The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 48

was M yot sealed, shut. There me.y 'be eome light, some knowledge, some movement and lifo of conscience in e. Person, e.nd yet the heart itself be shut to the pure tnith of God e.nd of the son 1. (1) Sin mny keep shut the bean. (2) '!'he pride of nature may obBtruct it. (3) Stolid be.bit may fearfully_ close i!, (4) The simple "love of the ·wrld" may effectually exclude all better, higher thmgs from the heart. And some- thin"' of this kind we.s the state of Lydia. Nature had closed her heart or nature had not :vailed to open it, and at this time it was in some material sense ;hut. And the one first result of this occasion was now seen. "The Lorcl," with his omnipotent power and with his facile grace, "opened the heart of Lydia "-opened it so t,hat "she attended to the things which were spoken of Paul." It is evident that the chan_2;e that took place within, under the touch of the Lord, led her to attend with ear, with mind, with heart, and with lire. For" she n.nd her household" are baptized spredily. III. A FURTllEB GLIMPSE OF RESULTS. 1. A generous heart is milocked. More than one prophet's chamber is found, and more than a meal or a day's entertainment. 2. A very graceful way of showing generosity is exampled. Lydia does not proffer hospitality in any patronizing tone. She begs to be allowed to render it; and rests her ur"'ency on Paul's faith in her sincerity. 3. Lydia becomes installed in that place as on; who may be" counted faithful" to give an asylum for the perseculed, and a home to the released prisoners (ver. 40). 4. A strangely significant type is given of that elevation of women which Europe should ere long be destined to witness, and which has been just due to one presence-the presence of Christianity. Since the time of Lydia, what influences for good in the Church of Christ, what very saviours and leaders of the Church, humanly speaking, have women been, whose "hearts the Lord has opened" I Thus the gospel began its course in Europe, thus for" many days" silently, thus condescendingly. And as the Master himself seldom more significantly marked the character of his own condescendingness than in condescending to do the apparently little, to heal only one out or a multitude, to" choose" only a" few,'' to fill for a long time but a small space in the eye of the world, so has his true Church and its humbler history rejoiced to share his lot; and when it has done so, has then most testified its own approximation in likeness to him.-B. Vers. 16-39.-An illustrious triple tri1tmph of Christianity. Soft as the step with which Christianity entered tho fair fields of Europe, and kindly as the welcome given to it then, its uniform lot was not long in making its appearance. It soon wakens close attention, it rouses strong opposition, it vindicates its genius and rights, and the lustre of its moral victory must often have been felt by the faithful apostles enough of itself to compensate for the persecutions and sufferings they encountered. Rarely was there a more consummate instance of the kind than that here recorded. Let us notice- I. THE nISE OF TlIE OPPOSITION, AND VICTORY THE FIRST, 'l'he first note of discord was sounded by an agent unusual but not altogether unknown, and it was uninten- tionally occasioned by that actor in the whole scene. 1. 'l'he damsel possessed by the spirit of divination, possibly responsible in the first instance for being thus the victim of evil powers, may he held to be not responsible in her present conduct. 2. The utterances of spirits of evil by means of her bodily organs of speech need not be supposed to be necessarily the utterances of mockery, or of any evil design to prejudice those who might have listened to Paul, had he and his companions not been advertised by an agent of so unwelcome a kind. It is said Christ" suffered not the devils to speak because they knew him." And the possessed slave spoke what she spoke because she was under the influence of those who really discerned and knew of what sort Paul and Silas were. 3. The objection of Paul may have been due (1) to a repetition, which of itself might turn seriousness into mockery; (2) to the deep grief, that be would inevitably feel that the words of truth should be now, not the utterance of intelligent and converted human beings, as such, but of human powers usurped, and though under the domination of superior power, not under the governance of superior goodness, but the contrary. 4. Paul is empowered to speak the command of dispossession, with which the "many days'" cry stopped, and the evil spirit went, and her " right mind" returned to the slave. And from the barest facts of the painful but wonderful inci,leut we learn ho:w tyrannical is the usurpation of the powers of evil ; how nevertheless the powers of t1v1l do sometimes press into the service of the truth; how their unsought ai,1 (if aid it 4c•r:;-~ ~  50 THE ACT~ OJ<' THE APOSTLES. [OH, XVI, 1-40,