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P. 29. By the laws of God and nature.] See Locke on Government, c. 4, sect. 42.

P. 32. This expression, &c.] I follow the interpretation of Hammond, which is also maintained by Kuinoel, in opposition to Rosenmüller.

.P. 33. By the advice of Gamaliel.] It is surprising that any persons should have conjectured from this incident, that Gamaliel was a Christian. The readiness, with which the council acceded to his advice proves that they had no suspicion of his leaning to the new doctrine; and yet that they were suspicious enough, appears from their rebuke to Nicodemus, John vii. 52. "Mihi quidem," says Pearson, "videtur Gamalielem, pertinacissimum Pharisæum, ideo consilium dedisse ut dimitterentur Apostoli, quod Sadducæi eos accusarent, quodque ipsi tam strenue resurrectionem tuerentur." See Witsius Meletem. Leid. p. 13.

LECTURE III.

P. 36. Grecians.] 'EXλnvioral. Bishop Pearson thinks that this word denotes exclusively the "Proselytes of Righteousness," converted heathens, who had been circumcised, and had taken on themselves all the obligations of the Mosaic law. So Camerarius, Beza, and Salmasius. Scaliger, Grotius, and Hammond understand the Jews, who lived out of Palestine and used the Greek language, (or, as they suppose, Greek words, but a Syrochaldee idiom.) It is well known how sharply this question was contested by Daniel Heinsius and Salmasius. In my opinion, we are to under

stand both the classes of persons whom I have mentioned in the text. I think it is clear, from v. 5, that the six firstmentioned deacons were Jews, because Nicolaus is expressly distinguished from them, as a proselyte. 'EXXnvíorns is properly a person who has adopted Grecian habits, whether of speech, or manners. One is surprised to find a Pharisee of Jerusalem, a ruler of the Jews, with the Grecian name of Nicodemus. Probably his father was a Hellenistic Jew. Basnage, Exercit. Crit. p. 8, contends that the Hellenistæ were Proselytes.

P. 38. These were the first bishops.] The reader will find a very clear and convincing "Defence of Episcopacy derived from the New Testament," amongst the Tracts of the late W. Hey, p. 571.

P. 38. In the annals of the early Church.] By the early, I mean the primitive Church. If readers were employed at all in the first century, they did not constitute a spiritual order, but a ministerial class of men.

P. 39. Libertines, or citizens of Libertum.] Of the different explanations which are given of the term Libertines, I agree with Schleusner in thinking this the most probable. The position of the word shews that the writer is speaking of the Jews from some town or district in Africa.

P. 44. a sleep, not as the heathens described it, an endless, hopeless sleep.] ȧrépμova, výyρETOV πvov, Moschus: the perpetuus sopor of Horace. Sometimes, indeed, the heathen poets speak of death as a sacred sleep; but in a manner which leaves it doubtful whether they alluded to a future state. Callimachus Epigr. 10, Τῇδε Σάων ὁ Δίκωνος, Ακάνθιος, ἱερὸν ὕπνον Κοιμάται. θνήσκειν μὴ λέγε τοὺς ἀγαθούς.

P. 45. A courage and resolution more than human.] See in particular the affecting details contained in the Letter from the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, preserved in Eusebius, Hist. V. 1. Routh. Reliq. Sacr. I. p. 267.

P. 53. Simon Magus.] It may not be undeserving of mention, since I do not perceive it to be noticed by the latest commentators on the Acts, that Mosheim, in a letter to Lacroze (Epist. Lacroz. T. I. p. 266,) suspects Simon Magus to have been the same person with Apollonius Tyanæus: a very improbable supposition.

LECTURE IV.

For a more extended view of the arguments advanced in this Lecture, the reader is referred to Lord Lyttleton's Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul, Leland's View of the Deistical Writers, and Mr. Hughes's Answer to the publication of some insane unbeliever, the title of which is "Not Paul but Jesus." To these may be added Mr. Townsend's notes in his very useful Chronological Arrangement of the New Testament, Vol. II. p. 88, and Bishop Warburton's View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy.

P. 59. His name was originally Saul.] There is a great variety of conjectures as to the reason of this change of name. Basnage thinks that Origen is right, in supposing that Saul had two names, (perhaps as a Jew and a Roman citizen;) and that he was called by one of them while his ministry was confined to his own nation, but by the other upon his going to the Gentiles. This supposition appears

to be confirmed by Acts xiii. 9, Saul, who is also called Paul-after which he is always spoken of under the latter

name.

P. 61. An interesting question.] The following are Bishop Sanderson's remarks:-" St. Paul, though he were a persecutor of the truth, a blasphemer of the Lord, and injurious to the brethren; yet he obtained mercy, because he did all that ignorantly. His bare ignorance was not enough to justify him; but he stood in need of God's mercy, or else he had perished in those sins for all his ignorance; but yet who can tell, whether ever he should have found that mercy, if he had done the same things, and not in ignorance? Ignorance, then, though it do not deserve pardon, yet it often findeth it, because it is not joined with open contempt of him, that is able to pardon. But he that sinneth against knowledge, doth ponere obicem (if you will allow the phrase, and it may be allowed in this sense:) he doth not only provoke the justice of God by his sin, (as every other sinner doth) but he doth also dam up the mercy of God by his contempt, and doth his part to shut himself out for ever from all possibility of pardon; unless the boundless overflowing mercy God come in upon him with a strong tide, and with an unresisted current break itself a passage through."-- Sermons, p. 280. Bishop Jeremy Taylor says, "St. Paul's ignorance was very culpable, when in zeal and rage he persecuted the Church of God; but yet this ignorance lessened the malice of the effect, and disposed him greatly towards pardon.”— Ductor Dubit. p. 801. St. Paul's ignorance was either vincible, or voluntary, or both: vincible, because there was evidence which ought to have convinced him of the truth of Christianity, if he inquired into it: or voluntary, because when he had the opportunity of making that inquiry he would not make it. His ignorance, therefore, was

of

undoubtedly sinful; and yet his persecution of the Church was rendered less sinful by that ignorance.

P. 64. The two accounts.] This is the explanation given by Vitringa and Wolf; and it is confirmed by John xii. 28. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people, therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said, that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. They heard the noise, but did not distinguish articulate sounds. Skelton says, that St. Paul's attendants heard the words, but did not understand them, for they were Hebrew words. Senilia, Works, Vol. VI. p. 88.

P. 81. Peter was the first, &c.] These points of preeminence are stated by Barrow, in his Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy, p. 558.

P. 83. great similarity of disposition.] Tavraxou paiνονται οὗτοι πολλὴν ἔχοντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁμόνοιαν. Chrysostom, quoted by Bishop Pearson, Lect. in Acta Apost. p. 39. His words, however, may perhaps be more correctly rendered, were like-minded towards each other.

P. 85. This explanation of our Saviour's words.] Bishop Horsley has shown, after Hammond and Whitby, that the declaration of our Lord contains a direct and particular promise to Peter, as distinguished from the other Apostles. See also the passage quoted from Tertullian by the present Bishop of Lincoln, in his Ecclesiastical History illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian, p. 237.

P. 86. the wall of partition was first broken down.] St. Peter's claim to the privilege of first preaching Christ to the

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