The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 148

marvelled" at the imperturbed flow of speech and rcsolnte wieldin" of arrumcnt which proceeded from two men who, as being "unlearned" and unprof":ssionr{J, men ou!Tht rnther to _have been. overawed in the presence of ~uch as themselves-as they thought. In the midst of their nmazoment, however, they either remembered the fact or saw in the ver,r beari?g of t~e rn?n the fact, that they were old associates of Jesus: 2. They were fairly stricken with silence, There, present before them-there at the very side of the prisoners, proffering himself as a living monument of their last e;enine1's work-was the veritnblo healed man himself. Such a juxtaposition of facts ties inU> silence very perverse-wayed tongues. "They can say nothing against it." 3. They are stricken with an idea that a private conference with one another may suggest a way out of their undignified difficulty. '!'here is always something very suspicious, ominous ofirnpendin"' disaster, if the men that love the broadest daylight of public glare suddenly are fo~ retreating into the unloved shade. 4. Retired from public gaze, they fiud themselves still stricken with a perplexity that grows no better for deliberation and secret con- ference. For one thing only do we seem able to admire in any sense these men. They have eyes to see, and they have not got to the point of seeing facts to deny them. They will not hazard themselves into the position of denying a" notable miracle manifest" to all the rest of the world that lives in Jernsalem. But their perplexity is the greater, what they shall do. 6. Because they are fearful of the one thing, truth, which should have made them fearless, they are stricken with love of an expedient simply so insane in its certain working that it at once worsened their whole case and plight. They will forbid the tide. 'l'hey will command, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." They will bid to flow back a river that shows an unmistakable force and breadth and depth of current. They will threaten and prohibit. Whether they are counted as legislators, or statesmen, or judges, they are childish and incompetent. IV. TIIE DECISION AND FOLLOWING ACTION OF THE COURT. (Ver. 18.) "They command" the apostles "not to speak at all nor to teach in tho Name of Jesus." 'l'hus began the struggle between civil command and human conscience, not indeed in the history of the world, but in the history that has ever shmvn it in most intensi- fied form, of the Christian Church. Notice: I. The parties to this struggle. Traced home, they resolve themselves into the wish of some against the conscience of others. 2. 'l'he intrinsic and even notorious inequality of these. That wish, it is true, will be said to be founded upon opinion, judgment, experience, consent of many. But this is equivalent to an open betraying of the proportionately easy access to it, of disturbing causes-causes that lay it actually open to suspicion, and render it unreliable. Wish notoriously sins in being the victim of feeling, and none can be "ignorant of its devices." A hundred elements, each one of which is a possible avenue of error, go to form that wish or will of the some which then presumes or endeavours to impose upon the conscionce of other some. On the other hand, conscience, whether it be allowed to be moro or less of an original faculty or principle of human nature, owns to aod justly claims a native prerogative, the prerogative of the judge. And it may err. It will be liable to err, and has in point of fact often shown itself liable to err-on one side, through being uninformed, or ill informed. Yet, whoever flouts it (whether the owner of it himself or another for him), is guilty of flouting pro tem. "the powers thac be," and those powers, powers that "be of God." Say whatsoever may be said to the derogation of the individual conscience, that man stands on perilous b'l'ouod indeed who risks what is involved in neglecting his own conscience, or who takes in hand to supersede that of others, by his own fiat, under whatsoever namo or misnomer it may endeavour to pass muster. 'l'o very different moral zones of being do the voices ol external command and of internal command belong. As once a whole world was on one side, and Noah and the Divine command on the other, so it is quite possible that the whole world might be on one side, and an individual man and his conscience be on the other side and these be in the ri"'ht. And it was something like this, though not this that was' to be seen now. Th; whole authorities of a nation were in this court on ~ne side and Peter and John on the other; and these wore in the right, and the real strength of position lay with them. 3. The unconquerable deep facts of _huwan nature and lifo to which these phenomena conduct. For 'Ye get here a. sugg~st1on an_d a glimpse of the idea according to which ~od has proy1ded for the secur~ty ~f his mighty grasp on the mighty mass of mankind. There 1s left no doubt which 1s the 144 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. [oH, IV, 1--37,