The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 87

willingness and desire to be baptized. That was indeed a great and open chang~ o; mind, or repentance, which brought the people to this point. It seems impossible to imagine that baptism was now accepted as anything but the very first step towarrl holiness of heart and life. Those who were baptized did thus much-they " set their faces Zionward," These are the appearances that invest the first occasion of the observance or use of baptism as a Christian rite. These appearances by thernselve~ scarcely amount to the assertion of a permanent institution; and they can scarcely be accounted as speaking with authority the subjects, or the convictions, or the methods of its administration for all time and all circumstances, even upon the supposition of its permanent obligation, They are not, therefore, the less interesting; nay, they may kindle keener and more observant inquiry. But they need such inquiry, and they must be interpreted under the light of Christ's ascending commission to his disciples, of obedience to which this is the first possible occasion, and in the light of the succeed- ing history of Christ's followers during the apostolic period. At present baptism may be said to hold the place of an initiatory rite. Through that first Christian baptism three thousand persons were introduced into the ranks of those who believed in. Christ as the Messiah, and who were prepared to become learners in his school, and to put in practice (as was immediately seen) his principles. They no longer are of those who believe in sacrifices and ceremonial observances innumerable for "the remission of sins," but "in the Name of Jesus Christ." And they are introduced within the covenant of promise-that covenant the abiding promise to which was "the gift of the Holy Ghost."-B. Vere. 42-47,-The first regime of the body of Ohrist's disciples as a Ohristian community. ".And they continued steadfastly . . . such as should be saved." It may be conceded that the history in these verses acknowledges to some appearance of repetition. This is appearance, however, rather than reality. The first of these verses gives in the highest possible form the headings of a subject which is developed a little more fully in the following five verses; and these same verses find room for a touch or two which antedate, though by a very trifling interval, the course of the history. The verses invite to an observation of the very first workings of Christian principle, craving, feeling, and practice. It is no more true that there are things most characteristic of infant life which drop away by process of time and the advent of maturity, than that methods appropriate to the actual infancy of the Christian Church will, as generations pass, inevitably be superseded by other methods, stronger, sterner, and to all outside appearance far less flexible. Yet, if the man cannot be forecast always in the child, for want of enough of the prophet's vision, he can be traced back to the child. .And a wonderfully tenacious personal identity is the lesson in human nature that is impressed on the observer. .And well it is for us in the maturer ages of Christian individual life, and the Christian Church's life, to refresh ourselves with the sight of the firs~ facts of Christian Church life, and of the real principles that must ever be found in the last analysis to underlie it. Such a sight is here offered us. The following are the principal features of it:- 1. THE INFANT CIIURCH ORAVEB INBPmED INSTRUCTION, ..U,"D IS FUl!NISHED WITH IT, The call for this had been foreseen by the great Master-teacher himself. In the same commission in which he charged his apostles to "make disciples of n.11 nations," h~ enjoined them to teach such disciples "t1 observe all things I have commanded you.' Great stress must be laid upon Christ's own teaching. We cannot overvalue it. Th• stress he laid on it himself, by his unwearied labours in it, tells volumes of his owQ practical estimate of its importance. Meantime such an expression as that we find i11 Matt. xv. 9, " Teaching for doctrines the co=andments of men," differences for us most decisively not any mere question of style, and superiority of style, in the teaching that is from above, but the matter itself. 'l'he characteristic, then, begun with in the description of the new community was this: "They continued steadf3:5tly in the apostles' teaching." That was inspired teaching. .And let the world stand 1n ~eed of whats?- ever else, it is to be laid down emphatically that the Church stands in need of this. Inspired teaching is the breath of the Church-its vital air, its light, and the alphabet of its knowledge. II. THE INFANT CHUBOB DRAWS TOGETBlllB. IN CLOSEST AND HOST REAL UNION. A.OTB, G 82 THE ACTS OF THE A.POS'l'L ES. [ell, II, 1-47,