tible with our responsibility. If we do not believe, it is because we will not; if we do believe, it is because the Spirit of God works within us to will and to do of his good pleasure. The old text so often quoted contains the whole truth: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling"-if it had stopped there, we should have concluded that heaven is a result secured by our own exertions; but it does not stop there-"for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure." And therefore as many as are thus wrought within to will and to do of God's good pleasure, believe the Gospel, and are saved.

Such, then, is God's grace, and such was the result of that Gospel taken from the Jews, whose unbelief repelled it, and given to the Gentiles, in whose hearts God wrought by his Holy Spirit to receive the things that were addressed to them, and, receiving these, to believe unto life everlasting. "As many therefore," says the apostle, "as were prepared and disposed for eternal life, by the. Holy Spirit influencing them, believed and were saved."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SYNAGOGUE AND CHRISTIANITY-HATRED OF JEWS-GOSPEL CONFIRMED BY SIGNS AND WONDERS-A UNITED ATTACK ON THE APOSTLES -EXCITEMENT IN RELIGION-THE LAME HEALED-EXTREMESPERSECUTION AND IDOLATRY-PAUL'S ADDRESS-APOSTOLIC PRO

GRESS CONFIRMING-CONTINUANCE IN THE FAITH-TRIBULATION.

THE expression used in the beginning of the chapter, "It came to pass," is only a human phrase for a divine thought, that God led and guided them to this result. "They went into the synagogue of the Jews;" the place that was open, as we have seen in the previous chapter, for all Jews that had a word to say respecting the ancient prophets, and the burden which they bore. And there they spoke with such persuasiveness, with such eloquence, with such conclusiveness and force of argument, that a great multitude both of the Jews and of the Greeks believed that Christ was the Messiah, the light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people. But even apostolic preaching, with all its eloquence, its fervour, and its force, was not successful in every instance; and though a great multitude of Jews and Gentiles believed, yet "the unbelieving Jews"and therefore some did not believe-" stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren." How remarkable it is that, in the Acts of the Apostles, while the heathen were open to the impressions of the Gospel, the Jews to a very great extent, and

The

on countless occasions, were hardened against it. reason is, that no one is so hardened as he that knows the truth and deliberately rejects it; he to whom the Gospel is the savour of death, will be its greatest and most irritated opponent; and he who has never heard it, or been affected directly or indirectly by its truths, is the most likely to open his ears, and to have his heart also opened to receive the things that are therein contained. A hardened hearer is always the greatest foe of the Gospel of Christ. The Gentilesand when I say the Gentiles, I mean the heathenlistened; the unbelieving Jews persecuted, proscribed, and opposed.

But notice in the third verse, how it is stated that the apostles, instead of being daunted by such opposition, felt it rather their duty to try more to dissolve and to diminish it. "Long time, therefore, abode they, speaking boldly in the Lord." Now here is the true character of a true apostle. The opposition of them that hate the Gospel does not diminish his efforts to enlighten them, but rather intensifies and strengthens them. They continued a longer time because of the more bitter persecution; and they spake with greater boldness because greater numbers were opposed to their mission and their message. And it pleased God, we are told, by signs and wonders, to demonstrate to the Gentiles, that that Gospel which they preached was the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. Signs and wonders were then; as a matter of fact, they are not now. They were required then to prove the mission of the apostles; but having proved the mission, we refer to them as evidences that that mission was divine; just as the persons of that gene

ration saw them, and on the strength of those miracles believed that the apostles were the messengers of God. If a document is once written, and signed and sealed, it does not need the wax seal to be renewed every year. The seal once attached and authenticated by competent testimony to be the seal of the party concerned, is conclusive for a hundred years. The miracles wrought at the early propagation of the Gospel were the seals by which Omnipotence authenticated what the Apostles preached; and these seals remaining, and being proved by competent testimony, we are satisfied that this mission is from Heaven, and that the apostles spoke the truth, and that we may proclaim that truth not as the word of man, but as the word and the testimony of God.

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We then read, that after this "the multitude of the city," notwithstanding what God did by signs and wonders, and what the apostles said, "was divided; and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles;" and the consequence of this was, an assault was made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use the apostles despitefully." We see here that we must not expect, if we promote the Gospel in the way the apostles promoted it, always smooth water. They, wherever they preached, provoked controversy; and so, wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, still it will excite controversy. Wherever ministers of the truth will go-ministers or laymenand endeavour to show to the masses of the heathen involved in scepticism and in ignorance, or what is worse, in baneful superstition, that the Gospel is what it professes to be, they must expect opposition; but that opposition is not to daunt them. Far better

the agitation of the ocean in its storms than the stagnant marsh; "far better a living dog," as we are told by the wise man, "than a dead lion." Far better truth, even if truth should be accompanied with controversy, opposition, and dispute, than peace, peace, when there is no peace at all. It does seem to me that there is little risk of people being too excited on the subject of religion. They may be too excited on ecclesiasticism, but that is not religion. They may be too excited on politics, but that is not religion. But upon those deep, inner, vital questions which relate to the heart, the conscience, and the safety of the soul, men never have been too much excited; and there is no risk of their being too much excited on these subjects still. It is altogether a misnomer to call the squabbles and quarrels of ecclesiastical courts, of bishops, and synods, and presbyteries, excitement about religion. These are excitements, not about religion, but about the outworks of religion. But whenever there is excitement about real and living religion, it is one of the healthiest signs and the best preparatives for the reception of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus.

When the apostles were thus used despitefully, and saw that they could not make way in one place, they remembered the Blessed Master's advice, when persecuted in one city to flee to another. They therefore fled to Lystra and Derbe, "cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about."

We have in the next place the record of a miracle done by the apostle Paul; where a man impotent in his feet-probably the nerves of his limbs were paralysed by injury to the spine, or an affection of the brain; at all events, one so completely a cripple that he had