and participation of the sacra
ments ; and admits that the former may be received when
the latter cannot be had. " There are some," he says, " even
of those who live badly, or are sunk in heresies or heathen
superstitions ; and yet even there ' the Lord knoweth them
that are His; for, in the infallible foreknowledge of God,
1 Quoted in Bishop Heber's Sermons in England, Sermon vii.
» Canon Ashwell : Lectures on the Holy Catholic Church, p. 38. 3 Tit. iii. 6.

THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 85
many who seem without are within, and many who seem
within are without." '
"Although by the promulgation of the gospel, and the
universal commission to evangelize all nations, the condition
of the heathen is changed, yet certainly it is not changed for
the worse. Because God has intrusted to His Church some
better thing for them, He has not therefore withdrawn any
thing they before enjoyed. We may assume, then, at least,
that they are as before ; and that they whom the one Church
has never gathered into her precinct may yet be drawn by
the one great Spirit, and saved by the unseen virtue of the
one great Sacrifice. There is nothing in Holy Scripture
warranting us to believe that the benefit of the atonement
offered for the sin of the world is necessarily restricted to
those who have explicit offers of salvation. It is revealed,
indeed, that there is no other meritorious cause of salvation
than the blood-shedding of Christ alone ; but we are not told
that the relation towards God, even of those that never come
to a knowledge of redemption, may not be altogether changed.
But although we may have this hope, the Church is no less
bound to go forth and preach to them the one faith, and the
only salvation in the one Church of Christ, than if God had
openly revealed what He has absolutely kept secret from us.
I mean the rule of His dealings with them." 2
3. Two things are specially striking in connection with
this entire transaction : the power and ability of St. Peter's
answer to the questions of the Sanhedrim, and the boldness
of the reply of the two Apostles to the threatenings launched
at them.
In thinking of the former, we are at once carried back to
those prophetic commands of our Lord in which He in
structed the Apostles to take no thought, when they were
delivered up, " how or what " they should say for themselves,
1 Augustine : On Baptism, against the Donatists, Book V. c. xxvii. Benedictine
ed., col. ix., vol. 107, 108.
2 Manning : The Unity of the Church, Part III., c. i. p. 291.

86 THE FIRST PERSECUTION.
because what they were to say should " be given " them,
both as to matter and to manner.1 And this was to be
accomplished by the teaching and in the power of the Holy
Ghost. In thinking of the latter, as we hear the Apostles saying,
" Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto
you more than unto God, judge ye." We remember the
night of the Lord's betrayal, when "all the disciples," and
with them Peter and John, "forsook Him and fled," and when
Peter denied Him with oaths and blasphemy.
Here is, assuredly, a marvellous change, too marvellous not
to be noted. Rationalism itself, in its most extreme forms,
has been compelled to admit this;2 has been compelled to
own that in the interval between the betrayal of the Lord,
and the day when Peter and John stood before the Sanhe
drim, " something of a nature encouraging beyond what was
ordinary must have taken place to transform the Apostles "
into what they now appear to be ; nay, that, without the
occurrence of this extraordinary something, their conduct is
inexplicable. What this something was, may be a puzzle to unbelievers
and rationalists. To believers, there is no puzzle about it.
It is the promise of the Father, the power received at Pente
cost, which has wrought this transformation. Accept the
one gracious miracle, and all becomes plain; deny it, and
you have to face a thousand impossibilities.
4. The apostles, after they were set free, seem to have
gone to some place where the believers were wont to assem
ble for united prayer. Where this place was, we are not
told. Possibly it may have been in the temple. Having
come thither, and detailed the circumstances of their arrest
and trial to those who were gathered together, " they lift up
their voice with one accord to God " in the prayer which is
* Matt. x. 19, 20 ; Mark xiii. 11 ; Luke xii. 11, 12. St. Matthew includes manner and
matter in the words __s i} ti.
2 Paulus and Strauss admit so much. See Lee : The Inspiration of Holy Scripture,
p. 248, and note 5, Am. ed.

THE FIRST PERSECUTION. 87
recorded. The phraseology seems to indicate that all pres
ent united vocally in the prayer. Whether all spake together,
by the working of the Holy Spirity or whether one led — so
to speak — and the others followed him, there would seem
to have been united vocal utterance. And surely no light
warrant is thus afforded to such utterances in the worship
of the Church.
In the prayer itself, two things must be specially noted.
We find in it, first, the distinct acknowledgment that the
" God of nature is also the God of grace," a truth which is
as needful to be remembered now as in the early days when
Manichaeans denied it. So Polycarp in his martyrdom ad
dressed God as "the God of angels, and powers, and of
every creature, and of the whole race of the righteous who
live before Thee." '
Farther on, we find it said, "For of a truth against Thy
Holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod,
and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of
Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever Thy hand
and Thy counsel determined before to be done." Our ver
sion here is defective, because it easily leads readers to think
that the slayers of our Lord were gathered to do that which
God had determined they should do ; whereas the original
conveys no such meaning. The verb translated "to be
done " is not the verb, or any part of it, before translated
"to do." It is a totally different word. A better version
would be, " for to do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel
predetermined to take place." 2 God had indeed appointed
that Christ should die for all men. But he had not fore
ordained or decreed the means by which His death was
brought about. They were acts of the free will of those
who employed them ; and for which they, therefore, were
responsible. No doubt the evil was overruled for the great-
1 Martyrdom of Polycarp, c. xiv.
2 Bishop Wordsworth notices the difference. They were gathered roup, ai (= to do)
what God had appointed ye. wflot (= to take place, or to be). The latter verb, in order
to warrant our version, should have been ireiro_j<r'<u, which it is not.

88 THE FIRST PERSECUTION.
est possible good ; but it remained evil still, and they who
did the evil were responsible for it.
As God, although He may use evil done by another for
a good end, never Himself does evil that He may from it
elicit good, so it is not lawful for us to do evil that good may
come from it. To use what is evil, for a good purpose, is one
thing. To do evil, for the purpose of bringing about good,
is another thing. We must never think that God antece
dently wills, approves, or selects any thing that is evil, as
being, in its own nature, fitted to produce any good result.1
1 Bishop Sanderson, Lectures on Conscience, Lect. ii. § 7.

ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA.

89

SECTION III.

THE EARLIEST TRIAL FROM WITHIN: ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA.
(Chap. iv. 32 to chap. _ . /_.)

32. And the multitude of them that be
lieved were of one heart and of one soul :
neither said any of them that ought of the
things which he possessed was his own ;
but they had all things common.
33. And with great power gave the apos
tles witness of the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus : and great grace was upon them all.
34. Neither was there any among them
that lacked : for as many as were possessors
of lands or houses sold them, and brought
the prices of the things that were sold,
35. And laid them down at the apostles'
feet : and distribution was made unto every
man according as he had need.
36. And Joses, who by the apostles was
surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being inter
preted, The son of consolation,) a Levite,
and of the country of Cyprus,
37. Having land, sold it, and brought the
money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
1. But a certain man named Ananias,
with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
2. And kept back part of the price, his
wife also being privy to it, and brought a
certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
3. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath
Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy
Ghost, and to keep back part of the price
of the land ?

4. Whiles it remained, was it not thine
own ? and after it was sold, was it not in
thine own power ? why hast thou conceived
this thing in thine heart ? thou hast not lied
unto men, but unto God.
5. And Ananias hearing these words fell
down, and gave up the ghost : and great
fear came on all them that heard these
things. 6. And the young men arose, wound him
up, and carried him out, and buried him.
7. And it was about the space of three
hours after, when his wife, not knowing
what was done, came in.
8. And Peter answered unto her, Tell
me whether ye sold the land for so much ?
And she said, Yea, for so much.
9. Then Peter said unto her, How is it
that ye have agreed together to tempt the
Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of
them which have buried thy husband are
at the door, and shall carry thee out.
10. Then fell she down straightway at
his feet, and yielded up the ghost : and the
young men came in, and found her dead,
and, carrying her forth, buried her by her
husband. 11. And great fear came upon all the
church, and upon as many as heard these
things.

1. If our Lord had foretold persecution from without,
bringing with it trial and suffering, no less clearly had he
foretold evil springing up within the Church, marring the
Divine ideal of the Bride of Christ, and frustrating, so far
forth, the gracious purposes of our heavenly Father. The
parables of the field in which the tares were mingled with
the wheat, and the drag-net which held within its folds the
good fishes and the bad, sufficiently illustrate this very

90 ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA.
solemn truth. As, under the older dispensation, God had "a
vineyard in a very fruitful hill;" as then He had to say,
" What could have been done more to my vineyard that I
have not done in it ? Wherefore, when I looked that it
should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ? " '
so has it been under the dispensation of the Spirit. Man's
weakness mars, man's sin thwarts, ever and always, God's
gracious purposes in his behalf.
But how are we to reconcile this state of things in the
Christian Church (foreshadowed in the sad story that forms
the principal subject of this section) with such glowing
words as those of Isaiah in the sixtieth chapter of his
prophecies, or of St. Paul to the Ephesians, when he says,
" Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by
the word, that he might present it to Himself a glorious
Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but
that it should be holy and without blemish " ? 2 Is there
such hopeless contradiction between these passages and our
Lord's prophetic parables as to make any attempt to recon
cile them a waste of time ? Or has man utterly destroyed
and brought to nought the plans of God ?
The difficulty is greater in appearance than in reality ; for,
in the first place, we must remember that the prophets, in
their raptured visions, present to us the Divine ideal of the
Church, — what it would have been had it not been intrusted,
under the Spirit, to the administration of men who, however
weak and sinful, were still free agents. And, secondly, we
must not forget that the Church, " now living by faith while
she is a pilgrim among evil men," will, " in the stability of
that eternal habitation which she now patiently waits for,"
become indeed "the most glorious city of God," 3 and make
1 Isa. v. i, 4.
2 Eph. v. 25, 26, 27. Compare Cant. iv. 7, a passage which St. Paul evidently had
in mind, but which modern Romanism, in the teeth of all Catholic exposition, applies,
not to the Church, but to the Virgin Mary.
3 Augustine, City of God, preface.

ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA. 9 1
real every loftiest vision and every most glowing word of
prophecy. They " walk in a vain show " who dream of a Church here
on earth in which no evil shall be found. Nay, more, they
decline at last — so all experience teaches — into Antino
mian heresy, deny the obligation of God's moral law, and fall
into "wretchlessness of carnal living." Beginning with claim
ing exalted purity, they end, as a rule, with " wallowing in the
mire." 2. After what was said above concerning the alleged
" community of goods " in the church at Jerusalem, nothing
need be added here ; and we can proceed at once to that
which is the main subject of the section.
The sin of Ananias and Sapphira is, in the last analysis,
neither more nor less than sacrilege. It led on, indeed, to
another and most fearful sin, but it was the original offence.
A certain offering had been made to God, and then a part of
it withdrawn. It was the sin of Achan.1 In his case, some
thing had been dedicated to God under the ban, or curse, and
Achan purloined a part of it. Ananias and Sapphira did the
same thing, and committed the same crime, which they after
wards attempted to conceal by falsehood.
And the lie was not to men, but to God. Perverse inge
nuity has tried to rid itself of the attestation here given to
the Deity of the Holy Ghost, but in vain. The offenders
did not defraud men, they defrauded the Holy Ghost (ver. 3) ;
they did not lie to men, they lied to God (ver. 4). The con
clusion is inevitable. "As certainly as the Apostles were
men, so certainly was the Holy Ghost, in the esteem of St.
Peter, God." 2
1 Josh. vii. 1. The LXX. read here imo^axm An. toO i._.e>aTos ; and in Acts we
read evovQitraro an-b t»}s ti^. Comp, Tit. n. io.
2 Pearson, On the Creed, art. Holy Ghost.

92

THE SECOND PERSECUTION.

SECTION IV.
THE SECOND PERSECUTION.
(Chap.v. 12-42.)

12. T And by the hands of the apostles
were many signs and wonders wrought
among the people ; (and they were all with
one accord in Solomon's porch.
13. And of the rest durst no man join
himself to them : but the people magnified
them. 14. And believers were the more added
to the Lord, multitudes both of men and
women.) 15. Insomuch that they brought forth the
sick into the streets, and laid them on beds
and couches, that at the least the shadow of
Peter passing by might overshadow some
of them.
16. There came also a multitude out of the
cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing
sick folks, and them which were vexed with
unclean spirits : and they were healed every
one. 17. If Then the high priest rose up, and
all they that were with him, (which is the
sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with
indignation, 1 8. And laid their hands on the apostles,
and put them in the common prison.
19. But the angel of the Lord by night
opened the prison doors, and brought them
forth, and said,
20. Go, stand and speak in the temple to
the people all the words of this life.
21. And when they heard that, they en
tered into the temple early in the morning,
and taught. But the high priest came, and
they that were with him, and called the
council together, and all the senate of the
children of Israel, and sent to the prison to
have them brought.
22. But when the officers came, and found
them not in the prison, they returned, and
told, 23. Saying, The prison truly found we
shut with all safety, and the keepers stand

ing without before the doors : but when we
had opened, we found no man within.
.4. Now when the high priest and the
captain of the temple and the chief priests
heard these things, they doubted of them
whereunto this would grow.
2;. Then came one and told them, saying,
Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are
standing in the temple, and teaching the
people. 26. Then went the captain with the offi
cers, and brought them without violence:
for they feared the people, lest they should
have been stoned.
27. And when they had brought them,
they set them before the council : and the
high priest asked them,
28. Saying, Did not we straitly command
you that ye should not teach in this name?
and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with
your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's
blood upon us.
29. T[ Then Peter and the other apostles
answered and said, We ought to obey God
rather than men.
30. The God of our fathers raised up
Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
31. Him hath God exalted with his right
hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to
give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness
of sins.
32. And we are his witnesses of these
things : and so is also the Holy Ghost,
whom God hath given to them that obey
him. 33. ^ When they heard that, they were
cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay
them. 34. Then stood there up one in the coun
cil, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of
the law, had in reputation among all the
people, and commanded to put the apostles
forth a little space.

THE SECOND PERSECUTION. 93
35. And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, counsel or this work be of men, it will come
take heed to yourselves what ye intend to to nought :
do as touching these men. 39. But if it be of God, ye cannot over-
36. For before these days rose up Theu- throw it ; lest haply ye be found even to
das, boasting himself to be somebody ; to fight against God.
whom a number of men, about four hun- 40. And to him they agreed : and when
dred, joined themselves : who was slain ; they had called the apostles, and beaten
and all, as many as obeyed him, were scat- them, they commanded that they should not
tered, and brought to nought. speak in the name of Jesus, and let tliem go.
37. After this man rose up Judas of Gali- 41. If And they departed, from the pres.
lee in the days of the taxing, and drew away ence of the council, rejoicing that they were
much people after him: he also perished; counted worthy to suffer shame for his
and all, even as many as obeyed him, were name.
dispersed. 42. And daily in the temple, and in every
38. And now I say unto you, Refrain from house, they ceased not to teach and preach
these men, and let them alone: for if this Jesus Christ.

1. In this section we have presented to us, as usual, the
calm before the storm. Solomon's porch seems to have been
the place where the Apostles mostly preached. In the same
place — a colonnade on the east side of the temple, believed
to be a part of the original building — our Lord had preached,'
and declared Himself as the Christ and the Son of God, ap
pealing to the works wrought in His Father's name as His
sufficing witness. Here the Apostles preached and declared
the same Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, and wrought
signs and wonders in His Name. The upper room had, even
before this time, become too "strait" to hold the Church,
now "breaking forth on the right hand and on the left," 2 and
entering on its course of unlimited expansion.
2. Some perplexity has been caused by the statement that
"of the rest durst no man join himself to them, but the
people magnified them." The way in which the Jewish au
thorities are set over against the body of the people, later on,
suggests that by the words, " the rest," St. Luke intends to
designate the rulers. However that may be, it is clear that
our Lord's prophetic declaration that the disciple should be
"as his master, and the servant as his lord," 3 is here finding
fulfilment. As the Pharisees and rulers did not believe in
¦ John x. 23. See also above, Acts iii. 1 1.
* Isa. xlix. 20, liv. 3. 3 Matt. x. 25.

94 THE SECOND PERSECUTION.
the Christ, while " the common people heard Him gladly," »
so is it now with those whom He sent.
3. It is noticeable how the persecution becomes more
severe as the spread of the kingdom advances. In the first
persecution only two Apostles appear ; now more, perhaps the
twelve, are seen. Then the two Apostles were placed under
ward,2 in some prison house ; now all are placed in the public
prison. Then they were dismissed after being threatened ;3
now they are let go after scourging. Death has not yet been
inflicted, but it is looming in the near future.
As dangers, however, multiply, and strengthening for the
doing of their duty becomes more needful, so help and assur
ance are increased, and deliverance by supernatural aid is
manifested. An angel, plainly sent by our Lord, opens the
prison-doors, and sends them to the temple to preach there
that life, in all its aspects for time and for eternity, which
flows down to men, in the power of the Holy Spirit, from the
resurrection life of the incarnate God, who is " the way,
and the truth, and the life."
This is the first angelic appearance recorded in the Book
of Acts. It carries us back, in thought, to the visions of
Jacob and Elisha, to the deliverance of Daniel, and the min
istrations to our Lord after His temptation and in the garden
of His agony.4 It ought to make us remember, and be
thankful for the remembrance, that these blessed beings, who
always do God service in heaven, do also " succor and
defend " His children upon earth.5
4. Those who have been trained in the historic creeds will
have no difficulty in following intelligently St. Peter's brief
address to the council. The mention, however, of the " wit
ness of the Holy Ghost " may well be considered more at
length. There was a witness of the Holy Ghost to Christ our
1 John vii. 48 ; Mark xii. 37. 2 Acts iv. 3. 3 Acts iv. 17, 18.
• Gen. xxviii. 12; 2 Kings vi. 17 ; Dan vi. 22; Matt. iv. 11 ; Luke xxii. 43.
5 Collect for St. Michael and All Angels.

THE SECOND PERSECUTION. 95
Lord, before He came to earth. "The testimony of Jesus is
the Spirit of prophecy," and in the " old time, holy men of
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." ' Our
Lord, also, in the walk to Emmaus on the first Easter Day,
" beginning at Moses and the prophets, expounded unto
them, in all the scriptures, the things concerning Himself;"2
and St. Peter declared to Cornelius and those who were with
him, "to Him give all the prophets witness."3
During His earthly ministry, our Lord spoke especially of
the witness of John Baptist, of the witness of the works
which He did, and of the witness of His Father.4 But the
Holy Ghost also bore witness to Him, even as John Baptist
said of Him on whom he saw "the Spirit descending and
remaining on Him."
After His resurrection, and during the Apostolic age, the
Apostles constantly testified to Him ; " God also bearing
them witness both with signs and wonders, and with divers
powers, and gifts of the Holy Ghost." 5
And, indeed, in all time, since the great Day of Pentecost,
the witness of the Spirit has been borne ; the witness to
individual souls, by which " the Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit," that we are the children of God ; 6 the public,
open, continuous witness of " the Spirit and the water and
the blood ; " 7 the water of the Lord's own baptism at Jordan,
and the water, " sanctified to the mystical washing away of
sin," in every Christian baptism since Pentecost ; the blood
of our Lord's own Passion, and of every commemoration of
that Passion, and every representation of the blood then
outshed, made before God the Father in the Holy Eucharist.8
Much more might be added, but this must suffice.
1 Rev. xix. 10 ; 2 Pet. i. 21. 3 Acts x. 43.
2 Luke xxiv. 27. * John v. 31-37.
s Heb. ii. 4. Our version translates Swi/ien by "wonders." Comp. Acts i. 8, v. 32,
x. 39, etc.
6 Bishop Bull's Discourse HI., " The Witness of the Spirit," is as valuable as when
it was written,
' 1 John v. 6, 8.
6 Canon Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, pp. 173-177.

96 THE SECOND PERSECUTION.
5. It must be remembered, that all for which St. Luke is
responsible in the matter of the address of Gamaliel, is the
correctness of its record. Gamaliel was not inspired ; and
none of his words, however wise they may be, can be quoted
as words of inspiration. It is necessary to bear this in
mind, because his counsel to " refrain from these men," etc.,
is often quoted as an inspired utterance ; and his words are
often spoken of as being the words of St. Luke. This they
are in no sense, any more than the words of Gallio or Felix
or Agrippa are. His words may be, they are, wiser words
than those of the three just named. But they are still
simply and only his own.1
6. At the close of their first imprisonment, when the
Apostles had returned " to their own company," they prayed
for boldness to speak the word of the Lord. Now they
depart from their second imprisonment and the scourging that
followed it, "rejoicing that they are counted worthy to suffer
shame for His name." They have risen, therefore, to a
higher point in spiritual attainment, even to the level of the
eighth beatitude and its special application. Faithfulness in
standing by the truth, fortitude in bearing suffering for it,
have grown up into rejoicing that they are counted worthy to
suffer. Such is the law of the Christian life in all things.
Each step leads on to another, and still another, and from
the beginnings — however small — believers go on unto com
pletion. May we not believe that St. Peter had this, among
other experiences, in mind, when he wrote, " If ye be re
proached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit
of glory and of God resteth upon you" ?2
_¦ Of course, if St. Luke represents Gamaliel as speaking of a Theudas who did not
" rise up " till many years later than the date of his speech, that would utterly destroy
the Evangelist's character for accuracy and veracity. But Theudas was a very common
name, and the difficulty is easily disposed of. See especially, Denton, Comment, on Acts,
vol. i. p. 173, note B. The case of Judas of Galilee presents no difficulty whatever.
2 1 Pet. iv. 14.

THE INSTITUTION OF THE DIACONATE. 97

SECTION V.
THE INSTITUTION OF THE DIACONATE.
(Chap. vi. 1-6.)
1. And in those days, when the number 4. But we will give ourselves continu-
of the disciples was multiplied, there arose ally to prayer, and to the ministry of the
a murmuring of the Grecians against the word.
Hebrews, because their widows were neg- 5. If And the saying pleased the whole
lected in the daily ministration. multitude : and they chose Stephen, a man
2. Then the twelve called the multitude full of faith ahd of the Holy Ghost, and
of the disciples unto them, and said, It is Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and
not reason that we should leave the word of Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a prose-
God, and serve tables. lyte of Antioch :
3. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out 6. Whom they set before the apostles :
among you seven men of honest report, and when they had prayed, they laid their
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom hands on them.
we may appoint over this business.
1. The immemorial view of the Church has been that this
section records the institution of the diaconate.' Of late
years this view has been questioned by many who seem to
attach a greater value to their own critical hypotheses and
guesses, and etymological and grammatical niceties and pos
sibilities, than they do to all historical testimony and recorded
facts.2 1 Irensus, Against Heresies (Book I. c. xxvi. sect. 3), says this in so many words.
Eusebius says the same (Eccl. Hist., Lib. II. t. i.). So does the Council of Neocffisarea,
held before 325 (Can. XV.). Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, and Justin Martyr
recognize deacons as an order in the ministry. Later testimony abounds. To oppose to
this torrent of historical witness, possible meanings of two or three Greek words, is simply
absurd. » Not to encumber the text with these objections, some of them are thrown into this
foot-note. (1) The name " deacon " is not given to the seven. It is, at least, intimated
in the words " daily ministration " [Siaxo. u>] and " to serve [_i_ko. tiv\ tables." Under its
aspect of service every partaker in the one ministry may be called, no doubt, a deacon.
But we are concerned with things, not words. (2) There " must have been some persons
of an inferior grade to aid the Apostles before the event here recorded occurred." What
an individual thinks as to what must or ought to have been, cannot be made into history.
(3) Because in chap. v. 6, the " young men " who buried Ananias are called vmWeoot, and
this word seems to be the correlative of .pe./SvTepoi, it has been argued that they were un

98 THE INSTITUTION OF THE DIACONATE.
2. The immediate difficulty which was the occasion of the
action here recorded arose from the increase in the number
of believers. As they were multiplied, the persons needing
ministration of alms would be multiplied also. Indeed, the
number of such persons would seem to have been greater in
Jerusalem and Judaea than in other places where the Church
had gained a foothold. We know that help was at different
times sent from Antioch, Macedonia, and Achaia, to the
"brethren dwelling in Judaea," and "the poor saints at
Jerusalem." ' Moreover, this necessity of providing for the
poor must go with the Church wherever it goes, and it must
continue in all time, being not a temporary but a permanent
thing. The occasion, then, of which the Apostles availed
themselves, would be in the nature of things a permanent
and universal one, suggesting, at least, the permanency and
universality of the provision made to meet it. The same
line of remark will apply to all the ordinary offices and
duties of the Christian ministry as yet held and exercised
by the Apostles alone : wherefore we need not wonder if
other duties than those pertaining to the daily ministration
are committed to the seven ; nor yet if we find, as we shall
find, others besides the seven sharing in the powers of the
one ministry.
3. We have here mention of what some have called two
parties, though they might better be called two classes, in
the Church ; namely, Hebrews and Hellenists, or, as we
read in our version, Grecians. "The Hellenists were the
Grecian Jews ; not only those who were themselves prose
lytes, nor only those who came of families once proselytized,
but all who, on account of origin or habitation, spoke Greek
as their ordinary language, and used ordinarily the Septua
gint version. The Hebrews were the pure Jews, not neces-
order, or quasi order, of the ministry. But they are called in v. 10 i._vi'. .01 (young
men), and this would hardly be the case if the former word were an official title; had the
presbuteroi been anywhere called yeptuoi (old men), to what diatribes should we have
been treated on the impossibility of their being an order in the ministry !
1 Acts xi. 29 ; Rom. xv. 26.

THE INSTITUTION OF THE DIACONATE. 99
sarily resident in Palestine, nor necessarily of unmixed Jewish
descent, but rather distinguished by language, as speaking
the Syro-Chaldaic, and using the Hebrew Scriptures." '
Obviously the latter class would be likely to be in the
majority at Jerusalem ; so that their widows would be
better known, and have more friends, than those of the
former. Hence arose, naturally, the complaints of neglect.
This neglect is connected with "the daily ministration,"
by which we are to understand the daily gifts of food and
alms ; and though the widows spoken of can hardly yet be
regarded as an organized body, as they appear in I Tim. v.
3 ff., still we find them as special recipients of the bene
factions of the faithful, and can see how the official title —
so to speak — afterwards given originated.
4. The names of the seven are Greek. But that would
not prove that all were Hellenists ; for St. Luke, writing
for Greeks, would naturally give all the names in that
language. At the same time, it is clear enough that all but
one were born Jews, since only one is specially mentioned
as a proselyte. It has been suggested that three were
Hebrews, three Hellenists, and one a proselyte. But this is
mere conjecture.
5. There is a certain similarity, and also a contrast, in the
methods observed in appointing the seven, and those which
appear in the selection of Matthias. In both cases there
is a selection or designation of persons ; in the earlier
case, of two by the " hundred and twenty ; " in the later,
of seven by the "whole multitude." In neither case did
the selection accomplish the appointment, or vest with the
office. In the one, solemn reference is made to our Lord
to designate "whether of the two" He had chosen. In the
other, those selected are presented to the Apostles, and by
them " appointed over this business." Only the change of
the words " whom we may appoint," into the words " whom
1 Dean Alford, in loc. For the sake of perspicuity, I have quoted Alford's words for
the second time.

IOO THE INSTITUTION OF THE DIACONATE.
ye may appoint," — a change, by the way, once made in an
edition of the Scriptures, — can ever so twist this passage
from its real import, as to make it available for the theory
that office in the Church is given by election of "the
congregation." 6. "The duty to which the deacons were set apart was
' to serve tables ; ' and they were ' appointed over the busi
ness ' which consisted in 'the daily ministration.' Their
office, however, was not merely civil or economical : it was
also sacred and ecclesiastical." ' The service may well be
understood, as history has interpreted it, to relate not merely
to those tables from which ordinary food was distributed, but
to the Table of which Christians are partakers.
Their functions, however, were not confined to this ; for
although we have nothing in the way of detail concerning
any of the seven, except Stephen and Philip, it is perfectly
fair to reason from them to others. Stephen preached with
" wisdom and spirit " in Jerusalem, while Philip by his
preaching won the title of Evangelist.2 He also baptized
as well as preached in Samaria.3 The theory sometimes
advanced, that it was Philip the Apostle, and not Philip the
Deacon, who "went down to the city of Samaria," must be
forced upon Scripture, and cannot be read in it. For, in
the first place, we find that when so many Christians left
Jerusalem at the time of Philip's preaching in Samaria,
the Apostles remained in that city ; and, in the next place,
we are told that after his interview with the Ethopian,
Philip " preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea ; "
and further when St. Paul, later on, found him in Caesarea,
he is distinctly called one of the seven." 4 It was the
Deacon, then, and not the Apostle, who preached and bap
tized in Samaria; so that we are warranted in the conclu
sion, that, in the Apostolic Church, deacons ministered alms,
served at the Lord's Table, preached, and baptized.
1 Pearson : Minor Works, vol. i. p. 346. 3 Acts viii. 12, 38.
2 Acts xxi. 8. * Acts viii. 1, 40, xxi. 8.

THE INSTITUTION OF THE DIACONATE. IOI
7. Later on, we find deacons at Philippi and Ephesus ;'
while the testimony as to their continuance in the Church
of the sub-apostolic age, and from that time onward, is
beyond dispute. 1 Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. 8 ff.

102

THE THIRD PERSECUTION.

SECTION VI.
THE THIRD PERSECUTION.
(Chap. vi. 7 to chap. viii. ._.)

7. And the word of God increased; and
the number of the disciples multiplied in
Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of
the priests were obedient to the faith.
8. And Stephen, full of faith and power,
did great wonders and miracles among the
people. 9. If Then there arose certain of the syna
gogue, which is called the synagogue of the
Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandri
ans, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia,
disputing with Stephen.
10. And they were not able to resist the
wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
11. Then they suborned men, which said,
We have heard him speak blasphemous
words against Moses, and against God.
12. And they stirred up the people, and
the elders, and the scribes, and came upon
him, and caught him, and brought him to
the council,
13. Andset up false witnesses, which said,
This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous
words against this holy place, and the law :
14. For we have heard him say, that this
Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place,
and shall change the customs which Moses
delivered us.
15. And all that sat in the council, look
ing stedfastly on him, saw his face as it
had been the face of an angel.
1. Then said the high priest, Are these
things so?
2. And he said, Men, brethren, and
fathers, hearken; The God of glory ap
peared unto our father Abraham, when he
was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in
Charran, 3. And said unto him, Get thee out of
thy country, and from thy kindred, and
come into the land which I shall shew thee.
4. Then came he out pf the land of the
Chaldseans, and dwelt in Charran: and

from thence, when his father was dead, he
removed him into this land, wherein ye now
dwell. 5. And he gave him none inheritance in
it, no, not so much as to set his foot on :
yet he promised that he would give it to
him for a possession, and to his seed after
him, when as yet he had no child,
6. And God spake on this wise, That his
seed should sojourn in a strange land ; and
that they should bring them into bondage,
and entreat them evil four hundred years.
7. And the nation to whom they shall be
in bondage will I judge, said God : and after
that shall they come forth, and serve me in
this place.
8. And he gave him the covenant of cir
cumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac,
and circumcised him the eighth day ; and
Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the
twelve patriarchs.
9. And the patriarchs, moved with envy,
sold Joseph into Egypt : but God was with
him, 10. And delivered him out of all his
afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom
in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt ; and
he made him governor over Egypt and all
his house.
1 1. Now there came a dearth over all the
land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great
affliction : and our fathers found no suste
nance. 12. But when Jacob heard that there was
corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first.
13. And at the second time Joseph was
made known to his brethren ; and Joseph's
kindred was made known unto Pharaoh.
14. Then sent Joseph, and called his
father Jacob to him, and all his kindred,
threescore and fifteen souls.
15. So Jacob went down into Egypt, and
died, he, and our fathers,

THE THIRD PERSECUTION.

IO3

16. And were carried over into Sychem,
and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham
bought for a sum of money of the sons of
Emmor the father of Sychem.
17. But when the time of the promise
drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abra
ham, the people grew and multiplied in
Egypt, 18. Till another king arose, which knew
not Joseph.
19. The same dealt subtilly with our
kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so
that they cast out their young children, to
the end they might not live.
20. In which time Moses was born, and
was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his
father's house three months :
21. And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's
daughter took him up, and nourished him
for her own son.
22. And Moses was learned in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty
in words and in deeds.
23. And when he was full forty years old,
it came into his heart to visit his brethren
the children of Israel.
24. And seeing one of them suffer wrong,
he defended him, and avenged him that
was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian ;
25. For he supposed his brethren would
have understood how that God by his hand
would deliver them : but they understood
not. 26. And the next day he shewed himself
unto them as they strove, and would have
set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are
brethren ; why do ye wrong one to
another? 27. But he that did his neighbour wrong
thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a
ruler and a judge over us ?
28. Wilt thou kill me, as thou diddest the
Egyptian yesterday ?
29. Then fled Moses at this saying, and
was a stranger in the land of Madian, where
he begat two sons.
30. And when forty years were expired
there appeared to him in the wilderness of
mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame
of fire in a bush.
31. When Moses saw it, he wondered at
the sight : and as he drew near to behold it,
the voice of the Lord came unto him,
32. Saying, I am the God of thy fathers,
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob. Then Moses
trembled, and durst not behold.
33. Then said the Lord to him, Put off
thy shoes from thy feet : for the place where
thou standest is holy ground.
34. I have seen, I have seen the affliction
of my people which is in Egypt, and I have
heard their groaning, and am come down to
deliver them. And now come, I will send
thee into Egypt.
35. This Moses whom they refused, say
ing, Who made thee a ruler and a judge?
the same did God send to be a ruler and a
deliverer by the hand of the angel which
appeared to him in the bush.
36. He brought them out, after that he
had shewed wonders and signs in the land
of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the
wilderness forty years.
37. If This is that Moses, which said
unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall
the Lord your God raise up unto you of
your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye
hear. 38. This is he, that was in the church in
the wilderness with the angel which spake
to him in the mount Sina, and -with our
fathers : who received the lively oracles to
give unto us :
39. To whom our fathers would not obey,
but thrust him from them, and in their
hearts turned back again into Egypt,
40. Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to
go before us : for as for this Moses, which
brought us out of the land of Egypt, we
wot not what is become of him.
41. And they made a calf in those days,
and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and re
joiced in the works of their own hands.
42. Then God turned, and gave them up
to worship the host of heaven ; as it is
written in the book of the prophets, O ye
house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain
beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty
years in the wilderness ?
43. Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of
Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan,
figures which ye made to worship them :
and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
44. Our fathers had the tabernacle of
witness in the wilderness, as he had ap
pointed, speaking unto Moses, that he
should make it according to the fashion
that he had seen
45. Which also our fathers that came

104

THE THIRD PERSECUTION.

after brought in with Jesus into the posses
sion of the Gentiles, whom God drave out
before the face of our fathers, unto the days
of David ;
46. Who found favour before God, and
desired to find a tabernacle for the God of
Jacob. 47. But Solomon built him an house.
48. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not
in temples made with hands ; as saith the
prophet, 49. Heaven is my throne, and earth is my
footstool ; what house will ye build me ?
saith the Lord : or what is the place of my
rest? 50. Hath not my hand made all these
things ?
51. If Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears, ye do always resist the
Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so do ye.
52. Which of the prophets have not your
fathers persecuted? and they have slain
them which shewed before of the coming
of the Just One; of whom ye have been
now the betrayers and murderers :
53. Who have received the law by the
disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
54. If When they heard - these things,
they were cut to the heart, and they
gnashed on him with their teeth.
55. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost,
looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw
the glory of God, and Jesus standing on
the right hand of God,

56. And said, Behold, I see the heavens
opened, and the Son of man standing on
the right hand of God.
57. Then they cried out with a loud
voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon
him with one accord,
58. And cast him out of the city, and
stoned him : and the witnesses laid down
their clothes at a young man's feet, whose
name was Saul.
59. And they stoned Stephen, calling
upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit.
60. And he kneeled down, and cried with
a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge. And when he had said this, he fell
asleep. 1. And Saul was consenting unto his
death. And at that time there was a great
persecution against the church which was
at Jerusalem ; and they were all scattered
abroad throughout the regions of Judsa
and Samaria, except the apostles.
2. And devout men carried Stephen to
his burial, and made great lamentation
over him.
3 As for Saul, he made havock of the
church, entering into every house, and
haling men and women committed them to
prison. 4. Therefore they that were scattered
abroad went everywhere preaching the
word.

1. Growth and increase arouse anger again ; and another
and severer persecution ensues, culminating in death. As
yet, the spirit of persecution is awakened only among the
Jews. The pagan Roman power takes no part in it. It will
not be long, however, before it will intervene. At the same
time that trial from without will be increasing, there will be
a corresponding increase of trial from within. We have
already met with Ananias and Sapphira ; we shall soon
meet with Simon Magus ; then will come the " divisions "
and "heresies " which " must be," ' — not by God's appoint
ment, but through man's perverseness, — and so the epitome
which the Church of the Apostolic age presents of the
Church's story in all time will be complete.
1 1 Cor. xi. 19.

THE THIRD PERSECUTION. 105
2. Of the Jewish synagogues, it is impossible here to
speak at length. If they did not arise during the Babylonish
captivity, that long trial did at least give them form, influ
ence, and permanency. So far as we are concerned with
them in connection with the Book of Acts, it may suffice to
say that "the synagogue services consisted of certain sol
emn prayers, followed by lessu.is of Holy Scripture, — from
the Law and the Prophets, according to a fixed order, —
with addresses of explanation and exhortation. It is said
that these prayers were composed by Ezra. They consisted
originally of eighteen forms, including acts of confession,
praise, supplication, and thanksgiving ; and to these a nine
teenth prayer was added in later times, apparently impre
cating God's wrath upon the followers of Christ. At all
events, it is certain that they are very ancient." ' This was
undoubtedly the method of the synagogue service while our
Lord was on earth ; and the narrative given by St. Luke,
of what occurred in the synagogue at Nazareth (iv. 16-27),
shows how scrupulously He governed Himself by the rules
that regulated the ordinary service.
3. It forms no part of the plan of these pages to enter on
such a line of discussion as would be involved in stating and
answering specific difficulties that have been raised concern
ing St. Stephen's defence before the sanhedrim.2 But there
are matters connected with this first martyrdom that should
not be passed by.
(a) The charge brought by St. Stephen's accusers resolves
itself into a charge of blasphemy ; and the counts in it, so to
speak, are two : first, " blasphemous words " against the
temple, in that he prophesied its destruction ; secondly,
against the law, in that he declared that "Jesus of Naza-
¦ Burbidge, Liturgies and Offices of the Church, p. 2 ; Prideaux, Connections, etc.,
vol. i. pp. 358-376, ed. London, 1831.
2 Those who desire to see these difficulties, and the answers made to them, are referred
to the articles on St. Stephen, by the late Dean of Westminster and the" Rev. Professor
Gardiner, in the American edition of Smith's Bible Dictionary ; and to EUhop Words
worth's and Mr. Denton's Commentaries.

106 THE THIRD PERSECUTION.
reth" should "change the customs which Moses taught."
The similarity between the charge against our blessed Lord
and that made against the first martyr has been often
noticed, and is obvious at a glance.1 There is the same
similarity in the testimony by which the charges were sus
tained. In both cases, there was false witness ; and " the
falsehood of the witness consisted in taking words out of
their context, and misrepresenting what, perhaps, totidem
verbis, had actually been said."
(b) The charge naturally shapes St. Stephen's defence,
which was probably spoken in "the Hebrew tongue." We
must observe here, (i) that the defence is not so much a
defence of himself personally, as it is a vindication of his
teaching; (2) that he was charged with teaching that the
temple would be destroyed and the law subverted, and that
this falsely represented teaching involved, in the mind of
his judges, blasphemy ; (3) that he has in mind not merely
the charge brought against himself, but also the convictions
of those to whom he spoke, namely, that the Divine love
and favor were confined to one nation, — their own, — and
to one place, — Jerusalem and the temple ; and that his ex
posure of the falsity of these convictions constitutes, there
fore, his personal defence. Bearing all this in mind, we
have the clew to the speech, and are able to analyze it.
" St. Stephen had taught, and he repeats the same teach
ing here, that the possession of the law given by God oh
Sinai, and of the covenant of circumcision made with
Abraham, of the temple and of the land of promise, were
not exclusive titles to the mercies and the protection of God ;
that these were not of avail without the obedience of the
heart ; that God required not sacrifice unless with it was
contrition for sin, and active mercy, love towards our fellow
men. Although he acknowledges God to be the God of
Abraham, whose son he himself is, yet he points out that
God appeared unto . . . Abraham before the covenant of
1 Compare Matt. xxvi. 61 ; Mark xiv. 58.

THE THIRD PERSECUTION. 107
circumcision had been given, whilst he was a stranger to
Canaan, a dweller in a foreign land ; that He watched over
and was with Joseph when, rejected by his brethren, he
dwelt in a strange land ; that His providence regarded the
patriarchs of the nation whilst they dwelt in Egypt, and were
evil entreated by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and that He
blessed them there, though they dwelt far from the Holy
Place. He then passes on to the life of the great lawgiver,
and shows that Moses, though a fugitive and rejected by his
brethren, — a type of that Prophet like unto Moses, who came
unto His own, and His own received Him not, — was yet
chosen by God to be the deliverer and leader of His people.
He shows them that though they made their boast of the law,
yet no sooner had they received the law by the disposition of
angels, than they broke the law and became idolaters, and
worshipped Moloch and Remphan ; so that, whilst prior to
the giving of the law of which they boasted, and without it,
Abraham was drawn from the midst of idolatry, and was
accepted by God, they, with the law in their-hands, provoked
God, and were in punishment carried away from their land,
— the land of God, — beyond Babylon. He tells them, that,
though the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness had been
fashioned after things in heaven and by command of God,
yet this was only for a time, and in place of it David de
sired to build a temple, and Solomon was permitted to do
so ; and that even this could not be the place of rest to Him
who made the heavens His throne and earth His footstool,
for the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
At this point, it would seem, St. Stephen was interrupted,
probably by the outcries of the people ; and he turns to
rebuke those who resisted the words, not of man, but of the
Holy Ghost, and who had been the betrayers and murderers
of the Just One, the Messiah, as their fathers had slain the
prophets who foretold of His coming.
" Here the fury of the people could be no longer restrained,
and, refusing any longer to listen to his words, they hurried

108 THE THIRD PERSECUTION.
him to death. His speech, however, did not fall to the
ground ; it sank into the heart of one of his persecutors,
Saul of Tarsus, and bore fruit not only in his speedy conver
sion, but afterwards in the speeches which he made, and the
epistles which he wrote to the churches which had been
gathered together by him, or strengthened by his teaching.
With more epigrammatic force than truth, St. Paul has been
spoken of as a 'colossal St. Stephen,' since, judging from
this speech, St. Stephen must have been a man of rare
intellectual power. His influence on St. Paul is very marked ;
and much of the Epistle to the Romans, and the whole
Epistle to the Hebrews, is but an expansion and comment
on this speech, oftentimes in the very words used by the first
martyr." J
4. One can hardly fail to be struck with the brevity, the
simplicity, and the freedom from harrowing details and pas
sionate expressions, which characterize the account of the
martyrdom. And yet what a picture do its few words pre
sent to us, bringing together, as they do, "the heavenly
places " with their abiding rest, and the world in which they
who followed Christ were to " have tribulation " ! In heaven
we see the Lord in "the glory of God the Father," standing2
at His right hand, ready to " succor all those who suffer for
Him." On earth we behold a martyrdom, which, as it stands
nearest in time to the awful Sacrifice on the cross, so it most
nearly approaches it in its circumstances and surroundings.
As the Lord prayed for His murderers, so did Stephen " the
crowned one."3 As the Son commended His spirit into
the hands of His Father, so did His first martyr commend
his into the hands of his Saviour and his God.
5. A scattering abroad followed on the persecution, though
1 This admirable analysis is from Denton's Commentary on Acts, vol. i. p. 195, ff.
2 The accuracy with which the collect for St. Stephen's Day follows the words of
Holy Scripture has often been commented on.
3 Says Archbishop Trench, " The play upon Stephen's name is a very favorite one
with the early Church writers, — the nomen et omen which lay in that name Stephen
(<7Te'((>a>-s) for the first winner of the martyr's crown."

THE THIRD PERSECUTION. IOg
the Apostles did not leave Jerusalem. Sometimes God's
scatterings are in judgment. Such was the scattering at
Babel, and that of the ten tribes. So the name Jezreel was
given to the son that Gomer bore to Hosea,1 indicating the
scattering in punishment soon to fall on Israel. But there
is also a scattering which is not for punishment, but for sow
ing. So, in a later passage of Hosea, Israel is called Jezreel,2
because of the sowing of the Church, not in Judaea, but in
the whole world. "Jews were the instruments. Of them,
according to the flesh, Christ came ; of them were the Apos
tles, and Evangelists, and all writers of Holy Scripture ; of
them was the Church first formed, into which the Gentiles
were received, being, with them, knit into one in Christ." 3
1 Hos. i. 4. 2 Hos. ii. 22. 3 Pusey, on Hosea in loc.

UO

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.

SECTION VII.
THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
(Chap. viii. S-40.)

5. Then Philip went down to the city of
Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.
6. And the people with one accord gave
heed unto those things which Philip spake,
hearing and seeing the miracles which he
did. 7. For unclean spirits, crying with loud
voice, came out of many that were pos
sessed with them: and many taken with
palsies, and that were lame, were healed.
8. And there was great joy in that city.
9. But there was a certain man, called
Simon, which beforetime in the same city
used sorcery, and bewitched the people of
Samaria, giving out that himself was some
great one :
10. To whom they all gave heed, from
the least to the greatest, saying, This man
is the great power of God.
11. And to him they had regard, because
that of long time he had bewitched them
with sorceries.
12. But when they believed Philip preach
ing the things concerning the 'kingdom of
God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they
were baptized, both men and women.
13. Then Simon himself believed also:
and when he was baptized, he continued
with Philip, and wondered, beholding the
miracles and signs which were done.
14. Now when the apostles which were
at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had re
ceived the word of God, they sent unto
them Peter and John :
15. Who, when they were come down,
prayed for them, that they might receive
the Holy Ghost :
16. (For as yet he was fallen upon none
of them: only they were baptized in the
name of the Lord Jesus.)
1 7. Then laid they their hands on them,
and they received the Holy Ghost.
18. And when Simon saw that through

laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy
Ghost was given, he offered them money,
19. Saying, Give me also this power, that
on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive
the Holy Ghost.
20. But Peter said unto him, Thy money
perish with thee, because thou hast thought
that the gift of God may be purchased with
money. 21. Thou hast neither part nor lot in
this matter: for thy heart is not right in
the sight of God.
22. Repent therefore of this thy wicked
ness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought
of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
23. For I perceive that thou art in the
gall of bitterness, and in the bond of ini
quity. 24. Then answered Simon, and said,
Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of
these things which ye have spoken come
upon me.
25. And they, when they had testified and
preached the word of the Lord, returned to
Jerusalem, and preached the gospel in many
villages of the Samaritans.
26. And the angel of the Lord spake
unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward
the south unto the way that goeth down
from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.
27. And he arose and went : and, behold,
a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great au
thority under Candace queen of the Ethio
pians, who had the charge of all her
treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to
worship, 28. Was returning, and sitting in his
chariot read Esaias the prophet.
29. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go
near, and join thyself to this chariot.
30. And Philip ran thither to him, and
heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said,
Understandest thou what thou readest i

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA. Ill
31. And he said, How can I, except some 36. And as they went on their way, they
man should guide me ? And he desired came unto a certain water : and the eunuch
Philip that he would come up and sit with said, See, here is water ; what doth hinder
him. me to be baptized ?
32. The place of the scripture which he 37. And Philip said, If thou believest
read was this, He was led as a sheep to the with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he
slaughter ; and like a lamb dumb before his answered and said, I believe that Jesus
shearer, so opened he not his moutli : Christ is the Son of God.
33 In his humiliation his judgment was 38. And he commanded the chariot to
taken away : and who shall declare his stand still ; and they went down both into
generation ? for his life is taken from tlie the water, both Philip and the eunuch ; and
earth. he baptized him.
34. And the eunuch answered Philip, 39. And when they were come up out of
and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught
the prophet this ? of himself, or of some away Philip, -that the eunuch saw him no
other man ? more : and he went on his way rejoicing,
35. Then Philip opened his mouth, and 40. But Philip was found at Azotus : and
began at the same scripture, and preached passing tlirough he preached in all the
unto him Jesus. cities, till he came to Cffisarea.
1. Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the
earth : such, according to our Lord's words, was the order
of places in which the Apostles were to bear witness to
Him. Jerusalem stands first, the central point from which
the Church was to go forth. Judaea, with Jerusalem, may
well seem to represent faithful Judah and Benjamin. Sama
ria, in some sort, represents the ten tribes ; for Ephraim
was paramount among them, and the northern kingdom was
at last really Ephraim, and is so spoken of in the prophecies ;
while "the head of Ephraim is Samaria." ' Beyond lay the
Gentiles, to "the uttermost parts of the earth." The prog
ress of the Church was, therefore, a regular outward move
ment from a central point ; not a chance medley of sporadic
movements, springing up here and there, no one knows how,
and afterwards united in some way, no one knows what.
The witness in Samaria, however, was not first borne by
Apostles; for, while others were scattered, they clearly re
mained in Jerusalem. Nor can there be any doubt that the
Philip who preached and baptized in Samaria — i.e., the city
of that name — was Philip the Deacon.2
2. Something has been already said concerning the charac
teristics of Apostolic preaching. Further light is shed upon
1 Isa. vii. 2, 5, 8 ; Hos. xi. 3, 8, 9, 12. 2 See ante, sect. v.

112 THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
this subject by the account here given us of the preaching of
Philip. We are told first that he " preached Christ ; " and
this is expanded into the statement that he preached "the
things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of
Jesus Christ." We are also told that at Ephesus St. Paul,
preaching to Jews and Gentiles "repentance toward God,
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," and declaring "all
the counsel of God," preached for three years "the kingdom
of God ; " and that at Rome, " for two whole years," he
" received all that came to him, preaching the kingdom of
God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord
Jesus Christ." All this has been referred to before, and
hardly needs to be dwelt on in any detail again.
The Jew needed to be lifted up from the idea of an earthly
to that of a spiritual kingdom ; to be taught the full breadth
of the promise made to Abraham, " In thy Seed [which is
Christ] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," and to
learn that " they which are of faith, the same are the children
of Abraham." ' The Gentiles had to be instructed in the
character of that same covenant kingdom, which to them
was indeed a "new creation." Jews and Gentiles alike must
be taught concerning the " Name which is above every
name," — the Name of Him who was to "save His people
from their sins," from the punishment of their sins by the
"redemption through His blood," and from the power of sin
by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost sanctifying them to God.
They must also be taught concerning the Anointed One, the
Priest, the Prophet, and the King, " the Way, the Truth, and
the Life." This teaching, accepted by the Samaritans, was,
as ever, followed by their baptism, by which they became
members of that covenant-kingdom of which Christ is the
living Head.
3. Something now appears which Philip, although he
preached and baptized, was not competent to do. The
Apostles, hearing at Jerusalem the tidings of the conversion
* Gen. xxii. 18 ; Gal. iii. 7-9.

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA. II3
of the Samaritans, sent down Peter and John to lay their
hands on those who had been baptized.
Had St. Peter been invested by our Lord with supreme
authority over the whole Church, including his brethren in
the apostolate, this sending by the Apostles would be a
strange anomaly. Surely it would have been his duty to
send, and he might well and rightly have refused to be sent.
We have here, therefore, one of the many incidental proofs,
— all the more valuable because they are incidental, — that
neither he nor the other Apostles recognized any such posi
tion as has been claimed for him.
Precisely what is meant by the words, " Who, when they
were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive
the Holy Ghost ; for as yet He was fallen upon none of them,
only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus " ?
Are we to understand that the inward gift had not been
received by them, or that they had not manifested its recep
tion by outward, visible, or audible signs ? The expression,
"as yet He was fallen upon none of them," contains, it is
believed, the clew to the answers to these questions. In the
account of St. Peter's interview with Cornelius and his
friends, we are told that "the Holy Ghost fell on all them
which heard the word," immediately upon which they spake
with tongues, and magnified God. Again, in St. Peter's
account given at Jerusalem in justification of what he had
done in Caesarea, he says, "As I began to speak, the Holy
Ghost fell on them as on us at the beginning" namely, with
sensible miraculous accompaniments.1 All this seems to
warrant us in thinking that "the gift of the Holy Ghost
[here mentioned] was not that which is regenerating, and
necessary to pardon and satisfaction (else all these baptized
persons must be supposed till so long after unpardoned), but
it was that extraordinary gift, which was for the first sealing
1 Acts x. 44, 46, xi. 15. The Greek word is all along some form of the verb e.i.i_T_.
Comp. Acts xix. 6. " This outward evidence of the gift of the Spirit has been alleged as
a reason why in the primitive Church the chrism was not used in Confirmation."

114 THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
and propagating the gospel, of which others could be dis
cerning judges (such as languages, prophesies, healings,
miracles, etc.), which they were not of sincere inward
holiness." '
This gives rise to another question : Are we to conclude
that the action here spoken of, the laying-on of hands, was
only occasional and temporary ? Or had it a meaning and a
place apart and aside from those sensibly miraculous mani
festations which then accompanied it ?
That such manifestations did accompany it here, and in
the instance recorded in the nineteenth chapter of this book,
is unquestioned. But these facts, even when we take into
account the cessation of such manifestations in after years,
cannot be admitted as sufficient to settle the question in the
negative. If this position is assumed, it will prove a great
deal too much ; for, since miraculous manifestations then
accompanied prayer, preaching, and even the singing of
hymns, we should be compelled to conclude that they too
— and they are only mentioned as a few instances out of
many — were occasional and temporary, and must cease
when the accompanying manifestations ended. Indeed,
under such a ruling it is difficult to see what would become
of Christianity itself.
In both cases where the laying-on of hands is mentioned
in the Acts, it follows immediately upon baptism. It is also
to be observed, that it is administered by three represent
ative Apostles, — Peter, an Apostle finally of the circum
cision ; Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles ; and John, the
Apostle, so to speak, of the reconciliation. Unless, there
fore, some stronger objection can be brought than the one
in limine just noticed, there is no reason why the ordinance
should not be regarded as one of permanent and continuous
use. Is there, on the other hand, any reason why it should be
so regarded ? If we turn to the sixth chapter of the
1 Baxter : Notes on the New Testament.

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA. II5
Epistle to the Hebrews, we shall find certain " first princi
ples " set forth, which constitute the foundation of Christian
life and character; and from which we are exhorted to "go
on unto completeness." It is not necessary to notice here
more than four of the six first principles enumerated ; i.e.,
repentance, faith, baptisms, and the laying-on of hands. It
is obvious enough, that, in the Apostolic administration of
the Church, repentance and faith were the pre-requisites for
baptism, and that baptism was universally administered as
the sacrament of adoption. Nor do any who claim the name
of Christian, deny or doubt that in all time, even to the
world's end, these internal preparations are necessary, and
this divine ordinance is to be administered.
What, now, shall we say of that which in this enumera
tion follows baptism, — " the laying-on of hands " ? It surely
cannot be supposed that into an enumeration of things
which must always have their place in any and every Chris
tian life, and in connection with an ordinance which is con
fessedly permanent and continuous, another ordinance should
be, without any warning or explanation, introduced, which
is only occasional and temporary. As little can it be sup
posed that the laying-on of hands here spoken of can be that
used in the miraculous restoration of the sick, or in ordaining
to the Christian ministry. The absurd impossibility of such
a view, when one remembers the subject-matter of the enu
meration, — i.e., the foundations of each Christian life, — is
evident at a glance. What is there left but that laying-on of
hands which Sts. Peter and John ministered in Samaria, and
which St. Paul ministered at Ephesus ?
That such was the view taken by the undivided Church of
Christ, is evident from the universal practice of fifteen cen
turies. Questions may have been raised as to who was to
administer it, as to who should receive it, as to the ceremo
nies which should accompany it ; but the rite itself remained
till it was dropped from his discipline by the autocrat of
Geneva. Till then, Jerome's words were true of all parts of

Il6 THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
the Church : "the bishop went forth, and laid his hands on
those who had been baptized by presbyters and deacons." '
4. We are told that the Samaritans were baptized "in the
Name of the Lord Jesus ; " in the second chapter, St. Peter
commands those who were pricked in their heart to " be bap
tized in the Name of Jesus Christ ; " and, in the nineteenth
chapter, those persons at Ephesus who had been baptized
" unto John's baptism . . . were baptized in the Name of
the Lord Jesus." Are we, therefore, to understand that the
Apostles and others did not baptize "in the name of the
leather, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost " ? It is
extremely improbable, that, after our Lord's solemn charge,
they should have changed the form He gave them ; and the
circumstances connected with the baptism at Ephesus, above
referred to, amount almost to a demonstration that they did
not. When the " certain disciples " said to the Apostle, " We
have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy
Ghost," he asks them, in evident surprise, " Unto what then
were ye baptized ? " He clearly imagines that they could
not have been baptized without hearing of the Holy Ghost.
And this not only proves that our Lord's words must have
been those used in baptism, but it also throws light upon
the statement immediately following : " When they heard this
they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus." We
are warranted, therefore, in believing that the expression is a
brief way of speaking of the entire form, just as believing
in Jesus includes believing, also, in the Father and the Holy
Ghost. Or we may say, with Ambrose and Basil, that bap
tism in the Name of Jesus Christ means the baptism insti
tuted by Christ the Lord, as distinguished from that of
John.2 5. The case of Simon the sorcerer presents several points
— one of special practical importance — for consideration;
1 Jerome, Cont. Lucif, c. iv.
2 Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto, i. 3 ; Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, c. 12. Compare Jus
tin Martyr, Apology, i. 61. See, also, Moberly, Forty Days, pp. 206-209 ; and App.,
p. 2S9.

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.

117

though it is not worth while to go into details of his history,
which is, after all, uncertain, and largely legendary. We
are concerned with him only as he appears here, with his
character and his sin. He was a Samaritan by birth, and a
sorcerer by trade. Whether he really believed himself to be
all that he seems to have claimed to be, and that his deluded
followers believed him to be, may be doubted. The Samari
tans, we are told, called the angels " the powers of God ; "
and the text, fully translated, shows that they regarded
Simon as " that power of God which is called the great
one," namely, the great angel.
The sin of Simon, like that of Ananias and Sapphira, was
an outcome of that "love of money," which St. Paul tells us
is "the root of all evil." * How truly were his other words
fulfilled in those three unhappy persons : "which, while some
have coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and
pierced themselves through with many sorrows " ! How
striking is the fact that the earliest blots on the fair record
of the Church should have come from one — and that a
common — form of that "covetousness which is idolatry" !2
In the instances of Ananias and Sapphira, the outcome was
the sin of Achan, — sacrilege. In that of Simon,3 it was the
sin of Esau, of Balaam, of Gehazi, and of Judas Iscariot ;
with only this difference, that in his case the attempted
traffic failed, while in the others it was accomplished. All
this gives us a deep and awful view of the power and extent
of that concupiscence which "lusteth always contrary to
the spirit," and comes under the prohibition of the Tenth
Commandment. The indignant and even awful words of St. Peter, addressed
to Simon, while they distinctly declare the depths of his
1 1 Tim. vi. 10.
2 Col. iii. 5.
3 Simony, named from Simon Magus, is the crime of obtaining orders or benefices, in
a word, any position which entitles to the administration of spiritual gifts, by money,
subserviency, or flattery. It puts temporal things over against spiritual, and regards
the one as equivalent to the other. It is, therefore, a profanation.

Il8 THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
sin, and the depravity of his heart, still hold out hope of
forgiveness, and the possibility of repentance. Our Lord
Himself had said "that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in His name among all nations." ' It
was not that repentance, and a promise annexed to it, had
never been heard of before. " The law included a general
promise of pardon to the people when in captivity, in case
of their national repentance;2 the pardon to comprehend
a restoration to their land. The prophets addressed the
individual, and guaranteed the promise to every soul turn
ing from the error of his ways.3 The law in this point
regards the nation as the object of grace. The prophets do
more: they descend to the interests of personal religion."4
The power of repentance, then, its place not only in the
life of the Jewish nation, but in every individual life, were
known before the Lord came. But when the Son of man
was revealed as having " power on earth to forgive sins ; " 5
when He spoke of the "joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth ; " 6 when the commission was imparted, " Receive
ye the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are re
mitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are
retained,"7 — then, and thenceforth, men were to hear as
the ages rolled on, not merely the promise of forgiveness,
however great that promise might be, but the very voice of
the God-man saying, "Thy sins be forgiven, go in peace."
Again, St. Peter's words declare the possibility of forgive
ness, even of very grievous post-baptismal sin, and there
fore the possibility of repentance for such sin. We may
not lessen or extenuate the guilt of sin wilfully committed
against the light and grace which belong to the baptized.
We may not forget that Baptism, rightly received, is the
one complete absolution in this life, — " one Baptism for
the remission of sins." Grace despised, conscience silenced,
1 Luke xxiv. 47. s Matt. ix. 6.
" Deut. xxx. 1-6 ; compare Neh. i. 8, 9. 6 Luke xv. 7, 10.
3 Ezek. xviii. ; Isa. lvii. 15-18. * John xx. 22, 23.
4 Davison : Discourses on Prophecy, p. 61.

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.

II9

evil deliberately chosen, — all these things enter into wilful
sin committed after baptism. And yet, even for this, unless
St. Peter deceived the wretched sorcerer with unreal words,
there may be repentance and forgiveness. So wide, so free,
is the great mercy of God !
There are, in the New Testament, three passages which
can hardly fail to suggest themselves in connection with
this most solemn subject. The first is the declaration of
our Lord himself : " Wherefore I say unto you, All manner
of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men ; but the
blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven
unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the
Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but whosoever speaketh
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither
in this world nor in the world to come." ' One sin, then,
there plainly is for which there can be no forgiveness. This
is not the place for inquiring what the sin against the
Holy Ghost is, since it clearly is not the sin of Simon.
We may, however, observe that it is committed not merely
" by interpretation in our actions, but directly in our words
and expressions." It is expressly called speaking "against
the Holy Ghost."2
The second passage occurs in the Epistle to the Hebrews :
" It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and
have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers
of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God,
and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall
away, to renew them again to repentance." 3 It is curious
to observe the totally different conclusions that have been
drawn from this passage.
In the early Church, the Montanists and Novatians drew
from it the conclusion that no sin committed after baptism
1 Matt. xii. 31, 32.
2 Kettlewell, Measures of Christian Obedience, Book V. c. vi. Augustine held that
no one can be guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost so long as life lasts. Sermo
Ixxii., 3, 2-1.
3 Heb. vi. 4-6, The word translated " fall away " is impair tavrras.

120 THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
could be forgiven ; and this led to the indefinite delay of
baptism in individual cases. On this error the Church set
her sentence of condemnation. It was, however, practically
revived at the time of the Reformation, by the Anabaptists,
against whom the sixteenth of the Articles of Religion is
directed. Another conclusion drawn from this same passage was
that those who had really and effectually received the Holy
Spirit (and none could receive it but such as were arbitra
rily elected to life eternal) could not fall away. This idea,
being formulated, was the doctrine of final perseverance,
one of the five points of Calvinism. And this is also
denied in the article above referred to.1
The third passage is found in the First Epistle of St.
John : " There is a sin unto death ; I do not say that he shall
pray for it." 2 Here we must observe, in regard to the char
acter of the sin, that it is a state of the soul which manifests
itself not so much in any specific act or acts, as such, but
in an open, notorious, and persistent evil life, which is the
" revelation of the moral life." Such a service of sin is
slavery to it, and the wages of such sin is death. Such was,
in regard to temporal punishments, the condition of the
house of Eli,3 and of the people for whom Jeremiah was for
bidden to intercede.4 We shall be safe in saying that wilful
and continuous impenitence is beyond pardon ; but it will be
wise, also, to say with Origen, " What kind of sins are sins
to death, what not to death but to loss, cannot easily be
determined by any man." 5
6. The Ethiopian eunuch,6 the account of whose conver-
1 Our English version makes it possible to imagine that an impossible thing is
supposed in the words " if they shall fall away." The original Greek allows no such
interpretation. * i John v. 16. 3 i Sam. ii. 25, iii. 14. * Jer. vii. 16, xi. 14, xiv. 11, xv. 1, 2.
"\ 5 Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, in loc. and p. 199.
" The same appellation is given to Potiphar in the LXX., Gen. xxxvii. 36, xxxix. 1.
It probably means no more here than it does there ; i.e., a confidential minister in high
position. Pliny tells us that Candace was a name common to queens of the region
spoken of, as Pharaoh was to the sovereigns of Egypt.

THE MISSION TO SAMARIA. 121
sion immediately follows the story of the wretched sorcerer,
stands out in marked and happy contrast with him who had
" neither part nor lot " in the Word. He was a proselyte,
and very probably a proselyte of righteousness, a Jew in all
but race, and, as such, read with* reverent care the Jewish
Scriptures, not doubtless in the Hebrew tongue, but in that
language which was then world-wide, the Greek, and in that
version which we now call the Septuagint.
The passage read was the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, —
beautifully called the " Golden Passional " of the evangelic
prophet ; and this was the " place of the Scripture " which
Philip, following the example of our Lord in the walk to
Emmaus, " opened " to his hearer. Who can doubt what, in
" preaching Jesus " from that passage, Philip taught his
hearer, if, as surely was the case, he unfolded the meaning
of that wonderful prophecy respecting Christ ? " For this
prophecy declares His incarnation and life of humiliation ;
His death contrary to justice"; His resurrection, by which the
death contrary to justice was reversed; His ascension to
the right hand of power, and the future rule and judgment
which He shall exercise over mankind." '
Unbelieving criticism halts and stumbles at the application
of Isaiah's words to Christ. But are we to suppose that the
Divine guidance which sent Philip on the road to Gaza, and
bade him draw near to the Ethiopian, and withdrew him
when his work was done, deserted him and left him to him
self in his exposition of God's word and his teaching to the
proselyte ? Of course human perversity is capable of this
or any other absurdity. But one who reads with an open
mind and a humble heart, remembering also that our Lord
Himself, " beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded
unto " the two disciples, " in all the scriptures the things
concerning Himself," will say as St. Clement does when he
quotes the passage, " Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sceptre of
the Majesty of God, came not' in the arrogance of boasting
* Denton, A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. i. p. 292.

122 THE MISSION TO SAMARIA.
and pride, though He was able to do so ; but in humility,
even as the Holy Spirit spake concerning Him." *
The question, " What doth hinder me to be baptized ? "
indicates also that Philip in preaching Jesus had taught how
those who believed were to be discipled into the Lord. We
may also — though it is a matter of vastly less importance —
notice, in passing, that if the words translated " went down
into the water" and "were come up out of the water," neces
sarily imply immersion, then Philip must have been immersed
as well as the Ethiopian, since the words are spoken of both ;
while, if they do not necessarily imply the immersion of
the Evangelist-Deacon, neither can they be insisted on in the
case of his companion. 1 Epistle to the Corinthians, c. xvi.

PART IV.
THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE
GENTILES.

Part IF.
(Chapters IX. to XII. inclusive.)
SECTION I.
THE CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
(Chap. ix. 1-32.)

1. And Saul, yet breathing out threaten
ings and slaughter against the disciples of
the Lord, went unto the high priest,
_. And desired of him letters to Damas
cus to the synagogues, that if he found any
of this way, whether they were men or
women, he might bring them bound unto
Jerusalem. 3. And as he journeyed, he came near
Damascus : and suddenly there shined
round about him a light from heaven :
4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a
voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou me ?
5. And he said, Who art thou, Lord?
And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou
persecutest : it is hard for thee to kick
against the pricks,
6. And he trembling and astonished said,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? And
the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into
the city, and it shall be told thee what thou
must do.
7. And the men which journeyed with
him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but
seeing no man.
8. And Saul arose from the earth ; and
when his eyes were opened, he saw no man :
but they led him by the hand, and brought
him unto Damascus.
9. And he was three days without sight,
and neither did eat nor drink.
10. If And there was a certain disciple
at Damascus, named Ananias ; and to him
said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And
he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
11. And the Lord said unto him, Arise,

and go into the street which is called
Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas
for one called Saul, of Tarsus : for, behold,
he prayeth,
12. And hath seen in a vision a man
named Ananias coming in, and putting his
hand on him, that he might receive his
sight. 13. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I
have heard by many of this man, how
much evil he hath done to thy saints at
Jerusalem :
14. And here he hath authority from the
chief priests to bind all that call on thy
name. 15. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy
way : for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to
bear my name before the Gentiles, and
kings, and the children of Israel :
16. For I will shew him how great things
he must suffer for my name's sake.
17. And Ananias went his way, and en
tered into the house ; and putting his hands
on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even
Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way
as thou earnest, hath sent me, that thou
mightest receive thy sight, and be filled
with the Holy Ghost.
18. And immediately there fell from his
eyes as it had been scales ; and he received
sight forthwith, and arose, and was bap
tized. 19. And when he had received meat, he
was strengthened. Then was Saul certain
days with the disciples which were at
Damascus. 20. And straightway he preached Christ
125

126 CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
in the synagogues, that he is the Son of disciples : but they were all afraid of him,
q0(j. and believed not that he was a disciple.
21. But all that heard him were amazed, 27. But Barnabas took him, and brought
and said ; Is not this he that destroyed him to the apostles, and declared unto them
them which called on this name in Jerusa- how he had seen the Lord in the way, and
lem, and came hither for that intent, that that he had spoken to him, and how he had
he might bring them bound unto the chief preached boldly at Damascus in the name
priests ? of Jesus.
22. But Saul increased the more in 28. And he was with them coming in and
strength, and confounded the Jews which going out at Jerusalem.
dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very 29. And he spake boldly in the name of
Christ. the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the
23. If And after that many days were Grecians : but they went about to slay him.
fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him : 30. Which when the brethren knew, they
24. But their laying await was known of brought him down to Csesarea, and sent
Saul. And they watched the gates day and him forth to Tarsus.
night to kill him. 31. Then had the churches rest through-
25. Then the disciples took him by night, out all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and
and let him down by the wall in a basket. were edified ; and walking in the fear of the
26. And when Saul was come to Jerusa- Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost,
lem, he assayed to join himself to the were multiplied.
1. "Saul, who is also called Paul," has already been seen
by us as the one at whose feet the witnesses against St.
Stephen " laid down their clothes," and who was " consent
ing " to the first martyr's death. This passive, or compara
tively passive, attitude, is now exchanged for one of active
persecution. Up to this time we have seen Saul as a
" Pharisee, the son of Pharisees ; " trained by Gamaliel,
" the glory of the law ; " a " Hebrew of the Hebrews ; "
" touching the law, blameless ; " a zealot for all the tradi
tions and ordinances of his fathers ; and, consequently,
scorning, with a scorn which only such a man could know,
Jesus of Nazareth, His disciples, and the faith they held
and taught.
But now the scorn deepens into hatred, and the hatred
becomes active persecution, and Saul ravages the Church ;
drags men and women to prison, and gives his voice for put
ting them to death ; breathes out threatening and slaughter
against the disciples ; compels them to blaspheme, and perse
cutes them even to strange cities. It is a frightful picture, and
one cannot wonder that it recurred again and again to the
Apostle's mind with all its memories of cruelty and blood.

CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 127
Do we not sometimes see something quite analogous to
this in other lives than that of Saul ? We are told that the
Emperor Julian once said, speaking of the Faith to a Chris
tian bishop, " I was ignorant about it, I knew it, I rejected
it ; " and the bishop replied, " You were ignorant about it,
but you never knew it ; for, had you known it, you would not
have rejected it." Similar instances are not infrequent in
our own time. Many a man has taken up with some im
perfect and distorted view of Christianity, and, when he has
become convinced of its unreality, has become first a scorner
and then a hater of that which he supposes himself to have
tried and found wanting. Many another has taken up with
one of those " half gospels " which are winning adherents
on all sides, and has reached the same result. Sometimes
the hatred takes on the form of actual persecution ; at other
times — just now, more commonly — it works itself out in
serious or ribald denunciation of the Christian Faith. In
all cases the root of the scorn, hatred,' or denunciation is to
be found in ignorance and misapprehension. Meantime, no
form of unbelief is more difficult to deal with.
2. There are in the Book of Acts three separate accounts
of the conversion of St. Paul : (i) St. Luke's narrative in
this place, (2) the Apostle's own account in his address to the
mob in Jerusalem, and (3) his fuller statement in his speech
before Agrippa. The three should be read together, and
may very well be considered here.
Those who are anxious to find contradictions and discre
pancies in Holy Scripture have discovered two such in these
several accounts of St. Paul's conversion. In the first place,
it is alleged, that whereas, in this ninth chapter, St. Luke
affirms that " the men who journeyed with him stood speech
less," the Apostle in his defence before Agrippa says, "and
when we were all fallen to the earth." When, however, we
remember that the Greek word translated stood is frequently
used to signify merely cessation of motion,' the difficulty
1 Any ordinary lexicon.

128 CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
vanishes. They stopped, and fell to the ground. No special
position is indicated.
Again, it is objected that Luke says here, that those who
journeyed with St. Paul were "hearing a voice;" while he
himself, in his defence before the mob in Jerusalem, says,
" they heard not the voice of Him that spake to me." Had
these words occurred anywhere but in Holy Scripture, it is
not likely that any question would have been raised about
them. They heard the sound of a voice, but not its
articulate speech.
3. A use has been sometimes made of the conversion
of Saul, which neither Scripture nor right reason warrants.
Saul's condition of disbelief in Jesus as the Messiah and the
Son of God was, immediately on the sight of " the heavenly
vision," exchanged for one of belief. But it was not an
instant passage from the depths of sin to the height of
holiness in his personal character. That he had sinned, and
sinned deeply, in persecuting the Church of God, who could
have felt more than he did ? The sense of it was a burden
that he bore through all his life ; and it not only brought to
his lips the cry, " I am the least of the Apostles, that am
not meet to be called an Apostle," but it doubtless entered
into that deepest of all confessions, " sinners, of whom I am
chief." In thinking, however, of these last-quoted words, we must
not forget that none have ever had so deep a sense of sin,
as those who have reached the greatest heights of holiness ;
and that this, probably, lies at the foundation of St. Paul's
startling confession. Assuredly his life before his conver
sion had not been a life of careless, thoughtless indulgence,
far less a life of wilful sin. He does not so speak of himself,
nor does any thing we can learn of him warrant any such
conclusion. On the contrary, in his address to the Sanhe
drim ¦ he says, " I have lived in all good conscience before
God until this day." At the same time he always speaks of
1 Acts xxiii. 1.

CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 1 29
himself as going onward, not looking back upon any thing
already done, not even upon his conversion, but "pressing
toward the mark ; " running as not uncertainly, fighting not
as one that beateth the air ; striving if by any means he
"might attain to the resurrection of the dead."
All this is utterly inconsistent with any idea that the work
of and for St. Paul, in his character and life, was all done at
once, "in the twinkling of an eye," in his conversion. And
the theory that not only was this the character of the
Apostle's conversion, but that it is also the model and norm
for the conversion of all who are really Christians, has
wrought more mischief to human souls than all the indul
gences with which Roman greed has pretended to sell the
grace of God for money.
4. If any man might hold himself excused from the observ
ance of an established Christian ordinance, surely St. Paul
might. With his bodily eye he had seen the Lord Jesus ;
with his bodily ear he had listened to His words ; on him had
fallen blindness because of " the glory of that light ; " by
the touch of a human hand, divinely commissioned for the
work, his sight had been restored, and he had been " filled
with the Holy Ghost." May we not suppose that such an
one is placed beyond the obligation which, in reference to
any ordinances, rests on ordinary believers ? Is he to stand
on the same level with all others in this regard, — nay, with
Ananias and Sapphira, and Simon Magus ? His own words
answer these questions. The same voice that said to him,
"Brother Saul, receive thy sight," said also, "Arise, and be
baptized, and wash away thy sins. . . . And immediately he
was baptized." If words have any meaning, these words, ,
taken with St. Peter's exhortation, " be baptized every one of
you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins,"
do clearly connect such remission with holy baptism, and do,
therefore, also connect holy baptism with the words of the
Lord, "that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached, in His Name, among all nations." This will proba-

130 CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
bly be denied by none but those who arrogate to themselves
the name of " Bible Christians," under which appellation they
seem to claim for themselves the right to deal with God's
Word pretty much as they please.
5. Either between the first and second sentences in ver.
19, or else between vv. 19 and 20, a period intervenes
concerning which St. Luke is entirely silent. Indeed, we
should have known nothing of it, had not St. Paul in the
Epistle to the Galatians, and in his defence against those
who disparaged his apostleship, mentioned it. It appears,
then, from Gal. i. 17, that St. Paul immediately after his
conversion " went into Arabia, and returned again unto
Damascus ; " and, further, that three years elapsed after his
conversion before he "went up to Jerusalem."
How much of this period was spent in Arabia, and how
much at Damascus, we cannot determine. We are told,
indeed, that after his return the Apostle " preached Christ
in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God," and, also,
that "after many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel
to kill him." The expression "many days" might seem to
intimate that the greater part of the three years was spent
in Damascus. But, on the other hand, when we remember
that the words translated " many days " ' do not necessarily
imply a great length of time, and might as well be rendered
" a considerable period," it is clear that no decisive conclu
sion can be grounded on them. It may very well be,
therefore, that a good part of the three years was passed in
that silent retirement, in which St. Paul received the gospel
which he preached, not from man 2 " but by revelation of
Jesus Christ;" being thus placed3 "not a whit behind the
very chiefest Apostles," in that he had been taught by the
risen Lord, what they had learned from the same Lord both
before His death and after His resurrection.
If this be so, what a reproof is here ministered to those
who, by short cuts and with hasty preparation, would thrust
1 iifiepai UavoX. 2 Gal. i. II, 12. 3 2 Cor, xi. 5.

CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 131
themselves into Holy Orders ; what an even stronger reproof
to those who,-in whatever station, help on such a hurrying
process, and condone such an imperfect preparation ! Men
cannot now go-into some Arabia, there to meet the Lord face
to face for their instruction ; but they can withdraw to give
time and thought and study to the " Word of God."
Whither St. Paul turned his steps in going to Arabia, we
do not know. The mere name settles nothing. Nor is there
any thing forbidding us to suppose that it is the same Arabia
which the Apostle had in mind when he said of Hagar
the bondwoman (the type of the old covenant, as Sarah the
free woman was of the new), " this Hagar is Mount Sinai in
Arabia," ' while there is much to say in support of the
supposition. " For if we suppose that the Apostle at this
critical moment betook himself to the Sinaitic peninsula,
the scene of the giving of the law, then his visit to Arabia
becomes full of meaning. He was attracted thither by a
spirit akin to that which formerly had driven Elijah to the
same region. Standing on the threshold of the new cove
nant, he was anxious to look upon the birthplace of the old ;
that dwelling for a while in seclusion in the presence of ' the
mount that burned with fire,' he might ponder over the tran
sient glories of the 'ministration of death,' and apprehend
its real purpose in relation to the more glorious covenant
which was now to supplant it. Here, surrounded by the
children of the desert, the descendants of Hagar the bond
woman, he read the true meaning and power of the law. In
the rugged and barren region whence it issued, he saw a
fit type of that bleak desolation which it created, and was
intended to create, in the soul of man. In the midst of such
scenes and associations, his spirit was attuned to harmony
with his divine mission, and fitted to receive fresh ' visions
and revelations of the Lord.' Thus in the wilderness of
Sinai, as on the Mount of the Transfiguration, the three dis
pensations met in one. Here Moses had received the tables
1 Gal. iv. 25.

132 CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
of the law amid fire and tempest and thick darkness. Here
again Elijah, the typical prophet, listened to the voice of
God, and sped forth refreshed on his mission of righteous
ness. And here lastly, in the fulness of time, St. Paul, the
greatest preacher of Him of whom both the law and the
prophets spoke, was strengthened and sanctified for his great
work, was taught the breadth as well as the depth of the
riches of God's wisdom, and transformed from the champion
of a bigoted and narrow tradition into the large-hearted
Apostle of the Gentiles." '
The question has been asked, Why does St. Luke omit
in his history what St. Paul introduces into his Epistles, i.e.,
the mention of the time spent in Arabia ? Such questions
are not, as a rule, very profitable ; but it does not seem
difficult to answer this one. The purpose of the Book of
Acts is not biographical, or in any sense personal. What is
necessary in order to tell the story of the way in which the
Lord's commands were carried out, the Faith propagated, and
the Church established, that is told. Beyond that, personal
details are very rarely given. It was the Gloriosissima Civi-
tas Dei — the most glorious City of God — that was in the
writer's mind, and not the personal history of those who
were chosen by the Lord to labor in the building. That
personal history, then, appears only so far as such a narra
tive requires.
On the other hand, in the Epistle to the Galatians, St.
Paul is vindicating his apostolate from the attacks of those
who disparaged it ; and he is compelled in so doing to assert
that his apostleship came to him from no human source, nor
by any human agency ; and, further, that the same thing is
true of the gospel which he preached, and which he was
taught only "by revelation of Jesus Christ." 2 In proving this
he naturally, and almost necessarily, mentions that seclusion
from men in Arabia, when he, like Moses, spake with the
Angel Jehovah "face to face." In view of these facts it is
1 Bishop Lightfoot, Epistle to the Galatians, p. 88. z Gal. i. n, 12.

CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 1 33
not difficult to understand the silence of the Acts, and the
breaking of the silence in the Epistle to the Galatians.
6. The visit to Jerusalem here recorded was undoubtedly
the first made by St. Paul after his conversion. It is, also,
the same spoken of in Gal. i. 18, 19, and the manner of the
Apostle's escape from Damascus is mentioned in 2 Cor. xi. 33.
It would seem that the Damascene Jews enlisted the service
of Aretas, the father-in-law of Herod Antipas, to secure St.
Paul at the gates of the city.' Escaping their vigilance, he
goes up to Jerusalem, his special purpose being to converse
with St. Peter. Barnabas, knowing, apparently, what was
not as yet known to the body of the disciples (who naturally
distrusted the persecuting Saul, whose violence they well
remembered), brought him to the Apostles Peter and "James
the Lord's brother." Quite probably the other Apostles
were absent from Jerusalem ; at all events, he saw none of
them. His visit was, indeed, a short one, of only " fifteen
days ; " being brought to an end by the conspiracy against
his life. This resulted in his flight to Caesarea, the civil
capital of Palestine, and to Tarsus his native city.
St. Paul's special and personal purpose in this visit was to
"become acquainted" with St. Peter.2 The word used in
the original implies no inequality between the two apostles.
Any admission of such inequality would be fatal to St. Paul's
vindication of his apostolate in the first chapter of his
Epistle to the Galatians ; and would destroy all the force of
his assertion that James, Cephas, and John "in conference
added nothing to him." Nor is it difficult to see why St.
Paul should desire to communicate with his brother Apostle.
It is hardly conceivable that in the revelations and instruc
tions which he received in his retirement in Arabia, he
should not have learned that " God made choice " that by
Peter's "mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the
1 " Let down by the wall in a basket ; " here it is iv o-mjpiSi : in 2 Cor. xi. it is iv c-apyivji.
The first word seems to indicate the use to which the basket was put, i.e., to carry
something ; the second, the mode of its construction, i.e., of twigs or rope.
* Gal. i. 18, icjTopij- at __)$<_. See EUicott in loco.

134 CONVERSION OF SAUL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
gospel, and believe." * What, then, could be more natural
than that St. Paul to whom the Lord had said, "I have
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister
and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and
of those things in the which I will appear unto thee ; deliv
ering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom
I now send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from
darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God,
that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance
among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me," 2 —
what could be more natural than that the Apostle to whom
this was said should desire to know and converse with that
other Apostle who had been commissioned to open the door
to the Gentiles ? The result of this and later communica
tions was, that James, Cephas, and John went to the circum
cision, while Paul and Barnabas went to the heathen.3
* Acts xv. 7 ; comp. Matt. xvi. 19. 2 Acts xxvi. 16-18. 3 Gal. i. 9.

TRAVELS AND LABORS OF ST. PETER.

135

SECTION II.
TRAVELS AND LABORS OF ST. PETER.
(Chap. ix. 32-43.)

32. f And it came to pass, as Peter
passed throughout all quarters, he came
down also to the saints which dwelt at
Lydda. 33. And there he found a certain man
named _Eneas, which had kept his bed
eight years, and was sick of the palsy.
34. And Peter said unto him, _Eneas,
Jesus Christ maketh thee whole : arise, and
make thy bed. And he arose immediately.
35. And all that dwelt at Lydda and
Saron saw him, and turned to the Lord.
36. If Now there was at Joppa a certain
disciple named Tabitha, which by interpre
tation is called Dorcas : this woman was full
of good works and almsdeeds which she
did. yf. And it came to pass in those days,
that she was sick, and died: whom when
they had washed, they laid her in an upper
chamber. 38. And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to
Joppa, and the disciples had heard that

Peter was there, they sent unto him two
men, desiring him that he would not delay
to come to them.
39. Then Peter arose and went with
them. When he was come, they brought
him into the upper chamber : and all the
widows stood by him weeping, and shewing
the coats and garments which Dorcas made,
while she was with them.
40. But Peter put them all forth, and
kneeled down, and prayed ; and turning him
to the body said, Tabitha, arise. And she
opened her eyes : and when slie saw Peter,
she sat up.
41. And he gave her his hand, and lifted
her up, and when he had called the saints
and widows, presented her alive.
42. And it was known throughout all
Joppa ; and many believed in the Lord.
43. And it came to pass, that he tarried
many days in Joppa with one Simon a
tanner.

1. St. Peter, we are told, came to " the saints which
dwelt at Lydda." There are two words — to name no more
— in our version of the New Testament, which have been
strangely perverted from their proper signification ; while
much perplexity, and even confusion, have followed on the
perversion. These words are "elect" and "saints."' Many
persons, whenever they fall upon the first of these words,
have at least a confused idea that it necessarily implies final
salvation ; and when they meet with the second have, proba
bly, a less confused notion that it necessarily implies internal
personal sanctification of heart and life.

1 In the original, k\i|toi and Jyioi.

136 TRAVELS AND LABORS OF ST. PETER.
All this confusion has arisen from reading definitions into
the words of Scripture, instead of bringing definitions out
from them. One needs hardly to go beyond St. Paul's salu
tations, at the beginning of several of his Epistles, to see
that the " elect " are those who, in the good pleasure of God,
are called or chosen to receive the offer of the Gospel Cove
nant, and to be received into the one covenanted Body ; and
that the "saints " are those who are set apart and separated
by holy baptism as members of that covenanted Body. All
baptized persons are, therefore, in this the primary sense
of the words, "elect" and "saints." The purpose of their
election is that they may " make their calling and election
sure ; " the purpose of their separation and setting apart is
that they may become truly " holy, unblamable, and unre-
provable before God." These purposes may be frustrated
and brought to naught, but the fact of the calling and
separation remains untouched.'
2. The two miracles here recorded illustrate what was said
above, concerning the care exhibited by the Apostles to
prevent any idea, on the part of those who witnessed the
miracles wrought by them, that they wrought them by
their own power or in their own names. When St. Peter,
apparently in the presence of other persons, cured _Eneas
of his palsy, he said, " Christ Jesus maketh thee whole."
When, with no witnesses present, he raised Dorcas from the
dead, he simply said, " Tabitha, arise."
1 The difference between .7105 and 00-105 should also be borne in mind ; the former
indicating an objective separation, the latter a subjective sanctification. Trench,
Synonymes, § lxxxviii.

THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.

137

SECTION III.
THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.
(Chap. x. 1-48.)

1. There was a certain man in Caesarea
called Cornelius, a centurion of the band
called the Italian band,
2. A devout man, and one that feared
God with all his house, which gave much
alms to the people, and prayed to God
alway. 3. He saw in a vision evidently about the
ninth hour of the day an angel of God
coming in to him, and saying unto him,
Cornelius. 4. And when he looked on him, he was
afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And
he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine
alms are come up for a memorial before
God. 5. And now send men to Joppa, and cali
for one Simon, whose surname is Peter :
6 He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner,
whose house is by the seaside : he shall tell
thee what thou oughtest to do.
7. And when the angel which spake unto
Cornelius was departed, he called two of his
household servants, and a devout soldier of
them that waited on him continually ;
8. And when he had declared all these
things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.
9. If On the morrow., as they went on
their journey, and drew nigh unto the city,
Peter went up upon the housetop to pray
about the sixth hour :
10. And he became very hungry, and
would have eaten : but while they made
ready, he fell into a trance,
11. And saw heaven opened, and a cer
tain vessel descending unto him, as it had
been a great sheet knit at the four corners,
and let down to the earth :
12. Wherein were all manner of four-
footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts,
and creeping things, and fowls of the air..

13. And there came a voice to him, Rise,
Peter ; kill, and eat.
14. But Peter said, Not so, Lord ; for I
have never eaten any thing that is common
or unclean.
15. And the voice spake unto him again
the second time, What God hath cleansed,
that cal] not thou common.
16. This was done thrice : and the vessel
was received up again into heaven.
17. Now while Peter doubted in himself
what this vision which he had seen should
mean, behold, the men whicli were sent
Irom Cornelius had made enquiry for
Simon's house, and stood before the gate,
18. And called, and asked whether
Simon, which was surnamed Peter, were
lodged there.
19. If While Peter thought on the vision,
the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men
seek thee.
20. Arise therefore, and get tliee down,
and go with them, doubting nothing : for I
have sent them.
21. Then Peter went down to the men
which were sent unto him from Cornelius ;
and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek :
what is the cause wherefore ye are
come ?
22. And they said, Cornelius the centu
rion, a just man, and one that feareth God,
and of good report among all the nation of
the Jews, was warned from God by an holy
angel to send for tliee into his house, and
to hear words of thee.
23. Then called he them in, and lodged
them. And on the morrow Peter went
away with them, and certain brethren from
Joppa accompanied him.
24. And the morrow after they entered
into Caesarea. And Cornelius waited lor

138

THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.

them, and had called together his kinsmen
and near friends.
25. And as Peter was coming in, Corne
lius met him, and fell down at his feet, and
worshipped him.
26. But Peter took him up, saying, Stand
up ; I myself also am a man.
27. And as he talked with him, he went
in, and found many that were come to
gether. 28. And he said unto them, Ye know how
that it is an unlawful thing for a man that
is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one
of another nation ; but God hath shewed me
that I should not call any man common or
unclean. 29. Therefore came I unto you without
gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for : I ask
therefore for what intent ye have sent for
me? 30. And Cornelius said, Four days ago I
was fasting until this hour ; and at the
ninth hour I prayed in my house, and,
behold, a man stood before me in bright
clothing, 31. And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is
heard, and thine alms are had in remem
brance in the sight of God.
32. Send therefore to Joppa, and call
hither Simon, whose surname is Peter ; he
is lodged in the house of one Simon a tanner
by the seaside : who, when he cometh, shall
speak unto thee.
33. Immediately therefore I sent to thee ;
and thou hast well done that thou art come.
Now therefore are we all here present be
fore God, to hear all things that are com
manded thee of God.
34. 1 Then Peter opened his mouth, and
said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons :
35. But in every nation he that feareth
him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted
with him.
36. The word which God sent unto the

children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus
Christ : (he is Lord of all : )
37. That word, / say, ye know, which
was published throughout all Judaea, and
began from Galilee, after the baptism which
John preached ;
38. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
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.
39. And we are witnesses of all things
which he did both in the land of the Jews,
and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and
hanged on a tree :
40. Him God raised up the third day, and
shewed him openly ;
41. Not to all the people, but unto wit
nesses chosen before of God, even to us, who
did eat and drmk with him after he rose from
the dead.
42. And he commanded us to preach nnto
the people, and to testify that it is he which
was ordained of God to be the Judge of
quick and dead.
43. To him give all the prophets witness,
that through his name whosoever believeth
in him shall receive remission of sins.
44. If While Peter yet spake these words,
the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard
the word
45. And they of the circumcision which
believed were astonished, as many as came
with Peter, because that on the Gentiles
also was poured out the gift of the Holy
Ghost. 46. For they heard them speak with
tongues, and magnify God. Then answered
Peter, 47. Can any man forbid water, that these
should not be baptized, which have received
the Holy Ghost as well as we ?
48. And he commanded them to be bap
tized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed
they him to tarry certain days.

1. In his address before the council held at Jerusalem,'
St. Peter says, " Ye know how that a good while ago God
made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth
should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe." The words
translated " a good while ago " really mean during the earthly
1 Acts xv. 7-12.

THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES. 1 39
life of our Lord.' There is certainly nothing recorded in
the Gospels to which St. Peter's declaration can well apply,
except the very solemn occurrence in the " coasts of Caesarea
Philippi," 2 not long before our Lord's final departure from
Galilee, when He said to Peter, " I will give unto thee the
keys of the kingdom of heaven." If this promise is simply
repeated in the words that follow it, then it was given to all
the Apostles as well as to St. Peter.3 If it is any thing
special to St. Peter, to what can it more probably be referred
than to the effect of that Apostle's preaching on the Day
of Pentecost, by means of which three thousand Jews and
proselytes of righteousness were baptized, and to his action
in opening the door to Cornelius and others, recorded in the
section we are now considering ?
2. Three centurions are mentioned in the New Testament,
and all with words of commendation : the first, he of whom
our Lord said, " I have not found so great faith, no, not in
Israel ; " 4 the second, he who standing by the cross ex
claimed, "Truly this was the Son of God;"5 the third,
Cornelius, the first called of the Gentiles. This surely proves
that there is nothing in the life of a soldier, in itself, incon
sistent with a Christian man's profession.
3. It is hardly worth while to inquire whether Cornelius
was strictly a Gentile, or a proselyte of the gate. We have
no means of answering that question, nor is it important to
have it answered, since the Jews regarded such proselytes
very much as they did the Gentiles ; and, whatever Cornelius
may have been, those who were baptized with him were
unquestionably Gentiles, and, therefore, the first-fruits from
heathendom. 1 The Greek is i(j>' qnspiK ipxaiuv. Now, ipxv is constantly used to signify the
beginning of our Lord's ministry (Luke i. 2 ; John viii. 25, xv. 27). So Apxatos is used to
designate a disciple who was one while Christ was on earth (Acts xxi. 16). Granting
that — as has been said — the meaning of both noun and adjective must be determined,
in individual instances, by context and circumstances, do not both these in Acts xv. point
in one direction, i.e., to our Lord's earthly ministry?
2 Matt. xvi. 13-20. * Matt. viii. 10.
3 Matt, xviii, 18; John xx. 21-23. 5 Matt, xxvii. 54.

I40 THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.
4. We are told of Cornelius, that he was "devout," that he
" feared God with all his house," that he " gave much alms,"
and that he "prayed to God alway." It will not be amiss
to consider carefully and in some detail what these words
imply. Any one who believes that God created him, and placed
him in this earthly life, can hardly fail, on reflection, to see
that so placed he is not simply an isolated and disconnected
unit, standing merely in a certain juxtaposition to other
isolated and disconnected units, like a single grain in a sand-
heap. Indeed, the very moment that we pass outside of in
animate things, and those of the very lowest order, we have
left isolation behind us. Plants have relations to each other
by which their growth, fructification, and character are
modified. Beasts and birds have similar relations. Most of
all, man has them. To get entirely rid of them, is impossi
ble. For, were each man placed on that favorite resort of
hard-pressed reasoners, a desert island, with no human being
near him, he would, as we shall soon see, be rid of only one
of the relations which his creation necessitates, and of no
more. Now, the relations spoken of above are three in number :
first, that in which a man stands towards God ; secondly, that
which he sustains towards his fellow-men ; and thirdly, that
which he occupies — as we may say — towards himself.
Moreover, these relations cannot be regarded as mere abstrac
tions. They are living things. And they live and move in
correspondent duties, which are very various, which appear
in manifold forms and with manifold connections, but which,
nevertheless, may be classified in exact accordance with the
relations out of which they spring. And thus we reach
again a threefold division, and we find duties that we owe to
God, duties that we owe to our fellow-men, and duties that
we owe to ourselves. The correspondence of relations and
duties is entire.
We need not waste time in inquiring how far man, without

THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES. I4I
extraneous aid, and reasoning merely from the fact of creation
and the essential conditions of life and society, might reach
some general conclusions concerning the relations and duties
spoken of above. For, in the first place, man has never
been left entirely to himself in these regards ; and, anyhow,
outside the Scriptures the comprehension of their entire
extent and mutual interdependence cannot be found.
We may be told, indeed, that heathen philosophers have
set forth sound moral precepts. But we must remember that
" there is hardly one of them who has not imposed his sanc
tion on some atrocious immorality. Even the divine Plato
recommends the murder of sickly and feeble infants, ex
pressly allows drunkenness at the feasts of Bacchus, and
authorizes some of the worst forms of licentiousness." And
we must also remember that all these precepts are conveyed
in an abstract and not in a concrete form, and that, therefore,
they lack the clearness and definiteness which are requisite
if they are to be of any practical value.
Again, we may be told that modern deists have, in many
cases, inculcated a true, pure, and even severe morality. But
here it must be borne in mind that all these persons have
grown up and lived under a condition of things, and with an
environment, which have been largely, if not entirely, due to
the moulding influences of Christianity. Principles and laws
of life are generally recognized, and therefore known to
them, which could never have been known or taught but for
the centuries of Christian influences which have established
them. So that they are really using the knowledge which
Christianity has given them, to prove that men do not need
Christianity at all !
When we come to the code of Sinai, the Ten Command
ments of the law, we find all these relations and their
resultant duties fully recognized. The first four Command
ments set forth duties to God; the sixth, seventh, eighth,
and ninth declare our duties to our fellow-men in relation
to their lives, families, property, and characters ; the fifth

142 THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.
invests with new sanctions the divine institution of the
family, and places it between duties to God and duties to
man, because in it these several duties are first learned ; and
the tenth, going down into the heart and life, indicates, in
one marvellous and all-embracing provision, our duties to
ourselves, connecting them also with our duties to our
fellow-men in a way that is equally marvellous to a thoughtful
mind. Advancing, again, to our Lord's Sermon on the Mount,
we find these same relations recognized in it, and the same
duties inculcated. Indeed, apart from these, it seems impos
sible to analyze these great teachings of our Lord.
What strikes us first is the clear statement that our Lord
abrogates or destroys no jot or tittle of the law of God. If
there are in the code of Moses things, institutions, rites,
ordinances, ceremonies, which are ordained as typical and
"the shadow of good things to come," these He fulfils.
And fulfilment is neither abrogation nor destruction. If
there are those great moral rules which, grounded on the
eternal principles of right and wrong, are from the begin
ning, and only change by being more completely unfolded
and therefore understood, these He carries out from the
letter into the spirit ; and, investing them with fuller sanc
tions, makes them also live in nobler forms. It is the old
tree, planted long ages since, nay, coeval with the race,
with its deeply penetrating roots and well-compacted and
shapely trunk, spreading out into a new wealth of branch
and twig, foliage and flower and fruit ; but it is the old tree
still. If now we turn to the last half of the fifth chapter of St.
Matthew's Gospel, we shall find a striking agreement in the
arrangement of the duties spoken of, with that which we
found in the Ten Commandments ; the only difference being
that the duties due to our fellow-men come first to view.1
'First, then, two of the old laws are rehearsed, — those,
1 It is worth while to read, just here, i John iv.

THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES. 1 43
namely, forbidding murder and adultery, — and they are
carried inward from the outward act to the thought and
intent of the heart ; and thus an explanation is afforded as
to how the new teaching fulfils the old.
Then follows a re-assertion of the sacred institution of the
family, and the miserable abuse of multiplied causes of
divorce — which destroy that ordinance of God — is scath
ingly denounced.
Next comes a prohibition of irreverence and profanity
toward God's Holy Name ; and do not these two things lie
at the root of most human failures in the duties which men
owe to their Creator ?
Precisely, then, as in the code of Sinai, the family is
again placed between duties to God and duties to men, as
the point where both meet, and where the earliest- instruc
tion in both is given.
And, lastly, just as in the Ten Commandments we found
at the close of all the words, " Thou shalt not covet ; " so
here we find two duties to ourselves — touching indeed (all
such duties must) those we owe to others — inculcated, which
really cover all the ground: namely, the meekness that
patiently endures injury and wrong, and the love that for
gives, and prays for, and does good to enemies.
So the identity of the precepts given, and of their
arrangement, as between the code delivered among the
rugged cliffs of the Arabian desert, and that pronounced
upon the sunny hillside of Judaea, is perfect : duties to God
and man centring in the family coming first, and duties to
one's self closing the record of injunctions.
But there is still more to be said. If we pass from the
fifth to the sixth chapter of this Gospel, we are confronted
with something that has puzzled many a reader. After a
general direction, not to " do our righteousness ' before
men," — that is, to avoid all ostentation in what we do, —
* The. Authorized Version reads " alms ; " but " righteousness " (Si/c<uoo->~i>') is un
doubtedly the correct reading.

I44 THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.
three things are named, alms-giving, prayer, and fasting. But
no man, surely, will say that these three things are all the
duties of the Christian life. Why, then, are they named
here ? Simply because they are representative duties.
Each represents one of the three divisions of duty which
have been under review. In alms-giving, which stretches
out the hand to help the needy, we find a representative of
our duties to our fellow-men. In prayer, which is the very
life of our relations to our Heavenly Father, we have a rep
resentative of the duties which we owe to God. In fasting,
which is nothing and less than nothing if it is made to end
in itself, and is not used simply as a means to the great
end of self control, — in this we are presented with a repre
sentative of the duties we owe to ourselves. So the classifi
cation and arrangement remain unchanged.
Nor is the case altered if we turn to the Apostolic teach
ing. When St. Paul preached to Felix "the faith in Christ,"
we are told that "he reasoned of righteousness, temperance,
and judgment to come." ' Righteousness covers the duties
to God and man ; temperance,2 which, in Scripture, reaches
far beyond the conventional signification attached to it now,
covers all duties which a man owes to himself, comprised in
the one word "self-control." When the same Apostle, writ
ing to Titus, would sum up the duties of the Christian life,
and give its outline, he says, "Teaching us . . . that we
should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present
life ; " 3 soberly in ourselves, righteously towards our neighbors,
godly towards our Heavenly Father. So does the Apostle
of the Gentiles echo the teaching of the Sermon on the
Mount, — as that echoed and carried out the teaching of
the Ten Commandments ; as they echoed and enlarged the
less clear but undoubted teaching of the law of nature.
Now, a man who " was a devout man, and one that feared
1 Acts xxiv. 24, 25.
2 In the original, _y_p_T«_ ; see Gal. v. 22, 23 ; 2 Pet. i. 6 ; Tit. i. 8.
3 Tit. ii. 12.

THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES. I45
God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people,
and prayed to God always " (and all this Cornelius was and
did), was certainly one who " feared God, and wrought right
eousness," according to the light that he had and the power
that was given him. He lived up to the law of nature as
he knew it ; possibly he knew more, even, from his contact
with the Jews. And so he was "accepted," according to
what he had, and not according to what he had not ; accepted
not in or for himself and his own works, but because of the
merit of that one mighty Sacrifice, the objective value ol
which reached to and touched one who had never known
of it nor of its Offerer. God alone knows of how many in
different lands and ages .these same things may be said. It
is enough that He does know, and that the One great Sac
rifice has such power and efficacy. If the subjective nar
rowness of sectarianism cannot comprehend this objective
value of the Redeemer's death ; if it cannot comprehend
how those who have never known or thought about it —
especially the latter — can be benefited by it, — one can only
lament that it has lost so grand and blessed a portion of the
heritage of the Catholic Church, and lament even more that
this is not all which it has lost.
It will not be amiss to read, in connection with this pass
age in Acts, and what has been said upon it, the parable of
the talents, and the account of the general judgment, in the
twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel.' The former
of these presents the rule by which Christians will be judged,
and the latter that by which others will be judged. The
reading will give us fresh motives for acknowledging and
adoring the mercy and the justice of our God and Father.
But let no man quote these words of St. Peter, as justify
ing one born and trained in Christian lands, and even brought
into the Church of God, in neglecting God's ordinances,
institutions, and laws. He is not a devout man, he does not
1 Bishop Seabury has two admirable sermons on these passages, — Discourses xiv.
and xv.

I46 THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES.
fear God and work righteousness, who attempts this ; who
turns from the light of the gospel and the ordinances of
Christ's Church, and acknowledges no law and no light but
that of Nature, as he calls it.
5. Those who received the miraculous manifestations of
the Holy Ghost were nevertheless baptized. The lesson is
as clear as in the case of St. Paul. No gifts dispense with
the established ordinances of God where those ordinances
may be had.

GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH.

H7

SECTION IV.
RECEPTION AT JERUSALEM OF THE INTELLIGENCE THAT THE
GENTILES WERE ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH.
(Chap. xi. r-iS.)

i. And the apostles and- brethren that
were in Judsea heard that the Gentiles had
also received the word of God.
2. And when Peter was come up to Jeru
salem, they that were of the circumcision
contended with him,
3. Saying, Thou wentest in to men un
circumcised, and didst eat with them.
4. But Peter rehearsed the matter from
the beginning, and expounded it by order
unto them, saying,
5. I was in the city of Joppa praying:
and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain
vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet,
let down from heaven by four corners ; and
it came even to me :
6. Upon the which when I had fastened
mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted
beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and
creeping things, and fowls of the air.
7. And I heard a voice saying unto me,
Arise, Peter ; slay and eat.
8. But I said, Not so, Lord : for nothing
common or unclean hath at any time entered
into my mouth.
9. But the voice answered me again from
heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call
not thou common.
10. And this was done three times, and
all were drawn up again into heaven.

11. And, behold, immediately there were
three men already come unto the house
where I was, sent from Caesarea unto
me. 12. And the Spirit bade me go with
them, nothing doubting. Moreover these
six brethren accompanied me, and we en
tered into the man's house :
13. And he shewed us how he had seen
an angel in his house, which stood and said
unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for
Simon, whose surname is Peter ;
14. Who shall tell thee words, whereby
thou and all thy house shall be saved.
15. And as I began to speak, the Holy
Ghost fell on them, as on us at the begin
ning. 16. Then remembered I the word of the
Lord, how that he said, John indeed bap
tized with water ; but ye shall be baptized
with the Holy Ghost.
17. Forasmuch then as God gave them
the like gift as he did unto us, who believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ ; what was I, that
I could withstand God ?
18. When they heard these things, they
held their peace, and glorified God, saying,
Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted
repentance unto life.

We can hardly comprehend the feeling, amounting to
consternation, with which the Jewish converts must have
received the intelligence that the Gentiles were to be
admitted to membership and privileges in the Church of
God. Isaiah had indeed declared that "the Gentiles should
come to the light " that was to shine upon the future Israel,
flying to it "as a cloud, and as the doves to the windows;"

I48 GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH.
that "all nations" should flow unto the "mountain of the
Lord's House ; " that God would take of the Gentiles " for
priests and for Levites ; " and that there should be " a root
of Jesse" to which "the Gentiles should seek." ' And long
before the day when God made with His people the covenant
in Horeb, He had said to Abraham, " In thy seed shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed." 2
But all these, and manifold other prophecies, had been
read under the influence of prejudice, contempt, and even
hatred, which had deepened and strengthened as the centu
ries had gone by. The veil was on the heart of the Jewish
people "in the reading of the Old Testament."3 So that
even when they acknowledged Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah,
and came into the Church of the new covenant, they brought
with them their old prejudices and convictions, and clung
very generally to their former antagonism to the Gentiles,
and also to their attachment to the Mosaic ceremonial law.
Several questions, then, must almost inevitably be presented
to the Church for discussion and settlement, and that at
an early day : first, Are the Gentiles to be admitted to the
Church? secondly, If so admitted, are they to stand on a
footing of equality with the Jews, or is the old separation
to continue ? thirdly, If they are so to stand, then are cir
cumcision and the ceremonial law to be imposed on them ?
fourthly, If these are not to be imposed on the Gentiles,
are they still to bind or only to be permitted to the Jews ;
fifthly, If permitted, is the permission to be permanent or
temporary? sixthly, If temporary, when is the permission to
cease ?
The first of these questions appears to have been suffi
ciently answered by St. Peter's statements recorded in this
section, and accepted by those who heard them. The second
is impliedly answered here, and, together with the third,
would seem to have been fully answered in the council at
Jerusalem, of which we read in the fifteenth chapter of Acts.
1 Isa. Ix. 1, 8, ii. 2, Ixvi. 21, xi. 10. 2 Gen. xxii. 18. 3 2 cor. iii. 13-15.

GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH. 149
It is obvious, however, from what St. Paul tells us in his
Epistle to the Galatians, that the question came up again at
Antioch, and in its most offensive form in Galatia ; while the
other questions found their settlement only as time went on,
and were not probably disposed of till after the destruction
of Jerusalem.
While, however, we fully understand that Jews and Gen
tiles are on a footing of entire equality in the Church of
God ; that no Gentile was expected, from the beginning, to
observe the Mosaic law ; that it was not even binding on,
but only permitted for a season to, the Jews ; and that now
even that permission is a thing of the far-off past, — still the
question meets us, Why was any such permissive use
accorded to the Jews, and when did it come to an end ?
It may help us to reach what is believed to be the true
answer to this question, to remember, that in none of the
works of God, so far as our knowledge extends, is there
any abrupt transition from one to another, or any clear-cut
and absolute division between them. In the natural world,
day and night are not clearly and instantly separated, but
there are the morning and the evening twilight ; the seasons
rise or fade into and overlap each other : and so it is in
regard to the various stages of human life, infancy, youth,
manhood, and old age. Nor is it otherwise in those dispen
sations and periods in and by which our Heavenly Father
has carried on His one great plan of man's redemption and
salvation to its final form — final, that is, for this world — in
the Christian Dispensation ; while the reverent-minded and
thoughtful student of the story of these dispensations can
hardly fail to be struck with the place which God's judg
ments occupy in it. Indeed, "the righteous judgments of
God, like the weldings of a forge, have served to overlap and
bind together the several portentous periods of human his
tory. The ark which preserved Noah and his sons as the
progenitors of the second period, floated over the waves of
the Deluge, and bound together, in awful punishment and

150 GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH.
stupendous mercy, the ante-diluvian and the post-diluvian
periods. The rejection of the patriarchal Church for their
idolatry, and the symbolic warning of Sodom and Gomorrah,
were many years after the call of Abraham, with which the
third period began. The judgments upon Israel and Judah
were still more lasting. They bound together the fourth and
fifth periods by a still more fiery indignation. The sixth
period began at the Resurrection ; but the judgment which
blended the fifth period with it did not begin till the seventy
weeks of mercy were ended, and continued till the forty-
second year after the crime for w hich Judah was rejected." '
Then came the destruction of Jerusalem, the last great type
that will be given of the day " when the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming
fire."2 Some thoughts like these would seem to have been in
Augustine's mind when he wrote to Jerome : " For now when
the Faith had come, which was before declared by those
observances (i.e., of the Mosaic law), and was revealed after
the death and resurrection of the Lord, they lost, so to
speak, their life. Notwithstanding, like dead bodies they
were carried out by the care of relatives, in some sort to
burial, not in pretence but religiously, and were not imme
diately abandoned or cast out to the detractions of enemies
as to the bitings of dogs. Now, however, if any Christian,
Jew though he may have been, undertakes to celebrate these
rites, digging up as it were slumbering ashes, he is not a
pious bearer of the corpse, but an impious violator of the
sepulchre." 3 Farther on, in the same Epistle, he expresses
his entire agreement with the opinion of Jerome, that " the
1 Dr. Jarvis, Church of the Redeemed, p. 597 ; compare also pp. 2 and 593. The
writer's first period ends with the Deluge ; the second, with the call of Abraham ;
the third, with the separation of Israel, and the giving of the law ; the fourth, with the
Babylonish captivity ; the fifth, with the destruction of the second temple ; the sixth is
still in progress. This arrangement has been criticised as "defective and injudicious."
It is, at all events, Scriptural.
2 2 Thess. i. 7, 8. 3 Epistle lxxxii.

GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH. 151
ceremonies of the Jews are pernicious and deadly ' to Chris
tians ; and that whoever observes them, whether a Jew or
Gentile by birth, has plunged into the abyss of Satan."
May we not fairly say, that, up to the death and resur
rection of our Lord, the Mosaic ceremonial law was living
though not life-giving ; that after the Lord's resurrection,
and till the final destruction of the temple, it was moribund,
though its observance was permitted to the Jewish, while it
was never laid upon the Gentile converts ; that after the
final destruction of the temple, with which the last vestiges
of the Mosaic Dispensation disappeared, this permission
ended, and observance of Jewish ceremonies was forbidden
to any Christian man ? 2
These considerations explain St. Paul's acts and words
which have seemed to many persons to be inconsistent with
each other. When he says, " unto the Jews I became " —
not a Jew, but — "as a Jew,"3 he means that under the
permission noted above he was willing to observe ceremonial
ordinances, not as binding, not as bringing any spiritual
advantage, but simply as allowed in order to remove Jewish
prejudices not yet conquered. So he caused Timothy, the
son of a Jewess, to be circumcised ; and shaved his head, in
consequence of a Nazaritic vow, at Cenchrea ; and shared
in the same vow with others at Jerusalem.4 When he says,
"to them that are without law [I became] as without law," s
he means that among the Gentiles he asserted his rights as
a freeman of Christ, which, indeed, he had not denied among
the Jews, and recognized, as he himself says, no distinction
between Jew and Gentile as members of the Body of Christ.
So he refused to allow Titus, the son of heathen parents, to
1 Mortifera, implying very much more than that they had merely " lost their life "
and were defuncta, dead.
2 In the first period the legal ceremonies were viva non vivifica; in the second, moH
bunda sed non mortifera; in the third, mortua et mortifera.
3 1 Cor. ix. 20.
* Acts xvi. 3, xviii. 18, xxi. 26.
3 1 Cor. ix. 21.

152 GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH.
be circumcised ; and withstood Peter " to the face," when
that Apostle (exhibiting again something of the lack of
courage which led to his sad denial of his Lord) yielded to
the Judaizers at Antioch, and would have "compelled the
Gentiles to live as do the Jews." * There was no inconsist
ency in all this. What there was, was that true charity
which "hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all
things." There is not infrequently made, to-day, an utter perver
sion of what St. Paul says concerning Mosaic ordinances, by
applying his words to Christian ordinances. How have self-
righteousness and false spiritualism disported themselves in
this ample field, and converted passages, which had only in
view observances of the old ceremonial law, into condemna
tions, or at least disparagements, of the divinely ordered
ordinances of the Church ! Because St. Paul speaks of cer
tain things in that law as " weak and beggarly elements of
bondage," 2 therefore the most venerable institutions of the
Church, even those that are divine, are to be so stigmatized.
Because he says that " in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature," 3
^erefore baptism and the Eucharist are of no avail ; and
(his in the face of the fact that in the very Epistle in which
this statement occurs, the Apostle also says, "as many of
you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."4
May it be that they who thus wrest Holy Scripture, know
not what they do !
All ordinances, in all dispensations, are means to an end
that lies beyond them, and is greater than they are or can
be. In any true conception of these, therefore, there are
two things which cannot safely be severed, and one held to
the exclusion of the other. These are the ordinance itself,
and the end which it is a means of reaching. It is easy on
the one side so to exalt the means as to disparage, if not to
1 Gal. ii. 11-15. 3 Gal. vi. 15.
" Gal. iv. 9. * Gal. iii. 27.

GENTILES ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH. 153
forget, the end ; and, on the other side, so to dwell on the
end as to belittle, if not to put aside, the means.
The Jews made this mistake concerning their sacrifices.
They made them end in themselves. They fancied that God
instituted them for the sake of having them. They forgot
that there were moral purposes to be answered by them, and
that these purposes were greater than the sacrifices them
selves. This is what Jeremiah means when he represents
God as saying, "I spake not unto your fathers, nor com
manded them in the day tha,t I brought them out of the land
of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices ; but this
thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice." ' That is,
my purpose in regard to the ceremonial law was not fulfilled
in the mere offering of the sacrifice : there was something
beyond that, namely spiritual instruction and moral disci
pline. In precisely the same way there have been, and no
doubt are now, in the Church, persons who treat the divine
ordinances of the new law in the same way ; forgetting that
they are means through which, by the operation of the Holy
Spirit, we are united to the resurrection life of our blessed
Lord, and through Him to the Father; and ending every
thing in and with the ordinance itself.
The other danger is, however, in these days more pressing
and more prevalent. Men are impatient of having any thing,
as some say, put between their souls and Christ ; as others
say, between themselves and God. The former disparage
sacraments ; the latter disparage, if they do not reject, the
Mediator. They admit means to an end everywhere but in
religion. There they clamor for the end without the means.
Alas that their unwisdom works such fearful harm to human
souls !
1 Jer. vii. 22. There is an excellent note, in reply to the interpretation put upon this
passage by the " new school " of critics, in the note at the end of this chapter in the
Speaker's Commentary.

154 PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES.

SECTION V.

OTHER PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES.
(Chap. xi. IQ-30.)

19 If Now they which were scattered
abroad upon the persecution that arose
about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice,
and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the
word to none but unto the Jews only.
20. And some of them were men of
Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were
come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians,
preaching the Lord Jesus.
21. And the hand of the Lord was with
them : and a great number believed, and
turned unto the Lord.
22. ^f Then tidings of these things came
unto the ears of the church which was in
Jerusalem : and they sent forth Barnabas,
that he should go as far as Antioch.
23. Who, when he came, and had seen
the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted
them all, that with purpose of heart they
would cleave unto the Lord.
24. For he was a good man, and full of
the Holy Ghost and of faith : and much
people was added unto the Lord.

25. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus,
for to seek Saui :
26. And when he had found him, he
brought him unto Antioch. And it came
to pass, that a whole year they assembled
themselves with the church, and taught
much people. And the disciples were called
Christians first in Antioch.
27. ^f And in these days came prophets
from Jerusalem unto Antioch.
28. And there stood up one of them
named Agabus, and signified by the spirit
that there should be great dearth through
out all the world: which came to pass in
the days of Claudius Cassar.
29. Then the disciples, every man ac
cording to his ability, determined to send
relief unto the brethren which dwelt in
Judaea :
30. Which also they did, and sent it to
the elders by the hands of Barnabas and
Saul.

1. This section takes us back to the martyrdom of St.
Stephen, and narrates certain events which were preparatory
to the Mission to the Gentiles, the story of which begins
at the thirteenth chapter, and, with the exception of the
account of the council at Jerusalem (if, indeed, that is an
exception), occupies the remainder of this book. Its begin
ning illustrates, as has been said before, one of the ways in
which the Church grows by persecution. The sowers are
scattered abroad, and the field in which the Word is sown is
enlarged. 2. Phenice was a narrow strip of land sloping from the
foot of Lebanon to the seacoast. Tyre and Sidon were

PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES. I55
among its cities. Cyprus was the native land of Barnabas,
and many Jews had settled there. Antioch stands, in impor
tance, next to Jerusalem in the history of Christianity, and,
indeed, has been called the Gentile Jerusalem. It was situ
ated on the Orontes, just where that river breaks through
the mountain-range, at the point of meeting of the chains
of Lebanon and Taurus, and at the distance of about sixteen
miles from its seaport Seleucia. " Here the first Gentile
church was founded ; here the disciples of Christ were first
called Christians ; here St. Paul exercised, so far as is dis
tinctly recorded, his first ministerial work ; hence he started
at the beginning of his first missionary journey, and hither
he returned. So again, after the Apostolic Council, he began
and ended his second missionary journey at this place. This,
too, was the starting-point of the third missionary journey,
which was brought to a termination by the imprisonment at
Jerusalem and Caesarea." ' Antioch had, besides its eccle
siastical, its civil, importance ; in that, while it had been
the capital of the Greek kings of Syria, it had become, in the
times of the Apostles, the residence of the Roman governors
of the province.
We have here an illustration of the way in which the
Apostles fulfilled the command to be witnesses to our Lord,
not only " in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and in Samaria,"
but also "unto the uttermost part of the earth." The method
was to seize a central point, and to work out from it. The
first central point was Jerusalem, which thus became the
mother — not the mistress — of all the churches. Then
came Samaria, the city where Philip the Deacon preached
and baptized, and St. Peter and St. John administered the
laying-on of hands. Next followed Antioch. And then, as
we follow St. Paul in his journeyings, we reach successively
Salamis, Paphos, Perga, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra
and Derbe, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth,
Ephesus, Rome. All these places were centres of intel-
1 Dean Howson in Smith's Bible Dictionary.

156 PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES.
lectual, commercial, or political life and influence, — places
which not only had large numbers dwelling in them, but to
which others were drawn for the various purposes indicated
by their several characteristics.
Not only do we thus find the method employed by the
Apostles in propagating the gospel, and, perhaps, gain a hint
as to the best method for our own time, but we also find a
wonderful exhibition of the faith and courage of the Apostles
themselves. " Obscure as they were, they were not content
with taking up obscure ground ; they did not secrete them
selves in rural and sequestered neighborhoods, and trust to
emerge by degrees, as their new principles should creep
through the country, without observation : they boldly fixed
their headquarters, by preference, in the most conspicuous
and flourishing towns ; Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth,
Rome, being all of them sites the most commanding ; cities,
populous, busy, alive, intelligent, pre-eminently set on a hill ;
serving, in addition to their general aptitude for the purposes
contemplated by the Apostles, to convince mankind that
humble teachers of the gospel, who planted their standards
so bravely, must be confident in their cause, must feel their
strength, were ready to challenge inquiry, and were con
vinced that their efforts would make an impression on the
world." '
When from the Apostolic age we pass on to later times,
we find these same places re-appearing in a way that is
very significant. They have become the seats of bishops ;
and when, later on, convenience of ecclesiastical administra
tion requires it, some of them become metropolitan sees,
and a few the seats of patriarchs. In all cases, more espe
cially in those of metropolitical and patriarchal sees, it is
quite as much the civil importance of the city that determines
its ecclesiastical position as any merely ecclesiastical relations
or associations ; indeed, we may fairly say that civil consider-
1 J. J. Blunt, History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries,
PP- 53, 54-

PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES. 1 57
ations outweigh ecclesiastical ones. Thus the Council of
Antioch, in 341, says, "It behooves the Bishops in every
province to own him who presides over the metropolis, and
who is to take care of the whole province ; because all who
have business come together from every side to the metrop
olis. Wherefore it has been decreed that he should have a
precedence of rank" ' etc. In the same way the " Fathers
gave honorary privileges to Old Rome, because it was the
imperial city ; " and when Constantinople became New Rome,
they gave it equal privileges ; "judging, with reason, that
the city which was honored with the sovereignty and senate,
and which enjoyed equal privileges with the elder royal Rome,
should be magnified like her in ecclesiastical matters, being
the second after her." 2 This was the declaration of the
Council of Chalcedon in 45 1 ; and it confirms the action of
the first Council of Constantinople in 381, which gave "pre
rogatives of honor to Constantinople . . . because it is New
Rome." All this can have only one meaning. It clearly
indicates that the honorary precedences in the great Patri
archates were mainly due to the civil importance of the
cities where they had their seat. The ecclesiastical ideas
are of a later date
3. There is a various reading in ver. 20, of which some
thing should be said. Some manuscripts read Hellenistas,
translated in our version " Grecians," and meaning, as has
been said, Greek-speaking Jews. Others read Hellcnas, in our
version " Greeks," and meaning Gentiles.3 Except for the
sake of an accurate text, the reading is not material. If
the preaching spoken of was to the Greek-speaking Jews it
probably preceded, if it was to the Gentiles it probably
N
1 Canon IX. The words translated " precedence of rank " are in the original rff i-nn
upoijyeicrflai. 2 Council of Chalcedon, Can. XXVIII.: Privileges, t_ irp<_r/3<__; equal privileges,
t_ laa irpea^eia. Council of Constantinople, Can. HI. : Prerogatives of honor, irpeo-jSeic*
T1J? Tipij.
3 See especially Westcott and Hort, New Testament, vol. i. App. p. 93 ; and Scrivener,
Introduction to Criticism of New Testament, p. 536 (2d ed.).

158 PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES.
followed, the conversion of Cornelius ; though it may very
well have preceded any action, in consequence of that con
version, at Jerusalem.
4. There is something peculiarly attractive in the character
of Barnabas, as it is brought before us in the few and slight
hints and touches that are given in the Acts. The very
name added by the Apostles to his own, Barnabas, whether
we interpret it Son of Consolation or Son of Prophecy, is
suggestive. As a Son of Consolation, he ministered of his
worldly substance to those who were in want. As a Son
of Prophecy, which word in the New Testament means first
of all exhortation, "he exhorted all, that, with purpose of
heart, they should cleave unto the Lord." ' His abundant
alms-giving attests his love for Christ. His bringing Saul
to the Apostles, when the disciples were " all afraid of him,"
exhibits the charity that "thinketh no evil." His seeking
Saul at Tarsus, his bringing him to Antioch, and his willing
ness to take the lower place when the Apostle of the Gentiles
is called up to the higher, — all show to us the truly noble
man, ready to abase himself (as one has said, "to obliterate
himself "),2 so only the great work might go forward. We are
prepared to be told, even from these outlines, that " he was a
good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and much
people was added unto the Lord." We can hardly help the
thought that St. Paul had him in mind when, in the Epistle to
the Romans, he wrote, " Be kindly aff ectioned one to another
with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, . . .
distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality." 3
5. It can never be fully determined whether the name
Christians was given to the disciples at Antioch by the
Jews, the Gentiles, or the believers themselves. It seems
hardly probable that the Jews would give it, inasmuch as its
1 Acts iv. 36, xi. 23.
2 Renan says this! See Dean Howson's Bohlen Lectures for 1880. I cannot but
think that scant justice has been done to this modest but very valuable little book.
3 Rom. xii. 10, 13. The original, +iAof _¦¦_.•, means a good deal more than hospitality
in our ordinary use of the word.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES. 1 59
application would involve connecting the name Messiah or
Christ with the despised Nazarenes or Galilaeans. As little
is it likely to have been given by the heathen, who surely
could have known nothing of the claims of Christians to
share in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and to whom our
Lord was presented less as the promised Messiah than as
the Son of God raised from the dead with power. Far more
likely is it that they who must have been taught that they
had " an unction from the Holy One," that He who anointed
them was God, and that the anointing which they had
received was to abide with them,' — far more likely is it that
these should have taken to themselves, not in arrogance but
in deep humility, the name " anointed-ones." It would be the
solemn reference of all that they had and were, to another
than themselves, even to the Holy Spirit of God. If the
testimony of Tacitus, that Christians were commonly so
called from " Christ, who suffered during the procuratorship
of Pontius Pilate," is to be taken as proof that the name
was given by the enemies of the Lord, so be it. Names
neither create nor give dignity to things, but things dignify
and sometimes create names. Of all ridiculous things, those
are most ridiculous which with sounding and pretentious
titles lack correspondent realities.
However it originated, the name became one that its wear
ers honored and gloried in. " That I may not only be called
a Christian, but may be found to be one," writes Ignatius to
the Romans ; and again to the Magnesians, " Whoever is
called by any other name than this [Christian] is not of
God." " I am a Christian," says Polycarp to the proconsul.
The martyrs at Lyons and Vienne proclaim themselves
Christians ; and in the Clementine Liturgy prayer is offered
"for every Christian soul," and God is thanked "that the
name of Christ has been called upon us." 2
1 1 John ii. 20 ; 2 Cor. i. 21 ; 1 John ii. 27.
2 Ignatius, Romans, c. iii. ; Magnesians, c. x. Polycarp's Martyrdom, c. x. Letter
from Lyons and Vienne, Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., Lib. v. c. j. Clementine Liturgy, Dea
cons' Litany and Thanksgiving after Communion.

l60 PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES.
6. In connection with the mission of Barnabas and Paul,
as bearers of alms to Jerusalem for the relief of the brethren
in Judaea, we find the first mention of presbyters or elders.
No special account is given us, such as we find in the case
of the deacons, of their institution or of the mode of their
appointment. Their existence, not only at Jerusalem, but
elsewhere, is abundantly proved from Holy Scripture. In
returning from their first missionary tour, Sts. Paul and Bar
nabas " ordained them elders [presbyters] in every Church."
St. Paul summoned the "elders [presbyters] of the Church"
of Ephesus to Miletus ; and we find them at Philippi, at
Ephesus again, and in Crete.1 Many early writers thought
that they, as well as the deacons, were taken from the
seventy whom the Lord appointed after He had chosen the
twelve.2 St. Paul alone, of all the New-Testament writers, uses
another word to designate this order in the Ministry, namely,
bishops [e7i.o-K._-o-_].3 St. Luke when he is writing history,
St. James, and St. Peter, speak of them only as presbyters
[_7_e(./3-.epo..].4 This, therefore, would seem to have been
their proper title, and St. Paul had apparently in mind the
character of their office and its duties ; while their proper
appellation took cognizance of their age rather than of their
work. Nor does St. Paul always call them episcopoi ; on the
contrary, he just as often terms them presbyters.
Theodoret tells us 5 " that they formerly called the same
persons presbyters and bishops, and those who are now called
1 Acts xiv. 23, xx 17; Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. v. 1 ; Tit. i. 5
2 Luke x. j. See Archbishop Potter, Church Government, chap, ii., at the end.
3 Acts xx. 28 ; Phil. i. 1 ; 1 Tim. iii. 1,2; Tit. i. 7.
* Acts xiv. 23, xx. 17 ; Jas. v. 14; 1 Pet. v i.
s Theodoret on 1 Tim. iii. As Theodoret was placed in a monastery at the age of
seven years, under the tuition of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Chrysostom, and became
bishop of Cyrus in Syria in 420, this carries his testimony back to within three hundred
years of tlie Apostolic age. And when one remembers how few intei mediate witnesses
this period would require to fill up tiie gap between him and that age, his testimony may
surely be received. On new applications of old words, see Bentley 's Answer to Collins,
in Bishop Randolph's Enchiridion, vol. v. p, 203 ff.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE MISSION TO THE GENTILES. l6l
bishops they called apostles ; but as time went on, they left
the name apostle to those who were truly apostles, and to
those that were once called apostles they gave the name of
bishops." It is quite obvious that the presbyters occupy a position
intermediate between apostles and deacons. Nor do we
find any other orders of ministers than these three, men
tioned in the Acts. For when Philip is called an evangelist,
is it immediately added that he was "one of the seven." '
1 Acts xxi. 8.

1 62

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.

SECTION VI.
THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
(Chap, xii.)

i. Now about that time Herod the king
stretched forth his hands to vex certain of
the church.
2. And he killed James the brother of
John with the sword.
3. And because he saw it pleased the
Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter
also. (Then were the days of unleavened
bread )
4. And when he had apprehended him,
he put him in prison, and delivered him to
four quaternions of soldiers to keep him;
intending after Easter to bring him forth to
the people.
5. Peter therefore was kept in prison :
but prayer was made without ceasing of
the church unto God for him.
6. And when Herod would have brought
him forth, the same night Peter was sleep
ing between two soldiers, bound with two
chains : and the keepers before the door
kept the prison.
7. And, behold, the angel of the Lord
came upon him, and a light shined in the
prison : and he smote Peter on the side, and
raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly.
And his chains fell off from his hands.
8. And the angel said unto him, Gird
thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so
he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy
garment about thee, and follow me.
9. And he went out, and followed him;
and wist not that it was true which was done
by the angel ; but thought he saw a vision.
10. When they were past the first and the
second ward, they came unto the iron gate
that leadeth unto the city ; which opened
to them of his own accord : and they went
out, and passed on through one street ; and
forthwith the angel departed from him.
11. And when Peter was come to him
self, he said, Now I know of a surety, that
the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath de

livered me out of the hand of Herod, and
from all the expectation of the people of
the Jews.
12. And when he had considered ihe
thing, he came to the house of Mary the
mother of John, whose surname was Mark ;
where many were gathered together praying.
13. And as Peter knocked at the door of
the gate, a damsel came to hearken, named
Rhoda. 14. And when she knew Peter's voice, she
opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in,
and told how Peter stood before the gate.
15. And they said unto her, Thou art
mad. But she constantly affirmed that it
was even so. Then said they, It is his
angel. 16. But Peter continued knocking' and
when they had opened the door, and saw
him, they were astonished.
17. But he, beckoning unto them w.ith the
hand to hold their peace, declared unto them
how the Lord had brought him out of the
prison. And he said, Go shew these things
unto James, and to the brethren. And he
departed, and went into another place.
18. Now as soon as it was day, there was
no small stir among the soldiers, what was
become of Peter.
19. And when Herod had sought for him,
and found him not, he examined the keepers,
and commanded that they should be put to
death. And he went down from Judasa
to Caisarea, and there abode.
20. If And Herod was highly displeased
with them of Tyre and Sidon : but they
came with one accord to him, and, having
made Blastus the king's chamberlain their
friend, desired peace ; because their country
was nourished by the king's country.
21. And upon a set day Herod, arrayed
in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and
made an oration unto them.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 163
22, And the people gave a shout, saying, 24. % But the word of God grew and
It is the voice ol a god, and not of a man. multiplied.
23. And immediately the angel of the 25. And Barnabas and Saul returned from
Lord smote him, because he gave not God Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their
the glory : and he was eaten of worms, and ministry, and took with them John, whose
gave up the ghost. surname was Mark.
1. Hitherto the persecutions of the disciples have ori
ginated with, and been carried on by, the Jews. Now we
reach the point where, whatever may have been the origi
nating cause of the attack, the power of pagan Rome ap
pears as directly concerned in it. In how many ways does
this Book of Acts present an epitome of the fortunes of
the Church ! The trials from without, originating in the
frenzied hatred of the Jew, or the " superb contempt " of
the Roman, and involving threatening, imprisonment, scour
ging, death ; the trial from within, the sins of Ananias and
Sapphira, and of Simon Magus, and the worse than follies
of the Judaizers, — how much of the future story of the
Church is imaged in these things ! And then, God be
thanked, on the other side, the growth without and the
growth within, the increase of the mustard-seed, and
the working of the leaven, souls gathered, holy lives, blessed
deaths, — all the proofs of a Divine presence, and a heavenly
life, in the mystical Body of Christ, the New Jerusalem, the
Church of the living God.
2. Several Herods are mentioned in the Gospels and Acts :
(1) Herod the Great, the rebuilder of the temple, and the
murderer of the Holy Innocents ; ' (2) Herod Antipas, son of
Herod the Great, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, the slayer
of John Baptist, and the one to whom Pilate sent our
Lord ;2 (3) Herod Philip I., the first husband of Herodias ;3
(4) Herod Philip II., "tetrarch of Iturea and the region of
Trachonitis;"4 (5) Herod Agrippa I., the Edomite, the
actor in this fourth persecution ; and (6) Herod Agrippa II.,
before whom and Festus, St. Paul made his defence.5
1 Matt. ii. 1. * Luke iii. _.
2 Matt. xiv. 1-12 ; Mark vi. 14-29 ; Luke ix. 7-9, xxiii. 7. s Acts xxv.
3 Mark vi. 17 ; Luke iii. 19.

164 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
If we may believe the testimony of Josephus, the Herod
here mentioned was beneficent and kindly in temper ; and,
while he " was more friendly to the Greeks than to the
Jews," he still "loved to live continually at Jerusalem," and
was so careful in the observance of the law that no day
"passed over his head without its appointed sacrifice." ' He
was also, however, selfishly ambitious and fond of popularity;
and therefore, as Pilate was " willing to content the people "
by giving up our Lord to be crucified, and as Felix and
Festus were "willing to do the Jews a pleasure"2 in the
case of St. Paul, so he, for similar reasons, " stretched forth
his hands to vex certain of the Church." His beneficence
and kindness were outward shows to promote his selfish
ends, and not principles that lived in his real character.
3. The James who is here mentioned as having met his
martyrdom, not by any Jewish punishment, but by that
sword which was one of the insignia of the civil power, was
the brother of John, and one of the three Apostles who
appear so distinctly in the Gospels.3 He is known as James
the Greater. The incident in the Gospels to which one's
thoughts go back is that visit of Salome, the wife of Zebedee,
to our Lord, when she joined with her two sons, James and
John, in asking that they might sit, the one on His right
hand and the other on His left, in His kingdom ; and when
our Lord asked whether they were able to drink of His cup
and be baptized with His baptism, and they replied that they
were able.4 The event proved that this was no vain boast.
The baptism and the cup came to St. James now in one
supreme moment ; to St. John they were present through
long years of patient endurance.
We may all of us well remember what Gregory the Great
says : " That there are two kinds of martyrdom, the one
1 Josephus, Antiquities, Book XIX., vii. 3.
2 Mark xv. 15 ; Acts xxiv. 27, xxv. 9.
3 Matt. xvii. ; 2 Pet. i. 18 ; Mark xiv. 33,
* Matt. xx. 20-23 ; Mark x. 35-40. Compare for the baptism, Luke xii. 50 ; and for
the cup, Mark xiv. 36

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 165
secret and the other public, our Lord Himself testifies ; who
when He had asked, 'Are ye able to drink of the cup that I
shall drink of?' and they had answered, 'We are able,' im
mediately added, 'Ye shall drink indeed of my cup.' For,
what is the cup but the anguish of the Passion? as He
says in another place, ' Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me.' The sons of Zebedee, James and John, did
not both die as martyrs, although both did drink of the cup.
For John, though he did not finish his life by martyrdom,
nevertheless stands forth a martyr. The suffering which he
did not endure in the body, he did endure in his soul. To
die, indeed, by the hand of the persecutor, is visible martyr
dom ; but it is also secret martyrdom to bear contumely, and
to love those that hate us. We, therefore, although we are
not slain with the sword of persecution, are still martyrs if
we truly preserve patience in our souls." ' In an age of
exaggeration and much unreality, such words are well worth
pondering. 4. The imprisonment of St. Peter is, to say the least, an
indication of the complete fulfilment of our Lord's words,
"another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou would
est not."2 His deliverance would prove to him that till the
time for that fulfilment came, when he should be old, he was
safe under the protection of Him whose angels are "all
ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall
be heirs of salvation."3
With the exception of the account of his presence and his
speech at the council in Jerusalem, no further mention of
St. Peter occurs in this book. He disappears from it as
completely as if he had met his death at the hands of Herod.
This disappearance is fully explained by the fact recorded in
the Epistle to the Galatians,4 that at the time of the council
1 Gregory the Great on Mark x. 38. The passage occurs in that part of the collec
tions from the expositions of Gregory which the Benedictine editors attribute to
Alulfus. John xxi. 18. 3 Heb. i. 14.
+ Gal. ii. 6-10. On the identity of this visit with that recorded in Acts xv., see
Lightfoot, Epistle to the Galatians, p. 122.

l66 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
the apostleship of the uncircumcision was transferred from
St. Peter to St. Paul ; " for He that wrought effectually in
Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was
mighty in [Paul] towards the Gentiles." Nor is it without
meaning, that, after St. Peter thus passed into the apostolate
of the circumcision, he is named after James " the Lord's
brother ; " and that, in immediate connection with this, we
are told how St, Paul at Antioch " withstood him to the face
because he was to be blamed." ' These things are simply
and absolutely inexplicable on the modern, ultramontane,
and Jesuit theory of a supremacy over the Church vested in
St. Peter. That theory involves as complete a break with
Scripture as it does with historic testimony.
5. The Mary at whose house the disciples were gathered
was probably a sister of Barnabas.2 Her son, John Mark, is
sometimes spoken of by his double name, sometimes as John,
sometimes as Mark.3 It would seem that he had been con
verted by St. Peter, who calls him his son.4 He accompanied
Barnabas and Saul when they returned to Antioch from
Jerusalem, and also went with them on their first missionary
journey. For some unexplained reason, though evidently one
not creditable to him, he left them at Perga in Pamphylia,
and went back to Jerusalem ; and this desertion on his part
gave rise to the " sharp contention " between Paul and
Barnabas.5 "It has been surmised that filial anxiety about
[his mother's] welfare during the persecutions and the fam
ine which distressed the Church at Jerusalem was the chief
cause of Mark's withdrawal from the missionary labors of
Paul and Barnabas."6 More probably it was a failing in cour-
1 Gal. ii. 9, 11.
2 Col. iv. 10. Alford in his Prolegomena [chap. iii. sec. 1] on the Gospels, makes
Mary the sister of Barnabas, and in his comment on Acts xii. 12 says she was his
aunt! 3 John Mark, Acts xii. 12, 25, and xv. 37; John, Acts xiii. 5, 13; Mark, Acts xv.
39; Col. iv. 10; 2 Tim. iv. 11 , Phil. 24.
4 1 Pet. v. 13.
5 Acts xiii. 13, xv. 38, 39.
6 Dean Plumptre in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 167
age to meet the difficulties and dangers of the way. What
ever it was, it is clear that it did not permanently separate
him from the Apostle to the Gentiles. For St. Paul men
tions him as one of his "fellow workers unto the kingdom
of God who have been a comfort unto " him ; and, in the
last Epistle that he ever wrote, commends him, as profitable
to [him] for the ministry.1
The testimony of all antiquity connects Mark closely with
St. Peter, and makes him the Apostle's amanuensis and in
terpreter.2 If some of the most distinguished of the early
writers and historians may be believed, he accompanied St.
Peter to Rome, and was afterwards sent on a mission to
Egypt, where he founded the Church of Alexandria, so long
a centre of the best learning, and so prominent in early
Christian history ; thence he went preaching in various
places ; but returned finally to Alexandria, became its bishop,
and suffered martyrdom.3
6. When the damsel who had recognized St. Peter's voice
persisted in declaring to those who had assembled to pray for
his deliverance that he stood at the gate, they replied, " It is
his angel." In saying this they simply expressed a common
belief of the Jews of our Lord's time, a belief general, also,
among the early Christians, and assuredly forbidden to no
one to entertain, — that to each person there is allotted a
guardian angel, whose special ministrations are devoted to
him. Bishop Bull says all that need be said on this matter.
After quoting our Lord's words, "their angels do always
1 Col. iv. 10, ir ; 2 Tim. iv. 11.
2 Irenseus, Against Heresies (Lib. III. chap. i. § 1), calls him " the disciple and inter
preter of Peter ; " and again (Lib. III. chap. x. § 6), " the interpreter and follower of
Peter." 3 Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome, all bear this testimony.
Whatever may be thought of St. Mark's visit to Rome, his relations to St. Peter and
his connection with Alexandria and Egypt appear to be established. Bishop Pearson —
V as others also have done — thought that the Babylon spoken of at the conclusion of St.
{ Peter's second Epistle was neither Rome nor Babylon the Great, but Babylon in Egypt.
I otherwise Tuvown as Old Cairo. Pearson, Minor Works, vol. ii. p. 353 ff.

l68 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
behold the face of my Father which is in heaven," * he goes
on: ". . . Another text, which seems plainly to countenance
the opinion of guardian angels, is that known one in the
twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where we read
that St. Peter having been imprisoned by Herod, and being
miraculously delivered out of prison by an angel, presently
comes to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose sur
name was Mark, where many Christians were met together
unto prayer, and probably praying for St. Peter's deliver
ance ; coming to this house, and knocking and desiring
entrance, the maid that came to the door hearing and know
ing his voice, and being surprised with joy and wonder at his
unexpected coming, left the door shut as it was, and, run
ning back to the company, tells them that Peter was at the
door. But they, being persuaded that Peter was at that time
fast enough in his chains, slighted the maid's report, yea,
and accused her of madness. But she soberly and constantly
affirming that it was even so as she had said, they then (sup
posing it impossible it should be Peter himself) make this
conclusion, It is his angel ; i.e., his guardian angel, assuming
at that time his shape and voice. The whole story you may
read, vv. 1 2-16 of that chapter.
" They who tell us here that the word ayyeA.os may be
translated a messenger, and so be understood of a messen
ger sent by St. Peter from his prison, to give the brethren
intelligence of his concerns, do, in my judgment, fasten an
intolerably absurd sense upon the text. For, with what
reason, I beseech you, could those Christians imagine that
the maid, to whom the Apostle was so well known (as the
text itself expressly affirms), should mistake a messenger
from Peter for Peter himself, especially after the maid had
so positively and constantly affirmed that she was sure it
1 Matt, xviii. io. As in most cases, so here, there are two opposite errors to be avoided :
first, the practical denial that there are such beings as angels ; and, secondly, the offering
worship to a guardian angel, which must be, of necessity, an act of idolatry. Angels
refused worship when attempted to be offered by St. John. One angel only claimed it,
and he was a fallen one. Matt. iv. 9 ; Luke iv. 7.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 169
was Peter ? Besides, if the Christian brethren, when they
made this conclusion, It is his angel, had meant only that it
was a messenger from St. Peter, they would doubtless have
presently either gone themselves, or sent the maid again to
the door to let in the messenger, that they might know what
news he brought from the Apostle, about whom they were
so solicitous. But this they did not, as the text plainly inti
mates, being under a consternation, till after the continual
knocking of St. Peter ; and then they took courage to go
themselves and open the door.
" Lastly, It is here again to be remembered that the per
sons who spoke these words, It is his angel, were Jews, and
consequently that the words are to be understood as spoken
ex sententia Judcsorum, in a sense agreeable to the opinion of
the Jews, who generally acknowledged such guardian angels,
as hath been already more than once observed. This opin
ion they retained after they had been taught the doctrine
of Christianity ; nor doth the holy text reflect any the least
blame upon their opinion." '
" From these and the like texts of Scripture, seeming so
plainly to favor the general belief of Jews, Christians, yea,
and of the wiser heathens, I cannot but judge it highly
probable that every faithful person at least hath his particu
lar good genius, or angel, appointed by God over him, as the
guardian and guide of his life. But yet, if any man shall look
on our inferences from these texts as not demonstrative, and
shall modestly doubt of or dissent from so received an
opinion, for my part I shall not quarrel with him, provided
that in general he acknowledges the ministry of angels for
1 It is almost inconceivable, but nevertheless true, that there are persons, who, when
they read the words " It is his angel," suppose them to mean that St. Peter's ghost had
appeared to the damsel I This absurd mistake grows out of some confused idea that
good people when they die become angels ; an idea fostered by certain so-called hymns.
In a New-England burial-ground there is a headstone which says of the person whom it
commemorates, that on a given day " her ethereal part became a seraph."
Indeed, the prevalent irrecognition of the existence of angels, and the rejection of the
doctrine of the intermediate state, cannot but help to make people the victims of
the wildest delusions, even those of Swedenborgianism and Spiritualism.

170 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
the good of those who shall be heirs of salvation, as need
shall require."
7. After St. Peter has concluded the account of his deliver
ance, he adds, " Go show these things unto James and to
the brethren." Who is this James ? He cannot, of course,
be " James the brother of John," whose martyrdom had
preceded St. Peter's imprisonment. There can be no doubt
that the person intended is "James the Lord's brother,"
whom St. Paul saw on his first visit to the Church in Jerusa
lem.' This James sustained a very special relation to that
Church. For, besides St. Paul's visit to him, just noted, and
St. Peter's reference to him here, we find him presiding in
the Council of Jerusalem ; to him St. Paul "went in" on his
return from his third missionary tour ; and they who came
from Jerusalem, disturbing the Church at Antioch, "came
from James." 2 What possible reason can be given against
saying with all antiquity that he was the first Bishop of
Jerusalem ?
Was he one of the original twelve ? If so, he must have
been "James the son of Alphaeus," known as "James the
Less;" for, in addition to the consideration just spoken of,
St. Mark says expressly, that " Mary the mother of James the
Less " (literally the little), who must have been the wife of
Alphaeus, "was looking on afar off" at our Lord's cruci
fixion ; 3 while it is certain that Salome, and not Mary, was
the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James the Greater, and
John.4 Still there are very great difficulties in the way of identify
ing James the Less with James the Lord's brother. It is
impossible to note them in detail here, and it must suffice
to mention two principal ones. In the first place, we are
told that at a period undoubtedly subsequent to the appoint
ment of the twelve, when, indeed, our Lord was taking His
1 Gal. i. 19 ; compare Acts ix. 27.
2 Acts xv. 13, xxi. 18; Gal. ii. 12.
3 Mark xv. 40.
* Matt, xxvii. 56, compared with Mark xv. 40.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 171
final departure from Galilee, His brethren did not believe in
Him.' Now, this could hardly have been said, had one of
them so conspicuously believed in Him as to be numbered
among the Apostles. Jerome attempts to meet the difficulty
by saying that James " was not one of those who disbe
lieved." But this is mere conjecture. In the next place,
at a period still subsequent to the call of the twelve, our
Lord's brethren are clearly distinguished from the Apostles
as they come with His mother "desiring to speak with
Him ; " 2 and the same distinction is made when we are
told that the Apostles, having returned from the mountain
of the Ascension, " continued with one accord in prayer and
supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus,
and with His brethren."3
It may be asked whether there is any account in the New
Testament of James's abandonment of his disbelief in our
Lord. The reply must be, there is no direct account. But
there is something in the fifteenth chapter of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, which may throw some light upon
the matter. St. Paul there gives an enumeration of those to
whom our Lord appeared after His resurrection, as follows :
" He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. [After that]
He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of
whom the greater part remain unto this day, but some are
fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of all
the apostles." Now it is, of course, possible that the James
mentioned here was one of the twelve. But it seems more
probable that he was not ; for if with the twelve he had
already seen the Lord, it adds nothing to the number of
witnesses to name him again and by himself. And the
Apostle's purpose is evidently to enumerate the witnesses
to the resurrection, and not the appearances of our Lord.
The only objection to this adding James to the Apostles is,
1 John vii. 5.
2 Matt. xii. 46 ; Mark iii. 31 ; Luke viii. 19.
3 Acts i. 14.

I72 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
that the magical number twelve will be destroyed by being
increased. But this it must be, at any rate. For even if
the phrase " all the Apostles " is to be understood as mean
ing only the twelve (which is highly improbable), still
St. Paul must be added here, and from other places in the
New Testament we must also add, to say the least, Barnabas,
Andronicus, and Junia ; while, if the magical number ' is once
overpassed, it cannot matter how many are to be added to it.
Where all is conjecture, may we not venture to suppose,
that "James the brother of the Lord," having seen Him
after His resurrection, abandoned his unbelief, and with
the other brethren joined himself to the disciples, and was
placed by the college of apostles at the head of the Church
in Jerusalem ? Anyhow, if he is to be included in the
original twelve, he furnishes the first instance of a localized
apostleship. If he is not to be so included, he furnishes
the first instance of an extended, as well as a localized,
apostleship. In either case we find in Jerusalem a body of
Deacons and a body of Presbyters, with one set over them
as Apostle or Bishop, or what you will ; an arrangement
which looks marvellously like a Diocesan Episcopacy exist
ing in the "Apostles' time."
Another question is raised concerning this James ; namely,
how are we to understand the appellation, "the brother of
the Lord " ? And this question carries with it the interpre
tation of the phrase, "the brethren of the Lord." It can
never be so answered as to preclude all doubt and discus
sion, nor is it important that it should be.
In the early ages the prevalent opinion (one cannot say
universal) was that the brethren of the Lord were the sons
of Joseph by a former wife, and were so called in the same
way that Joseph was called His father, " by an exceptional
use of the term adapted to the exceptional fact of the mirac-
1 The Church has always regarded the number twelve as a mystical number, implying
completeness. It was reserved to the advocates of parity to turn mystery into supersti
tion, and give a magical character to the mystical number.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 1 73
ulous Incarnation." Tertullian appears to be the only writer
of note who dissented from this opinion.
Towards the close of the fourth century (about 383), one
Helvidius, who lived at Rome, writing against the notion
that a celibate life was, in itself, superior in holiness to a
married life, took the ground that our Lord's mother bore
other children to Joseph.
In replying to him, Jerome advocated an entirely novel
view ; namely, that the Lord's brethren were, according to
the flesh, only His cousins, the sons of Alphaeus, whose
wife Mary he regarded as the sister of our Lord's mother."
The first of these three opinions has widely prevailed in
the Eastern Church, while the third has met with more
acceptance in the West. Of late years, indeed, among
European writers and scholars, the first theory has largely
dropped out of sight, and discussion has turned mainly on
the second and third. I confess that, notwithstanding its
apparent abandonment, the oldest view appears to me the
most probable.
8. It is not without interest, to read, in connection with
St. Luke's account of the death of Herod, the narrative of
Josephus : —
" Now, when Agrippa had reigned three years over all
Judaea, he came to the city Caesarea, which was formerly
called Strata's Tower; and there he exhibited shows in
honor of Caesar, upon his being informed that there was a
certain festival celebrated to make vows for his safety ; at
which festival a great multitude was gotten together of the
principal persons, and such as were of dignity through his
province. On the second day of which shows, he put on a
garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture truly
wonderful, and came into the theatre early in the morning ;
at which time the silver of his garment, being illuminated by
« This whole subject is treated very fully by Bishop Lightfoot, in Dissertation II.
appended to his Commentary on Galatians. The reader may also be referred to a brief
Treatise, James tlie Lord's Brother, by Chauncey W. Fitch, D.D.

I74 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
the first reflection of the sun's rays upon it, shone out after
a surprising manner, and was so resplendent as to spread
a horror over those that looked intently upon him ; and
presently his flatterers cried out, one from one place and
another from another (though not for his good), that 'he
was a god ; ' and they added, ' Be thou merciful to us ; for,
although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man,
yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal
nature.'" "Upon this the king did neither rebuke them, nor reject
their impious flattery. But as he presently afterward looked
up, he saw an owl sitting on a certain rope over his head,
and immediately understood that this bird was the messenger
of ill tidings, as it had once been the messenger of good
tidings to him ; and fell into the deepest sorrow. A severe
pain also arose in his bowels, and began in a most violent
manner. He, therefore, looked upon his friends, and said,
'I, whom you call a god, am commanded presently to depart
this life ; while Providence thus reproves the lying words
you just now said to me ; and I, who was by you called
immortal, am immediately to be hurried away by death. But
I am bound to accept of what Providence allots, as it pleases
God ; for we have by no means lived ill, but in a splendid
and happy manner.' When he said this, his pain was be
come violent. Accordingly he was carried into the palace ;
and the rumor went abroad everywhere, that he would cer
tainly die in a little time. But the multitude presently sat
in sackcloth, with their wives and children, after the law of
their country, and besought God for the king's recovery.
All places were also full of mourning and lamentation. Now
the king rested in a high chamber ; and, as he saw them
below lying prostrate on the ground, he could not himself
forbear weeping. And when he had been quite worn out by
the pain for five days, he departed this life." '
1 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIX , c. viii. _. Compare Book XVIII.
c. vi. 7.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 1 75
Thus far we have read of the days preceding the great
Pentecost, of the birthday of the Church, of the mission to
the Jews and Samaritans, and of the preparations for the
world-wide mission to the Gentiles. It is a brief narrative,
and yet how much it contains ! The primordia, the founda
tions of that Covenant Kingdom which is to carry to the
nations God's final revelation of Himself, have been brought
before us. We have seen the outlines, if nothing more, of
its organization, its ministry, its sacraments, and its worship.
We have been told of the doctrine committed to it to teach,
the ideal and the law of life it is to enjoin on men, and of
the great motive-power which stands behind and gives life
to doctrine, ideal, and law. Where shall we find that motive-
power? In the Holy Ghost, concerning whom it has been
well said, " Christ's errand being done, and He gone up on
high, the Spirit came down for Him and in His Name and
stead, to take the charge and to estabHsh an order in the
Church." ' Even at the risk of repetition, some closing
words must be added.
This book has been called the "Gospel of the Holy
Ghost." And it may well be so called.2 It begins with the
mention of the commandments, which "through the Holy
Ghost " the Lord gave to His Apostles, and the promises
that they should " be baptized with the Holy Ghost," and
should "receive power after that the Holy Ghost" had
come upon them. It ends with the application to the Jews
of the words which "the Holy Ghost spake by Esaias the
prophet ; " and all along the course of the history, we find
the record of the "diversities of gifts," all proceeding from
"the same Spirit."3 The gift of sanctifying grace, given
to each man for his individual building-up in the Christian
life ; the gifts of special endowments to be used for the com
mon profits whatever may become of us; the gift of grace
¦ Andrewes, On the Sending ofthe Holy Ghost. John Scott, Christian Life, chap. vii.
sec. vi. § vi.
2 See Dean Howson's Bohlen Lectures for 1SS1, p. 177, ff.
3 1 Cor. xii. 4. 4 1 Cor. xii. 7 ; irpos to av^ipav.

176 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
for a holy calling,1 even the ministry of Christ and the
stewardship of the mysteries of God,2 — all these come
through the one Spirit, and are specially presented in this
Book of Acts as so coming ; and He, therefore, is made promi
nent in this third age of Divine revelation — in which indeed
we are living — as the One Paraclete dwelling in the CJhurch
as the Body of Christ, and, equally, in the souls of individual
Christians. Fie of whom the angel said to the Blessed Virgin, "The •
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee ; therefore, also, that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God,"3 He it was by whom the Lord Jesus was "conceived
by the Holy Ghost," and so became " Incarnate." Nor, thus
appearing at the beginning of our Lord's human life, does
He disappear, and leave the -Incarnation an isolated act.
On the contrary, poured on Christ's humanity "not by meas
ure," 4 He abides with that humanity, and ever and always
sanctifies it.
In like manner, when the Lord's mystical Body was to
come into the world, even His Church, " the fulness of Him
that filleth all in all," 5 it was the power of the Highest in
the Holy Ghost that gave it life on the day of Pentecost, and
that, " shed on it abundantly," is, according to the Lord's own
promise, to "abide with it forever."6 So are made good the
Apostle's words, " For through Him we have access by one
Spirit unto the Father." ?
This Dispensation, therefore, under which we are living, is
the Dispensation of the Spirit. In it the Holy Spirit ever
worketh. All is done by Him. Wherefore all is spiritual,
and not fleshly ; all is lifted out of man's sphere of opera-
1 Eph. iii. 7, 8.
* Bishop Andrewes, as above, Sermon XV. : Bishop Sanderson, Sermon III., Ad
Clerum. 3 Luke i. 35. 6 John xiv. 16.
* John iii. 34. 7 Eph. ii. 18.
5 Eph. i. 23.

THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. 177
tion ; all is lifted up to a plane far above any thing that is
carnal and material.
Now, this blessed truth is in danger from more quarters
than one. There are those who can not or will not see " that
as the Son was equally God with the Holy Ghost, when the
Holy Ghost descended on Him at His baptism as man, so
the Holy Ghost was equally God with the Son when sent by
Him from heaven on His ascension to apply the benefits
of His Incarnation,"' including His one sacrifice, to his
elect on earth. Failing to grasp this truth, and therefore
fearing lest by admitting the work of the Spirit they may
derogate from the honor of the Son,2 they shrink from
the full meaning of the words of the Constantinopolitan
Symbol, " the Lord the Life-Giver," in which they confess
with their lips what they — we may hope unconsciously —
deny in their hearts, touching the Third Person in the ever-
blessed Trinity.
Others, again, having lost all idea of the personality of the
Holy Ghost, and conceiving of Him only as a Divine quality,
or, at most, a Divine influence, cannot comprehend, or make
real to themselves, His relation to the Covenant Body of the
Christian Dispensation. His name occurs, indeed, to them
in the forms of baptism and of blessing, and they read
about Him in the New Testament. But no thought of Him
as an actual Person administering the " dispensation of the
fulness of times " ever occurs to them ; while the idea of
addressing a prayer to Him would strike them with astonish
ment, if with nothing more.
Still others, forgetting apparently that sacraments do not
stand in the natural, but in the supernatural order, and
taking up materialistic theories concerning them, especially
concerning the Holy Eucharist, fix the thought upon the
act of the earthly minister, and do not rise to Him who
' Ffoulkes, Primitive Consecration, etc., p. 11.
2 The difficulty is as old as the time of Basil (370), who answered it in his treatise
De Spiritu Sancto,

178 THE FOURTH PERSECUTION.
works in all sacraments and means of grace, the One Spirit
by whom " we are all baptized into one body, . . . and have
been made to drink into one Spirit." '
One there is, and only one, who has dared to arrogate to
himself the title that belongs of right to the Holy Spirit,
and to claim for himself that power which is the special
power of the same Spirit ; the power of which our Lord
spake when He said to His Apostles, "When He, the Spirit
of truth, is come, tie will guide you into all truth." 2
Against all such misconceptions, perversions, pitiable
neglect, or arrogant assumption, this Book of Acts makes
continual and continuous protest. Its teaching, in this
regard, is the culmination of all its teaching, historical,
doctrinal, or ethical.
"The way to the knowledge of God is from the One
Spirit, through the One Son, to the One Father. And, on
the other hand, the natural order of goodness and sanctifica
tion, 3 and the regal dignity extends from the Father, by the
Only-Begotten, to the Spirit."
"He saith, 'There are differences of gifts, but the same
Spirit ; and there are differences of administrations, but the
same Lord ; and there are differences of operations, but the
same God, which worketh all in all.' And again he saith,
' All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing
to every man severally as He will.' Let us not think that
because the Apostle mentions first the Spirit, next the Son,
and thirdly God and the Father, he intends to change the
usual order. For he begins from our own relative position.
We, receiving gifts, first meet Him who distributes them,
then we recognize Him through whom they come, and so
lift up our thoughts to the Source and Cause of all good
things."4 1 1 Cor. xii. 13.
2 John xvi. 13.
3 Rom. ii. 14, 15, 25-29 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; 1 Pet. i. 2.
* Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, sects, xxxvii., xlvii. ; in Harvey's Eccl. Ang. Vindex
Catholicus, vol. i. pp. 382, 399.

£829