tant inquiry to a termination, that we ascertain what is the amount of the testimony which the thus qualified apostles bore, concerning HIM whose name they proclaimed, for whose glory they laboured and suffered, and concerning whom it was their warmest desire, that he might be magnified in them, in life and in death.

CHAP. I.

ON THE EXAMPLES OF THE APOSTOLIC INSTRUCTION CONTAINED IN THE BOOK OF ACTS.

The general character of the book entitled the Acts of the Apostles. Its leading design. What information it presupposes in the reader. Its important use.— The chief scope of the discourses which it embodies.-The principal heads of its testimony concerning the Messiah.-I. His real humanity.-II. He is the Author and Cause of divine blessings.-III. The efficient Cause of the apostolic miracles.-IV. The Giver of the miraculous influence of the Holy Spirit. -V. The universal Judge.-VI. The relation of religious institutions to him.i. Baptism. Investigation of the command of Christ to baptize.—Whether there is any formula of baptism, of divine institution.-Religious dedication.— Being "baptized unto Moses."-Association of the Names in the institution of baptism.-Genuineness of Matt. xxviii. 19.-ii. The chief subject of the gospel ministry-VII. Use of the appellative, LORD.-VIII. Idiom of the term, the Name.-IX. Worship paid to Christ.-i. Invocation.-Instances.— Examination of the term.-ii. The case of Stephen.-Nature of the blessings implored by him, and what they imply in the person addressed.-Remarks on the Unitarian interpretation.-iii. Converts and churches were commended to Christ by special acts of devotion.-Recapitulation.-General observations.

It may be questioned whether the title which, from IT an unknown but very early antiquity, has been prefixed to the Second Part of the sacred narrative by the evangelist Luke, was appropriate to the design and composition of the work. For the book contains no information upon the proceedings of the far larger number of the apostles, after they received their promised qualification on the day of Pentecost; when they would undoubtedly be ready to embrace all proper opportunities of executing the infinitely solemn and important command which their Lord had

delivered to them. It contains no history of the introduction of Christianity into numerous countries, which we are assured received the divine religion within the apostolic age; nor even of the origin of many of those churches which are recognised as existing and flourishing in the subsequent parts of the New Testament. It gives a minute account of some detached labours and discourses of Peter; but it does not follow him into those wider spheres of exertion which we have reason to believe that he actually occupies. Though it treats the most copiously of the actions of Paul, yet it by no means furnishes a complete history of his life and services to the cause of Christianity, down to the time at which it closes; and where it stops short, leaving a most interesting portion of the apostle's life without a memorial. In his own epistles there are allusions to many and very important circumstances, which occurred even during the period embraced by the narrative of Luke; but of which this narrative takes not the smallest notice.' The book, valuable and sacred as it is, cannot therefore with propriety be called The Acts of the Apostles. It does not profess to occupy so wide a field : nor does it even propose a regular history of the select persons and facts upon which it dwells, often with a circumstantial minuteness. It is rather a collection of anecdotes and particular memoirs, referring to the actual commencement of the Christian dispensation, detailing some events in the history of the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch, and occupying its latter half with many and interesting transactions of

1

For instances, see 2 Cor. xi. 23—28; xii. 2. Gal. i. 17; ii. 1. 2 Thess. ii. 2. Titus i. 5.

the apostle Paul, but, as we have remarked, not including a perfect series of them during the period that is embraced.

The annunciation of his design which Luke gives in the preface to his Gospel, seems very justly to comprehend both the parts of his work: and, if this be admitted, it will supply us with a sufficient reason why the book called The Acts was drawn up in its particular manner and order; and it will prevent our disappointment at not meeting with those statements, in either history or doctrine, which an incorrect estimate of its intention might lead us to expect.

Whoever Theophilus, to whom the two books are inscribed, was, it is plain that the writer's design was, not to make him acquainted with the fundamental truths of Christianity, for in them he had been already instructed; but to furnish him with a selection of facts, relative to the actions, discourses, and sufferings of the Lord Jesus, and the diffusion of his religion in some particular places, and by some particular persons. Those places and persons, it is highly probable, had some connexion with Theophilus more than other places or persons would have had: and thus, some specialty of circumstances was the principle which guided the selection. By the interest which he would feel, from the associations thus formed in his mind, it was the design of the evangelist to increase his assurance of the truth of those doctrines, and the force of those obligations, in which he had already received information: "It seemed proper to me, who have accurately "investigated all [the circumstances] from the first, "to describe [them] to thee in order, most noble Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty

"of the declarations in which thou hast been in"structed."2

As we are not to regard the book of the Acts in the light of a regular history, so this view of its design will prevent our expecting from it a body of Christian doctrine. It supposes the reader to be, like Theophilus, already acquainted with the great principles of that doctrine; and it is, therefore, occupied in giving him the facts which formed the basis of evidence for those principles, or which were examples of their diffusion and influence among men. If any person were to contend that any given doctrine is not a genuine, or at least not an important, part of Christianity, because it is not made prominent in the narrative, or in the discourses, of this book; I would request him to consider, whether the principle which he is assuming, would not lead him to regard every moral duty as indifferent, or at least of questionable obligation, except what are enjoined in the apostolic rescript as "the things which are necessary."3

An attentive examination of the book appears to warrant our distinguishing between the design of the narrative and that of the particular discourses which are introduced into it. The scope of the former seems to have been, to evince the propriety and divine warrant of communicating the gospel to the Gentiles; and, in a very important subordination to this, to establish the apostolic authority of Paul, a point which Jewish Christians were reluctant to admit. To the men of following times it is also peculiarly valuable, for another reason which, though

2 Luke i. 4.

3 Acts xv. 28. See Kypke, Schleusner, and Kuinoel.