The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 242

overruled !he w,ors~ or the work o! envy; (2~ the providence that exalted Joseph, a.n alien, to Egypt s highest place; ( ..) ~he prov_1dence that was aiming at and that did secu~o the ?Jore remot? result or_ settling awhile the _nation in Egypt. 5. The provi- dentml savmg of the hfe of the mfant Mo.sea, e~ucatmg of him, endowing him with a spirit of both goodnes~ and _power, preparmg him well by chastening delay and disci- pline, and finally calling him to see end know and take up his mission, after an interval of forty years ( vers. 23, 30, 34)._ The nrtme of. Moses, again, does not fail to lead Stephen to commemorate (1) the chief features o_f h1? work, in leading the people of Israel out o~ Egyp~ and through the _Red Sea, _and ID bis own life's remaining /orty- years' wandermgs with those people m the wilderness ; (2) the distinct prophecy with which his lips were charged, relating to the "Prophet," the Messiah, the late well- known Jesus (ver. 37); (3) the typical "tabernacle in the wilderness," so carefully and in minute detail designed in heaven, yet so temporary in its nse for the service of the wilderness and the early settlement under Joshua in "the possession of the Gentiles." 6. By two hurried touches, the reason of which is scarcely far to find Stephen implies rather than mentions the providence which raised up David to con~ ceive and Solomon to execute the building of the temple (eh. vi. 14; ver. 48); when, for whatever exact reason, the climax of the occasion is reached. The moment has come for the dropping of the mere recital of history, every step of which, however, was telling its own very plain and very significant tale. In words of flame and impassioned thrusts, the solemn, unanswerable, conscience-stinging charge is flnng at the packed body of accusers and sympathizers. And the force came, not of bad spirit, but of the Spirit, the Spirit of truth and conviction, of light and life, and, when needs be, of " consuming fire." Bo far Stephen's recital of the moral lineage of the people is crowded with the tokens of providence. Nay, it is one chain of tokens of Divine love and Divine care. But on reading again the recital we find- II. A. SEBIES OP PEBVEBSE THWARTING& AND "CONTBADICTIONB OP SINNERS:," To us the things working in the mind of Stephen are not obscure, but even to those who heard him, light must have glimmered in before the final disclosure. When this came, no man doubted what it meant nor to what it was equivalent. Not evictly side by side, and not exactly pari passu with the originating, directing,-overruling, and protect- ing "dispositions" (ver. 63) of Heaven, but certainly in many a most mournful and untoward conjuncture appeared the perverseness of human insubjection and ingratitude and presumptuous opposition. The worst growths of ingratitude sprang up where had fallen the richest showers of heavenly grace. The worst forms of resistance assorted themselves in front of the kindest and most distinguished of heavenly leading. And it had been thus too systematically. It had been so once and again, and the indications were to the effect that, " So my people love to have it." Thus the whole length of exceptional and most beneficent grace was disfigured by the intrusion of surprising ingratitude and rebellion; and of late, Stephen has to show, things have grown worse, nay, they are come to a climax. The seed of evil grew up into plain sight. 1. In those "patriarchs, moved with envy," who "sold Joseph into Egypt" (ver. 9). 2. In the two cases, that grew upon one another in degree of blindness, when Moses himself was so taken by surprise in that his own brethren did not perceive his mission, and that it was one for their benefit, at whatsoever risk to himself (vers. 25, 28, 35). 3. In the rebellion and fickleness of Israel under "Mount Sina," and their patent idolatry there, a career of crime, Stephen implies, which begun there never got purged out of their system, but brought on the crushing punishment of the Captivity. This was a marvellous stroke of Stephen's just rhetoric-suggestion of the Spirit's light and force-to run up i? the compass of one sentence that initial act of idolatry into the flourishing continuation of it which both courted and caused the captivity of ever-memorable shame (vers. 38- 43), 4, But never so plainly, never so terribly as now; the present generation complete the circle of the evil works of their fathers. They "resist the Holy Ghost;" they are " the betrayers and murderers" of him for prophesying of whom men were both persecuted and slain by their fathers; they hav~ no~ ho~10u_red the}; own_" ~~w,". so boasted in, in the only acceptable way of honounng 1t, v!z· m the keepu~g of. 1t i and they have branded themselves with the names " st1ffnecked and uncucumc1sect in heart and in" their very " ears." These are the for~idable inte~ruptions to the puri~y, honour, nobility of their lineaie. They are stai.ns on their scutcheons- 2S8 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLE~ [OB. VIL 1-60.