The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 2 — Section 279

awaits eaob. and every man in hie turn, on the threshold of the hereafter, The prits&nt passage, however, will oonfine attention to one cl&BB of acquittals rather than Invite thought to range at large. .And we may think- I. OF THE BE0RET ACQUITTAL OF 711.AN BY MEN, 1. The man la innocent : his judges know it-; their inner judgment Requite him; their very lips acquit him, but only "between themselves." They say it not to the innocent accused, not to the accusers, not to the world. Their real verdict transpires-God takes care of that-but it is no thanks to them, and it is not the good it should be to him, the victim of their injustice, who was given to them that they might do justice. This is one sort of secret acquittal. 2. The man is guilty: his judges know it; their deepest judgment finds him guilty; their lips pronounce it "between themselves." And circumstances are such that they pronounce their verdict of guilty before man also. Yet for all that, the secret thought of their heart is that they will acquit, and their covered deed is acquittal. They mete not out equal justice. Their weights and balances are not fair and just. They condone and count.enance-the criminal And this is another sort of secret acquittal, as mischievous and disastrous as any can be. For such a~ these nothing can be S&id except the words of rebuke, of unsparing condemnation, of well- visited e.corn. Il. OF THE SBORET ACQUITTAL OF A TRUE :M.AN'B OWN 00NSOIENOE. The brightest pages of history are written with instances of this kind of secret acquittal. From Joseph-and, were all the truth known, from a much earlier than Joseph-to the perfect, the sublime, the spotless innocence of Jesus, and a,,aain with fresh impulse onward by Stephen, and Paul. and Peter, and John, and the martyrs, and an unnumbered host, of whom the world was not worthy !-the reoord of such acquittal is safely written. What a wonderful resource an innocent conscience I What a store of peace it means I What a defence against misery, anguish, remorse, and hell on earth I It is already the bud of Heaven's unspeakable bliss. III. OF TBE SECRET A0QOITTAL OF Gon's OWN VERDIOT. At present, God's verdict is often veiled from view, silent for the ear as the star that shines the most distant and the coldest,......a.nd all the scene seems filled up with sight and sound of human judg- ment. Yet two things are to be said. I. That the man who thinks knows that this is only the surface appearance ; that a time far otherwise conditioned hastens to meet this present scene, end prepares a strange reversal 2. That to the heart of the humble, God-fearing man, there is given the individual and most precious earnest of Divine approval and complacency and love many a time. That peace which the world cannot give God's secret acquittal does give, and it is the sort of peace that both "sheds iuelf abroad" with all the swiftness and persnasiveness of fragrance itself, ·and preserves the sacred secret of its sweetness. Whatever else Paul had or had not, he had three acquittals, and they were all for the present secret-the acquittal of the unjust judges, and this was no usual honour; of hill own conscience; ·and of the holy Master and God.-B. Ver. 5.-Bt. Paul a Pharieee. Very remarkable is the skill shown by the apostle in the adaptation of his defences before d.ifi'erent rulers. This Agrippa prided himself upon his Jewish knowledge, and would be quite familiar with the Jewish sects.. The offences charged against St. Paul related chiefly to Jewish ceremonial and rights, so the apostle could make no answer which would influence Agrippa so certainly as the answer given in the text, "After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee:" Agrippa would know that am.an born and brought up as a Pharisee was not in the least likely to offend against the customs and rites which that body so jealously preserved. Conybeare and Howson say, "Not only was Paul a Pharisee, but his fathers and teachers belonged to this sect. This is nearly all we know of St. Paul's parents, We can conceive of the apostle u born in the Pharisaic family, and as brought up from his infancy in the ' straitest sect' of the Jewish religion. His childhood was nurtured in the strictest belief, as he had before him the example of his fathets, who prayed and walked with broad phylacteries, and were 10rupulous and exact in their legal obser- vancee. He had, moreover, the memory and tradition of ancestral piety, for he tells u·s that be served God 'from his i>refathen.' Everything, therefore, tended to prepare him to be au emwent JD&lllbur of that theolo~cal part7 to whicb so inan7 of the Jews OH, XXVI, 1-32,] THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 287