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REFLECTIONS.

1. THE faith of so many Jews in a miraculous cure, is a decisive testimony in favour of the divine authority of those by whom it was performed. That so many thousand persons, of all ages and descriptions, in full possession of their senses, should have been deceived in a case so plain, where they had been eye-witnesses of the past and present condition of the man who was said to be relieved, and when many of them must have seen the change actually take place, is impossible. And it is also impossible that the person who performed such a miracle, as a proof of a commission to be a divine teacher, should not be what he professes that he is. For miracles are the works of God alone; it is he only who can change the course of nature, which himself has established; and we may be assured that he will never suspend his operations in support of a falsehood. Whoever, therefore, receives the sanction of miracles to his testimony, is supported by the authority of the Deity. In that light let us regard these men, and bow to their decisions on all subjects to which their commission extended.

2. Let us rejoice to hear, from such authority, that Christ shall be in heaven, that is, his religion in a state of power, until the completion of all things which have been foretold. For a time it may lie buried under a mass of superstitious practices and corrupt doctrines; but it shall spring again, with fresh vigour, from the root which is left alive, and again become a great tree, so that the birds of the air may lodge in the branches thereof. Amongst all the revolutions in the world, the name of Jesus shall be held in estimation, and his religion prevail, and the time at length come, when, the corruptions unhappily incorporated with it being removed, the princes and powers of this world who supported them being overthrown, it shall triumph over all opposition, and accomplish all the predicted purposes of divine goodness. In the most gloomy periods, when many reject and many corrupt the Christian doctrine, let Christians support their minds with these prospects. There is no cause for despondency, while we have such promises.

3. Let the subject of the apostles' preaching, a resurrection from the dead, be the leading topic of discourse amongst all Christian instructers. No doctrine is better calculated to awaken the fears of the guilty, or to encourage the endeavours, and to promote the comfort of the virtuous. It is the distinguishing doctrine and principal glory of the Christian system; it is what the ignorant heathen knew nothing of; what the Jews, although they believed it, could derive from no just authority, and what can never be proved from the light of reason.

SECTION V.

The apostles are imprisoned and brought before the Sanhedrim, and dismissed with an injunction of silence.

1.

ACTS iv. 1-22.

AND as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them;

The priests, who attended in great numbers, to perform the service of the temple, were arranged into different divisions, according to the object for which they were designed, over which a president or officer was appointed, who was called the captain of the temple.*

The pretext for the interference of this officer and the other persons here mentioned, was, no doubt, that the apostles created a disturbance, by assembling such a multitude; but they were secretly influenced by another motive.

2. Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

The Sadducees disbelieved this doctrine; and although it might be an article of faith with the rest, yet they were displeased to find that it was supposed to receive fresh sanction and authority from the resurrection and instructions of Jesus, a man whom they had lately crucified as a malefactor. We learn from this passage what it was that the apostles regarded as the primary and distinguishing doctrine of the Christian system; it was a resurrection from the dead; for it was this which they first preached to the people.

3. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day; for it was now even-tide.

4. Howbeit, "Nevertheless," many of them which heard the word, Peter's discourse just recited, believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.

This number of converts was added on this occasion to those before mentioned, making in all the number of eight thousand. So rapid was the success of the gospel!

5. And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes,

6. And Annas the highpriest, and Caiaphas, and

* Lardner, Vol. I.

p. 106.

Harwood (Liberal Translation) thinks that he was

captain of a band of soldiers that guarded the temple.

John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high-priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem.

This is a description of the highest court of Justice among the Jews, usually called the Sanhedrim, consisting of seventy or seventy-two members, who were probably chosen from among the priests, the magistrates of inferior courts, here called rulers, the elders of the tribes, and also from among the scribes, or those persons whose profession it was to transcribe or correct copies of the law. This council sat in the form of a circle, the president being on the side, and the prisoner placed in the middle.

There has been difficulty in accounting for Annas being here called high-priest, when the evangelists Matthew and John inform us that Caiaphas possessed that office at this time, and Luke himself, the writer of this history, tells us that Annas and Caiaphas were both high-priests in the year when the word of God came to John the Baptist. To reconcile these seemingly discordant accounts, it has been supposed that Annas, having once been highpriest, although at present deposed from his office by the Romans, still retained the name, and was probably thought by many of the Jews to be still entitled to the office.* The reason why he alone is called high-priest on this occasion may be, that he was the president of the Sanhedrim.

7. And when they had set them, the two apostles and the man, in the midst, they asked, By what power, or in what name, have ye done this?

By what powers of medicine have ye performed this cure, if it be a natural one; or in whose name, if it be miraculous? By these questions, they hoped either to cast discredit on the miracle, or to discover some ground of accusation against them.

3. Then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel,

9. If we this day be examined of the good state of the infirm man, by what means he is healed,

10. Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you healed.

"Filled with the Holy Spirit." By this phrase we are to understand, not that Peter was aided by any extraordinary inspiration upon the present occasion; for there is nothing in his speech

* Pearce and Lardner.

which might not naturally be suggested by the circumstances of the case, and for which, therefore, divine aid could be wanted; but that, being conscious to himself of possessing extraordinary miraculous powers, manifested by the late event, and especially by the gift of tongues, he acquired thence an extraordinary degree of courage, to assert in the presence of the council what he then declared; namely, that Jesus Christ, whom they had crucified, was the author of the miracle about which they were inquiring; that God had raised him from the dead, and that, therefore, they were guilty of a great crime in putting him to death. Nothing but the fullest persuasion that he was countenanced by divine authority could have enabled him to hold this language, in such a situation.

Jesus is here and elsewhere called Jesus of Nazareth; a strong presumption that that town was the place of his nativity, and not Bethlehem, as some accounts would lead us to suppose. For as it appears, from John vii. 42, that the Jews expected their Christ to come from Bethlehem, had he really been born there, no doubt can be entertained that his disciples would have named him after that place, Jesus of Bethlehem, in order to remove the objections of the Jews, and to give greater credibility to his claims.

11. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.

A stone at the head of the corner connects and binds together the whole building, and, therefore, occupies the most important and conspicuous place in it. To such an exalted situation does Peter say that Jesus is now raised, in the structure which God is erecting; being the head of the Christian church, and superior to all former prophets and messengers. The evidence of this exaltation is his being raised from the dead; an honour conferred on no preceding prophet, and his enabling his followers to perform such extraordinary miracles as the present. This language is taken from Ps. cxviii. 22, and is used by David respecting himself, whose exaltation to the throne of Israel had been opposed by the rulers of that nation; but is applied, by way of accommodation, both by Jesus and his apostles, to the Messiah.

12. Neither is there restoration to soundness in any other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we may be saved.

To be saved, in the New Testament, frequently signifies the same thing as to be cured. Thus Christ says more than once to persons upon whom he had performed miraculous cures, Thy faith hath saved thee. When Peter, therefore, says here that there is salvation in no other name than that of Jesus, he means that miraculous cures, or deliverance from bodily maladies, can be accomplished by no authority but his. This sense of the passage connects extremely well with the preceding circumstances, which cannot be said of the common interpretation, which supposes an eternal and not a temporal deliverance to be here spoken of; for Peter, being asked

in what name the cure had been performed, replies, In the name of Jesus; and adds, that such cures can be performed in no other

name.

13. Now when they of Peter and John, and unlearned and common

saw the freedom of speech discovered that they were men, they wondered; and

they recollected that they had been with Jesus.

The common translation of this verse is particularly unhappy, because it represents the apostles as ignorant men, a character which they did not deserve, and which the council did not mean to give them; for they probably had as much, if not more, knowledge of religion and the Scriptures than most other men of their station in life. That they had some pretensions to knowledge, appears from their works, one of them having written a history of Christ, and the other, two epistles, preserved to the present day. All that the words of the original imply is, that they were unlearned and common persons, in opposition to the council, which was composed of men of learning and high rank. The behaviour of such persons, when brought before their superiors, especially in a court of justice, is commonly timid and embarrassed; but the two apostles, conscious of being supported by divine power, spoke with a freedom which could not be expected from their station, and excited the astonishment of their hearers, who knew not whence it proceeded. That some of the members of the Sanhedrim should recollect having seen them with Jesus, is what might be expected since they themselves used occasionally to attend upon his ministry, and we are expressly told that John was known to the high-priest, at the time when he followed Jesus to his trial.

14. And And beholding the man which was cured. standing with them, they could say nothing against it, "against them."

It was in vain to deny the reality of the miracle; for the man himself, upon whom it was performed, appeared before them, and was probably well known to them all.

15. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,

16. Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable, "an undoubted," miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell at Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it :

17. But that it, i. e. this matter, spread no further among the people, let us strictly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name, "about this name," i. e. about Jesus.

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