Ver. 40.-Dut for and, A.V.; wont /O'T'th with the epistle addressed to them by tho for depaTted, A.V.; commended for recom- apostles and elders of the Church of Jern- mended, A.V.; to for un!-0, A.V.; the L<nd salem (ver. 23), as we see from eh. xvi. 4 for God, A.V. nnd T.R. Chose Bile.s, If was the case. Confirming; aa eh. xiv. 22; ver. 34 of the T.R. is IL truo reading, it XV; 32; xviii; 22 (T.R.). In the passiv~ acoounts for the J?resenoe of Silas nt Antioch, voice l1ricr,-71p,(oµ.ru means to " lean upon, Otherwise there IS no difficulty in supposing as in 2 Sam. i. 6, LXX., and in clasirical that Silas, attracted by the holy zeal of St. Greek. Renan thus indicates their probable Paul and by desire to work among the route: "They travelled by land north wards Gentiles, had come back to Antioch after across the plain of Antioch, went through giving nccount to the apostles at Jerusalem the 'Syrian Gates,' coasted the gulf of the of the success of his mission with Judas to Issus, crossed the northern branch of the the Churches at Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, Issus through the 'Amanean Gates,' then, Ver. 41.-Syria and Cilioia (see ver. 23). traversing Ci!icia, went perhaps through This rather looks as if tlrn " some days after" Tarsus, crossed Mount Taurus through the of ver. 36 did not cover a very long time, • Cilician Gates,' one of the most terrible because the speoie.1 mention of "the passes in the world, and thus reacherl Churches ot Syria and Cilicia" indicates Lycaonia, going as far as Derbe, Lyetra, that St. Paul's visit had some connecUon and Iconiwn" (' St. Panl,' p. 123).
HOMILETICS. Vers.1-85.-The controversy. The apprehension of truth, full, pure, and 11.llmixed with error, should be the desire of all good men. And it is a great help towards attaining truth when we are able to love it and to seek it absolutely for its own sake, without reference to its consequences, without regard to the wishes of others or undue submission to their opinions. It is also necessary for a man in pursuit of truth to divest himself of prejudices, and the influence of false opinions which he has adopted from habit, and without due consideration. The mind should approach the consideration of tru1h unwarped and uncoloured by any subjective influences except the love of God and innocency of character. Divested of prejudices and of pru!sioos, and possessed of adequate knowledge, the mind would receive moral and religious truth with nearly as much certainty as it does mathematical problems. The object of controversy should be to clear away all prejudice, all ignorance, all passion, every ground.less opinion and prepossession, which stand in the way of the acceptance of truth. And controversialists should be ready to admit the probability that those who differ most widely from them may, for that very reason, see some side of truth which is hidden from their own eyes, and therefore should be ready to give a candid consideration to their arguments. The controversy which is described in its origin, progress, and settlement, iu the passage before us, is an instructive one. We see on the side of the J udaizing party the types of the hindrances constantly existing to the reception of new truths. There was at first a blind and indiscriminate attachment to old opinions. They had been brought up in the belief that the Mosaic institutions were unchangeable. The very suggestion of a modification of them was treason against Moses and against God. They had been brought up in the belief that they were exclusively the people of God. All the pride and selfishness of their hearts rebelled against the idea of others bein" admitted to an equality of privileges with themselves. They had cherished a cont;mpt and hatred for all other nations of the earth : how could they believe that those nations were as !JlUCh objects of the love of God as they themselves were? Again, they had fattened m the opinion of their own righteousness, of their own moral superiority over other people: how could they be willing to accept a gospel which taught them that they could only be justified by grnce, and that they must seek that grace on a level with all other sinners, through tha merits of Jesus Christ? Again, their reverence for their rabbis and great men, and for their sayings and teaching, which they were accustomed to lean upon with a certain superstitious awe, and to quote with a proud fondness, was another hiudrance to the reception of the gospel in its integrity by them. And all these influences, good and bad, concurred to close the eyes of tbeir reason against all opposiu_g eviclence. They would, indeed, admit a Christianity which left the Law of Moses 10.tact, aud obliged an Chri.5tians to become Jews, so to speak. Tha, e.ulte,l 8 THE A.OTB OF THE .APOSTLES. [oa. :u. 1--41