The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 42

man's "own place" is determined. And this ie the reBSOn why human judgmente of eelf or of others arc so often wrong, because they are so prono to bo arrcRtod by tho glitter or else the glare of what may be a most minor point, a mere detail, I\ really side issue, insteRd of being of the very web and woof. A man's "own placo" is neither determined nor ascertained by the side issues, which aro so often o.11 that lio visible. Dut there are some potencies of character that do, or otherwise undo, the work. A certain strong persistence of rnme force-a thought, a taste, a wish, a passion. And when a man has a character of this sort, his best friend has one gospel to preach to him-this, that his work lies clear as noonday beforo him; he has an option of trembling significance before him; he is set to master or to be mastered, to guido and rule and rise high as the angels, or-to be lured, drawn, dragged, driven, oll tlie appalling way down to "his own place"! 2. Splendid opportunities grossly neglected. The same phenomena and facts of character and of growth to the very end, may and naturally must be true anywhere, any time. But as tho "own place n of Judas was different from what could be the" own place" of vast numbers to whom for inst.a.nee the very name of Christ is unknown, so it is fair to take into account the fact that his opportunities were, for his timo of day aud for every time of day to which they could apply, literally splendid. The principle will be very rarely unobservable, that in pro- portion as opportunity was good, gross neglect of it made the surest ill end, yet surer. And make whatever deductions possible, the opportunities of any one of the twelve disciples were splendid-then certainly none more splendid than they. To see, to hear, to watch such excellence, the excellence of naturalness, of simplicity, of perfect truth, of tenderest human kindness, of superhuman holiness,-was it not splendid opportunity? 'l'o have the personal inspection, occasional correction, deep-sighted suggestions, and high warnings, not unmingled with gracious encouragement that never bore a tint of tlattery,-was it not splendid time of opportunity? To root confidence in such a ·worker, not of gaping wonders but of majestic beneficence,-was it not splendid opportunity? In brief, to witness that activity, to hear that teaching, to study that Model, was a mass of opportunity that all the world beside could not give, and that all the world beside ought not to have been able to take away. But Judas let the world, or a small portion of the world, take it away-nay, he pitched it away himself. And he did this to get on to "his own place." 3. The fearful irri- tation (working sometimes underneath even the calmest exterior) of an unreal religious profession. The horrors of a false position must be counted to be in good truth multiplied infinitely when the false position lies within the domain of religion, and when it consists iu the unreality of the person, rather than in merely a temporary unsuitableness to him of the place or the niche in which he has got fixed. In the recesses of a lowly spirit, in the calm retreat and silent shade of religious meditation, in the all-sacred shrine of deepest self-surrender and self-consecration, what music of angels, what whisperings of the Spirit, what tones of Jesus himself, are heard, and what peace that passeth understanding steals blissfully in I But of the vacant hollows of religious unreality, mocking echoes are the tenants habitual, and winds of the most dismal wail wander endless in them I The heart of Judas was not in his work these three years. -His concealed irritation must often have been severe. His thoughts were neither where his hands or lips were, and chagrin was often his meat day and night to;:ether. His life was joyless; and as the sun ripens all good fruits and many a bad fruit too, so as surely, though strangely, does the sunlessness of joylessness ripen with fearful rapidity and effect the ill fruits of the hypocrite and of religious unreality. And, oeyond any doubt, it had been so now with Judas. Irritation, inside and unseen, ~rings, in bodily disease, many an unhealthy humour to the surface, and out of these forms the loathsome tumour, not unfrequently fatal. It is so with the humours and the tumours of a religious profession, career, and ollico, destitute of reality. In no other directions do disease and inward injury rankle to so deadly effect. Judas is a j!I'eat Scripture typical warning against the professiori, the work, the ministry, and tho dignity of religion assumed for what~oever reason, and by whomsoever, without reality. This is par excellence the usurpation that finds "its own" fall, while the usurper falls by some" transgression," little matter what, to find" bis own place." 4. The suffering to drift along a l,uge moral wrong in character and life. Judas was guilty, certainly, of such moral wrong. He was iuilty of it in three directioAS-as it affected his professed Master, en. 1. 1-26,) THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 37