The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 82

m. MESSIAH IB JESUS ol!' NAZABETll, The things found t.o be necessary are met in him and in him alone. Show the correepondehce between the facts of the Christian teaching and the requirements of Scripture prophecy, and impress the personal demand which St. Paul makes to follow on his argument; then your loyalty, your trust, your lovo, your life, are demanded for JesUB Messiah.-R. T, Vor. 11,-The nobility of the inquiring spirit. The people of Berrea are commended for their disposition to inquire and search into the truth of Christianity as it was taught to them by the apostolic missionaries. They were n?t the slaves of prejudice. "With a quick and clear intelligence they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether they really did speak of a Christ who should suffer and rise again. The Berrean converts have naturally been regarded, especially a~ong_ those who urge ~he duty ?r claim the right of private judgment, 118 a representative instance of the right relat10ns of reason and faith occupying a middle position between credulity and scepticism." The attitur.es of m;n towards truth, as freshly revealed, or ae revealed in fresh forms, are threefold: (1) some are wilfully antagonistic; (2) some are weakly receptive; (3) some are intel. ligently sceptical. The word "scepticism " may be nsed in a good as well as in a bad sense. It properly stands for that disposition to question and doubt which is one of the features of the thoughtful and inquiring mind. I. ScEPTIOISM AB DEPENDENT ON NATURAL DISPOSITION. There are, in respect of this spirit, marked diversities in nations and in races. And there are answering differences in families and in individuals. Usually the sceptical spirit is found in men rather than in women, who are as remarkable for their receptivity as men for their tendency to criticism. The beginnings of what will afterwards appear 118 scepticism are found in children. Some will question the why and wherefore of everything that is told them, while others will open wide eyes, and take in 118 real, the strangest fairy tales that can be told them. A great part of the responsibility of parents and teachers lies in the need for culturing-cultivating or restraining-the early signs of the sceptical spirit. Where the sceptical spirit is unduly developed the corrective spirit of faith must be nourished ; and where credulity is excessive, the mind must be quickened to doubt, Ministers need to remember that both classes are found in their congregations, and that both classes have to be wisely led to intelligent faith. II. SoEPTIOISM AB FOSTERED BY INTELLECTUAL PRIDE. This is one of the gravest difficulties of our age, in which remarkable advances; in knowledge have been made. Those advances have chiefly borne relation to the sphere of the physical sciences, and in that sphere pride is readily nourished, because, apparently, all depends on men's own observation and research, It becomes ell8y for men to say-What we observe and know is the truth; and there is no other truth than "truth of fact." So we find all around us much scepticism in relation to the moral, spiritual, revelational spheres : a disposition to unreasonable doubt; to doubting for doubticg's sake. This needs to be wisely but firmly rebuked, and its real source, in mere pride of intellect, should be pointed out. The physical is not the only sphere through which God has revealed himself to his creatures; and it never can be a sign of human w:sdom that the best three parts of God's revelation are set aside as the dreams of dreamers. III. ScEPTIOISlll AS A RESULT 01!' ASS00IATIONB. .AJ3 a disposition of mind, scepticism takes a place among infectious mental diseases, communicated very readily by association. A sceptical workman will infect his fellows. A sceptical student will change the tone of his college, A sceptical member of a family will destroy the recipiency of a whole family. So we, who have any kind of trust of others, need to be watchful over the influence of such persons. A minister's influence in a congregation may be seriously resisted by the power among the people of one unreasonably critical and sceptical mem- ber. He will look with high hope on every sign of the Bercean spirit, the spirit of intelligent inquiry and research, but be has fewer things that call for bis watchful care than the infection of the sceptical spirit, which will at once impair hi:t influence as 11 Ohristian teacher. .A.nd the association of books of a prevailing critical and unbeliev- ing oharacter will be found quite as dangerous as that of sceptical persons. IV. SoEPTIOIBlll AS AN IlllPULBE TO INQUIRY, This is i~ good &ide; and in this the example of the Berreo.ns is commended to us. It is the spirit that seeks for two thinp: (1) comprehension, or the distinct, clear, and intelligent Wlderstl\D.ding; of any  THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, [oH, XVII, 1-31.