ADVERTISEMENT. The present Volume contains the Second Part of the Editor's Greek Testament with Notes; The First Part, already published, contains the Four Gospels: The Third Part will contain St. Paul's Epistles; The Fourth Part, concluding the work, will contain the Catholic Epistles and Book of Revelation; with a general Index to the whole. May 14, 1857. INTRODUCTION TO THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. No portion of Holy Writ has been made the occasion of more controversy as to its design than the ACTS of the APOSTLES. Some have said that it is composed without any specific plan', and that it is merely a collection, imperfect and fragmentary, of such materials concerning the primitive Church, as happened to be accessible to the writer. It has been argued from its inscription to Theophilus 2, that it was designed only for the use of a private Christian. It has been observed, that it records only some actions of two of the Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul; and that it says nothing of their Epistles, or of the martyrdom of either, and that it terminates unexpectedly with St. Paul's first visit to Rome. And it is alleged, that its title, "the ACTS of the APOSTLES," disappoints the reader, and can hardly have been assigned to it by the writer himself. Others, in recent times, profess to have discovered in this book a design to vindicate St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, from the charges of those who contrasted his teaching with that of St. Peter, the Apostle of the Circumcision; as if the one were contradictory to the other. And others', accepting this hypothesis concerning the Acts, have proceeded so far as to affirm, that the view presented to us there, of St. Paul's teaching, is inconsistent with the tenour of St. Paul's Epistles. The tendency of these theories is, evidently, to invalidate its authority, and to undermine the foundations of its Genuineness and Inspiration. Happily for the Christian Church, there is no book whose Authenticity, Genuineness, and Inspiration, are more strongly corroborated by the consentient testimony of Ancient Christendom than the Acts of the Apostles. 1 1e. g. See Dr. Davidson, Introduction to N. T., ii. p. 62, and ibid. p. 24. 1 Kuinoel, Ziegler, Heinrichs, Meyer, and others. * Schneckenburger über d. Zweck d. Apostelsgeschichte. Bern. 1841. On the subject of the Authorship, the following ingenious argument from internal evidence deserves to be cited; "Acts xvi. 10: 'After he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the Gospel unto them.' "Here the writer of the history, by the change of persons, first indicates his own presence as a companion of the Apostle. It is well known that this book of Acts, as well as the third Gospel, are |