The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 223

Ver. 16.-Providential protection,. There is a time for miracle to work, and a lime for providence to work, and the appropriate times the Lord of infinite wisrlom and knowledge alone can arrange. It seems very strange to us that St. Peter should havo been brought out of prison by the mirac?lous deliverances of an angel, and that St Paul should be left dependent on the accident, as some would call it, of his nephew's overhearing the plot against his life. Yet, perhaps, there is no real difference between e. "miraculous" and a "providential" deliverance. Both are Divine interventions on behalf of God's servants, and both are simply adaptations of the intervention to particular cases. When we can get a fuller and worthier conception of God's workin:r in the" natural," we shall probably lose sight of the distinction which we now make between the "natural and the supernatural." And this we shall do, not by losing the "superna.tural," but by losing the "natural,'' and seeing that all Divine workings are beyond mere" nature," beyond mere human energy. We shall find Divine energy in the flowers, and trees, and sunshine, and storms, and in the genius, art, and poetry of man. We shall not "level down," but "level up;'' and, forgetting how men would drag us down to the operations of dead law, we shall find everywhere the working of the living God, and all life will seem to us God's great miracle. While we have to make a distinction between the "miraculous " and the " providential," we may notice that-- I. THE ONE 18 AN EXTBAORDilUBY, THE OTHER AN ORDilURY AGENCY. We know that our fellow-men, and we ourselves, have ordinary and regular methods of working, and that both we and they, under pressure of circumstances, sometimes transcend ourselves, and act with an energy, promptitude, skill, a.nd power which quite surprises those who seem to know us most intimately. May not this suggest to us the distinc- tion in God between the miraculous and the providential? The miraculous is the Divine workiag to meet sudden and unusual circumstances. Then we may see that there was no need for extraordinary intervention in St. Paul's case, because this was no sudden calamity, breaking in upon and interfering with the Divine order; it was but a step in the regular course of providential dealings with St. Paul, and ordinary resources of providence sufficed to overcome the seeming danger, II. THE ONE IS A TEJIIPORARY, THE OTHEB A PERMANENT AGENCY. God's providences have been working through all the ages, and they have sufficed to secure the safety of his servants under all kinds of perils. From the Old Testament numerous illustrations may be taken; e.g. notice how David was preserved while he was pursued by Saul ; or see how events were providentially ordered for Joseph. Remarkable stories o[ wonderful providences are given in modem books; e.g. that of the man pursued. by soldiers, who searched the house where he had found refuge, and quarrelled outside the door of the room in which he was secreted, as to whether that room had been searched; the quarrel resulting in their going away and never entering it. God's miracles have been wrought in al.most every age, but they have always been temporary phenomena, specis.l occasions of necessity, and having some unusual testimony to make. By their very ooture miracles must be occasional only. III. ONE PRODUCES A SUDDEN IMPRESSION, THE OTHER APPEALS TO THOUGHTFUL CONSIDERATION, Miracles are wonders. They are not, indeed, woad~rs only; they are works ; they are signs and wonders. Still, it is their chief characteristic that they arrest, arouse, surprise, excite attention, On the other hand, God's providences need to be watched for and observed and thought about. "Whoso will observe these things, even he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord." Then impress that, in life, human agencies that seem to bring about results for us, as his nephew's intervention brought a.bout St. Paul's safety, must never take our interest merely for their own sake. We must ever look behind them and see that they are but working out the Divine plan nnd Divine will. God delivered St. Paul from peril by the aid of his nephew just as truly as if he had rescued him by the hand of an angel-R. T. Ver, 29.-Strange·rs' testimoniu lo Goa's seTvants. The moral influence exerted by St. Paul on this Romnn captain was so decided that he is compelled to send to his superior this report, "whom I perceived . . . to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds." Such a man as this captain would judge fairly ma.tters of charactor or of conduo~. He had no blinding and bewildering ecclesiastical prejudicea  THE ACTS OF·THE APOSTLE& [oH. x:nv, 1-27.