The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 245

IV. IT REMAINB NO l'OOR SIGN 01" THl!I BORN REFORMER TIIAT AT FIBBT MOBBS OVERSTEPS TIIE MARK. For eax:eptions to this experience are few. Even in a delioioua unconsciousness e.nd simplicity and naturalness lurks that very thing nature, humaq nature, and too much of it; self, e.nd too much of it. God would not have overstepped the mark-never does. All his work fits perfectly to time, to place, to issue. Yet he who holds the threads of all human things in his fingers, and rules the mysterious vicissitude of human history, makes allowance beforehand for their error in his most faithful, most willing servants. Their pace must be moderated, and his purposo will not be lost, nor so much as suffer. More haste, worse speed for Moses-for the precipi- tancy of two days relegates him to forty years' absence from the scene and the holy enterprise into which he had flung himself with zeal so passionate. What will forty years do for him? What will they make of him? They will temper him, subdue much the confidence of self, and will make him more meet for the Master's service, at the very time that he shall appear less zealous for it.-B, Ver. 54.-Rebuke, and tM ill fruit that comes of ;'ust rebuke, refused. In the brotherhood of human society there is a place for advice, for persuasion, for encourage- ment, for gentlest reproof, for vehement remonstrance, for beseechful expostulation, for all the energy of urgent exhortation, and for rebuke. It must be confessed, however, that the place which belongs to rebuke is (if comparison may be given to the word) far more unique in its character. Whatever it may intend, it is nothing better than the merest impertinence, except under certain very definite conditions. In connection with the ill reception, ill even to fatality, given on this occasion to the vigorous rebuke of Stephen, let us take opportunity to consider- !. THE BIGHTS ..n,"'D JUST GROUNDS OF CHRISTIAN REBmtE, 1. All rebuke must mean the assertion of authority, and naturally presumes some footing of rightful authority. The rebuke of parent, of teacher, of master, of age, of experience, of knowledge, each rests on its own special authority. We are, therefore, justified in demanding the authority of Christian rebuke or what may claim to be such. And we may ask oi what sort its authority professes to be. 2. While some may be prepared most unhesi- tatingly to answer these questions, others, and those the very persons most nearly affected by the answer, may refuse to defer to them or to accept their dicta. Still, this will not disprove the authority claimed for the exercise of Christian rebuke, nor put it in any other position than some other cases of disputed authority. The decision for such persons may be deferred till the dawn of eternity; and the person who exercises rebuke of this solemn sort must be prepared, and will readily acknowledge himself pre- pared, to a.wait also the same date and abide its issue. 3. The authority of the man who honestly exercises Christian rebuke is of the same sort and in part of the same origin with that which bids him, for his own sake and for the sake of all others, " have -no fellowship" whatsoever with evil, "but rather reprove" it. It is his native right, if he will but do this very thing, to war ceaselessly with eviL Reason might have been supposed equal to teaching this. Conscience certainly teaches it. The light of revelation, where it is possessed, says it, and the only thing remaining to clinch the rightful act of the person who rebukes is present in the fact (where least confessed) of the amen, uttered in some way or other by the conscience of the person justly rebuked. The honest Christian rebuke claims to rebuke that which is bane, misery, curse, to all the world; which, because it is the duty of every one to discountenance and do his best to destroy it, infers no prei'umptuousness in the few who do this, but does infer lachea, and most criminal laches, in those who do it not. Men may doubt, disbelieve, deny the written authority of revelation, and are answerable for the consequences of doing so. But still they are held ; and they are held by a bond they cannot break or rid them- selves of, when, being rebuked, their conscience either honestly owns to the justice of the rebuke, or owns to it no less conclusively though in a more painful manner by a certain viole,11t refusa.l of it. And it is evident that the true Christian rebuker is not to wait till such time as the person rebuked is ready to confess his faith in things to come and his apprehension of things unseen: no; he is to speak because of his own calm, firm, yet modest and tenderly compassionate apprehension of eternal verities, the things of God, of Christ, of the soul, and of eternity. No end of other responsibility lies with him who po1101 u the Christian rebuker ; but ii he be truly this, then and the~ fi~t ~ OR, VU, 1-60,) THE .A.OTB OF THE APOSTLES.