most other expedients, answered not fully the end intended. Seven days had not ended before "the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him."

From the whole of this we learn the following things:

First-The early conquest of the Gospel. During the quarter of a century which had elapsed since Paul's first introduction to the mother Church at Jerusalem, what wonders Christianity had wrought! The historic sketch which Paul presented now before James and the elders, the marvels which he had accomplished by his ministry, seemed to fill his hearers with devout amazement : "When they heard it they glorified the Lord." And there, too, on that occasion, they tell him that "many thousands of Jews believed." The sermon of Peter on the day of Pentecost, and the ministry of Paul and the other Apostles in various parts of Judea, brought thousands of Jews to believe the Messiahship of Christ. These triumphs of the Gospel at the very outset of its career serve several important purposes. (1.) They serve to demonstrate the genuineness of Gospel facis. Those who believed at this period and in Judea had ample opportunities of testing the truth of the facts which were presented to their attention. (2.) They serve to show the amazing force of Christian truth. What other systems of truth could have effected such revolutions, could have won such numbers of Jews, who were so strongly prejudiced against its founder and hero to believe in Him, to the salvation of their souls (3.) They serve to show the zeal with which the Apostles prosecuted their ministry. It was through the preaching of the truth that those conquests were won.

From this we learn

Second-The tenacity of early prejudice. Those Jews who believed in Christ could not give up the ritualism of Moses, in which they had been brought up. "They were still zealous of the law." Though those whose ministry won them to Christ taught them that the old ritualism was typical and temporary, that Christ was the end of the law, and that

faith in Him was all that was necessary for salvation, they held with tenacity to the old rites. Early prejudices, especially in religion, often attain a potent and pernicious hold upon the human mind; they warp the judgment, they exclude the entrance of new light, they impede the progress of the soul in intelligence, liberty, and growth, in manly independency and power. Prejudices give a colour to the glass, through which the soul looks at truth, and thus prevent her from appearing in her own native hue.

From this we learn

Thirdly: The slandering tendency of religious bigotry. We learn that those Jewish Christians, who were thus attracted to the ritual of Moses, had been informed that Paul had taught "all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs." This was a foul slander, for Paul not only acted indulgently towards the scrupulous (Acts xvi. 3; Rom. i. 4; 1 Cor. viii. 7; x. 27), but in general he disapproved of native Jews relinquishing its observance, and he himself observed too. (1 Cor. vii. 18; ix. 20.) All he rigorously insisted upon was that no prerogative, or claim to salvation, should be built on the observance of the law. And that it should not be imposed as a burden upon Gentile believers. Who fabricated this slander? The bigoted Jews. Religious bigotry has always been libellous; it has an instinct for calumny. Now, as ever, it misrepresents and maligns the men who propound doctrines, transcending its narrow notions. Against such its pulpits, its platforms, and its press are organs of the vilest slander.

From this we learn

Fourthly The pacific genius of Christianity. How anxious James, the president of that official meeting, and the elders were, to preserve peace on that occasion! They perceive that a schismatic spirit is rife, and they are anxious to destroy it and promote concord. Hence their question, "What is it therefore?" Meaning, What is to be done?

74

HOMILETIC GLANCE AT THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

How shall this false impression be removed? And they proposed the expedient that Paul should join the four men amongst them that were Nazarites. All this shows their strong desire for brotherly harmony and concord. Peace is the instinct and mission of love. He who does not strive to harmonise social discords, crush social feuds, and heal social divisions, has not the true love within him. Love is ever on the wing bearing the olive branch over the social tumults of the world.

From this we learn

Fifthly: The conciliatory spirit of Christianity. This is developed in the conduct of Paul on this occasion. He joins the Nazarites and observes their rites. "Paul is among the Nazarites," says Lange, "(1.) Not as a slave of human ordinances, but in the light of evangelical liberty which had power over all things that promote the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. vi. 12.) (2.) Not as a dissembler before the people, but in the ministry of brotherly love, which bears the infirmities of the weak. (Rom. xv. 1.) (3.) Not as a fugitive from the cross, but in the power of Apostolic obedience, which knows to deny itself from love to the Lord. (Luke ix. 23.)" Bold and invincible as was the Apostle, his spirit of conciliation was very remarkable. In 1 Cor. ix. 1, he sketches his own conciliatory line of conduct. "Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." In his letters to the Romans he expresses the same spirit in language equally, if not more strong. "If meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth." Fidelity to principle is not inconsistent with a studious endeavour to avoid giving offence to our fellow men.

Testament.

(No. II.)

SUBJECT: The Divine Sabbath.-Genesis ii. 1—3.

THE

HE Divine Artificer with intelligence and delight completes his work. In the calm majesty of his repose He contemplates it. What a scene must have spread before his eye! The created minds who could comprehend but a part, would be overwhelmed at the splendour, variety, and order. How perfect must it have shone forth before the Divine eye that saw all, comprehended all arrangements, and knew the relations of the universe! As none but He could paint such a picture, so He must have been alone in his delight. This was God's sabbath. We see in it

I. THE DIVINE COMPLETION OF HIS CREATIVE WORK. "The heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them." The Bible teaches us that creation ended with the sixth day's work. As it was itself a series of separate distinct acts, so in itself the series was complete. According to this cosmogony there were no further creations. Individuals

may be born and die. According to the laws impressed upon the vegetable and the animal worlds there may be the development of the individual from the parent, but it will be after the parent's kind. Races and species may die, become extinct; but, if so, they go to a grave whence there is no resurrection. Whatever may be the truth underlying the words of the ancient record, it certainly is not development of species, either by natural or any other selection. Science and the teachings of God's book are not opposed, but the peculiar form of the present day's theory is not that of the sacred Scriptures.

This fact is in harmony with

First: The disclosures of science in its history of the earth's crust. The evidence, as yet, is beyond comparison in favour

of no resurrection of an extinct species, nor post-Adamic creation of a new species.

It is true that God

Secondly: The history of the world as the record of moral and religious special acts on the part of God. Human history is not that of a physical world. Events since creation have ethical and spiritual significance. has worked on matter, but it has been by natural law which was given it in the creation. If He has used the physical world other than by these ancient laws, such action, to which we give the term of miracle, has always been with a special view of man's moral nature. The theatre for the great drama of human life was completed in creation. Since that, God's action has been the working out of the successive

scenes.

Thirdly: The brief references in the other sacred writings to the physical activity of the Creator. He is not represented as creating, but as destroying, and purifying by firethis, moreover, to take place, in its completest form, at the close of the present dispensation of his moral government. (See Psa. 1. 3; Daniel vii. 9—11; Psa. cii. 25, 26; 2 Peter iii. 7, 10; Hebrews iv. 3; Malachi iv. 1 ; &c.)

We do not adduce these passages as positive proof. They are only corroborative of the general principle which we assert, that divine interference in the physical world (when not of the nature of miraculous attestation of authority claimed, or statement made by any of God's servants) apart from or not through natural laws set in operation at the Creation, is in the form of destruction and judgment, not creation. Even if these passages be said to be metaphorical, or highly poetic, at least it may be asserted, that none others either declaring or implying the contrary can be quoted. The idea of creative acts other than those contained in the Mosaic account is foreign to the spirit of the sacred Scriptures.

II. THE DIVINE CONTEMPLATION OF HIS CREATIVE WORK. At the close of his work all things pass before the eye