The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 325

him. Grateful is it at one and the same time to see how the trust reposed in Bar- nabas quito sufficed to counteract the distrust that had been so naturally felt towards Saul. Brood os is the line, therefore, that separates the repentant man from the sinner; uncompromising as our conduct must be in having no fellowship with darkness; and ~renchant as our fidelity to doctrine as it were ;-yet for all this amount of reason, the more promptly, gladly, and trustfully must we give heart and hand to the repentant, whatsoever they have been heretofore. Fr?m the m~ment Jesus pardons, receives, and sots to work one who has long and deeply rnsulted him, we must pardon, "receive as a brother beloved," and welcome as a fellow-labourer that man. Nor ever for"et that to suspect and distrust a moment too long, or to wonder past believing, is to put ourselves into the last position that we would wish or mean to occupy. For our immovable and gladdest creed is that Chrigi can do all things in human heart and human life.-B. Ver. 31.-Hisfory a sermon. The simplest matters of fact are sometimes weighted with impression and charged with instruction. And in like manner, the simplest-told history sometimes preaches the most suggestive of sermons. Notice three things in this briefly described episode of history. I. THE BEST WHICH THE CHUBOH BAD, 1. It was a rest from the actual sufferings of persecution. 2. It was a rest from the constant and tearing anxieties involved in the fear of persecution. Foreboding kills many whom no actual suffering would kill. 3. It was a rest from the literal moving about from place to place, either with the chance of eluding persecution or as the consequence of it. In all of these respects the mercy of Christ is not forgetful of the need of the Church: (1) As repose is one of the first necessities of each individual that composes it. Storm, trouble, conflict, operate as useful tests of character and fidelity, and they may be said to add some sort of strength. But for growth and nourishment and sound health rest is one of the first conditions. (2) As repose is one of the first necessities for giving scope to the character and action of the Church as a whole. One of the divinest tests of the Church is its spontaneous love and its spirit of co-operation. Those who are in similar want, similar sorrow, similar danger, similar fear, Jo not :find any difficulty in harmonizing, drawing near together, co-operating. But the scene is often changed when it is all fair weather. Therefore fair weather itself is necessary (a) for trying character and hardening character, and (b) for giving the time and the opportunity for combining in works of holy activity. Note well what a various thing Christian character and life make. They are of many elements; they need not a hard, stiff, monotonous, unbending treatment. But they need the revolution of the seasons, and can bear it too. They need blast and tempest, and are responsive to summer evening's softest sigh also. They need many a caution, many an anxious watching, many an anguished heart-searching, but also they need to luxuriate awhile in the rest of calm, of happiness, of love. II. TnE PEACE WHICH PREVAILED DURING BEST. The enemy which might have taken opportunity to enter, one whom the most experienced would have feared the most, did not enter. The true motto, "Peace, as in all Churches of the saints" (1 Cor. xiv. 33), was their welcome watchword now. Rest from without is often the very signal for confusion and discord within. The concord that comes of a common enemy known to be no distance off is something far inferior to the concord that comes from real intrinsic causes. This only can give us any slightest foretaste of the deep calm of heaven. 1. How pleasant this calm peace within must have been, as a mere contrast to what had been I 2. How welcome it must have been, as introducing the followers and disciples of Jesus to their first acquaintance with a thoroughly new set of ideas, new range of affections, new work of this life, and new scope of life itself I 3. How delightful this peace, for the sake of the actual converse of disciples with disciples, and of Church with Church l They had met, perhaps, in the relations of busi11ess, and of pleasure, and of a dead formalism of religion, and in the discussion of the humiliation of the political bondage under which they were now living; but what unwonted peace this was to have "their conversation in heaven: to find it" building "-time in the best sense, to "walk in the fear of the Lord," and to know the "comfort of the Holy Ghost"! The "fellowship of kindred minds" is indeed not necessarily "like to that above;" but the fellowship of such kindred minds ia undoubtedly and blessedly "like to that above." AO'l'S, 'I  TIIE ACTS OF 'l'HE APOSTLES. [err. IL 1-43.