The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 109

appellations. With these is now connected that of Father of Jesus. Thus the reccn~ le united with the most ancient past. One unfailing bond of Divine constancy and love knits the ages into unity, and makes history the unfolding of an increasing pnr- pose. :::. His love is illustrated by the contrast with human hate. They had repu- diated the Holy and Just One, and had begged the life of a murderer in his stead. Blindly they had hurried the "Author of life" to an ignominious doom. But who co.n contend o.gainst God, his power, nay, rather, his love? The purpo~e of life is victorious over human passion, and God will not suffer men to work out their suicidal intents to the full. The Resurrection, be it insisted, then, is the crowning proof of indefeasible constancy and will to save men in their own despite. 3. The energy to heal ever flows from the risen Christ. Faith is the condition of being blessed. It is the movement of the whole soul towards the Divine Benefactor. It is the junction of the human with the Di vino will, and is the one principle of salvation. III. DEDUCTIONS FROM THE PAST. History, and every portion of it, contains a Divine logic. Every study of it is idle which does not end with the question-What is the meaning for the present? What resolve is to be taken? What duty now to be discharged? The paths of experience converge towards one goal. 1. The crucifixion of Jesus had been an act of ignorance. They "knew not what they did;" neither people nor rulers. It was a mitigation of the crime, and divinely recognized. The acts of wrath are blind, and just judgment distinguishes between the evidences of passion and the evidences of ingrained perversity in man's acts. 2. It was at the same time a fulfilment of prophecy. God permits evil means to work out holy ends. The happiest revolutions have often sprung from momentary ignition of wrath and resentment. The feeble human heart expends its little explosive force, and silently makes an opening for the march of a higher purpose. It was necessary that Christ should suffer. Every pleasure is the reaction from a pain; every birth proceeds from travail; there is no deliverance without spiritual struggle. The most spiritual, the most living personality, must agonize and suffer most. This is the law. In the suffering of the "Leader of life" it finds its highest expression. Thus did Divine will confront human freedom, and the futility of resistance is shown. The very efforts of blind passion to defeat that will serve only to elicit its meaning. Like blows upon a vibrating substance, human sins draw deeper music from the heart of God. IV. PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS, "Change your mind and t9rn." If we cannot influence the fixed course of things, it is wisdom to be influenced by it. If the Divine purpose is not to be bent aside for us, we must bend before it. \Ve cannot change the course of fate, but we can change the course of our thoughts and actions. To persist in dis- covered error is like fighting against the stars in their courses. Sin is only unfor- givable when it is persisted in o.s sin. The constant promise of the gospel is that sin shall no longer be reckoned to a man, i.e. viewed as a fact of his life, when it has been corrected by the will. Our deeper thought teaches us that there is no time for God. Our "now" and its self-determination is the question. One solemn moment of decision converts the error of the way into the direction of truth and right. v. PROMISES OF FUTURE GOOD. 1. They are of indefinolJle grandeur and attraction. We cannot fully analyze the contents of any Divine promise. Its riches exceed definition and thought. At the same time, every promise has leading hiuts to guide faith and expectation. Here" times of refreshing" and the" sending of Jesus" form such hints. 2. They point to a goal of history. "The times of the restitution of all things." The golden age of paganism was in the remote past; that of Israel and of the gospel lies in the distant future. It rests, like all our good, upon nothing less sure than Divine will, and is the subject of prophetic oracles. To deline is to limit and to nanow and to impoverish our noblest ideals. Let us be content, as Peter teaches elsewhere, to accept prophecy as a "light shining in a dark place, until tho day dawn." 3. They are designed to guide conduct, not to e:i;p/ain the future fully. The prediction in the Law cited by P«!ter received many changing interpretations in the long course of its exist- ence. The actual highest fulfilment was not recognized when it came. God ever fulfils himself unexpectedly. Meanwhile the delay of fulfihuent keeps thought and hope awake. 4. The growth and facreasing emphasis of prophecy. The sound dies not, but gathers in volume as it goes, filling the earth. J?o we heed its sound now? la there no voice of God for us in the instruction and warnmgs of the greatest spirita of  THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [oa. m.1-20.