The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 396

instructions. He strikes Peter so &11 to awake him; he gives him a hand; he tells hlm to be quiet; he snaps the chains off his hands; he bids him drese and put on hle shoes, and tilrow his ~rment about him, and follow whither be would lead, All the work is known and facile, and orderly and swift, without grating or a jar, and to such a degree ihat the very ~ubject of it can think it is a vision and dream of an unbroken sleep, III. THE LOVINO--KTh'DNEss OF DIVINE WORKING. Often &S we murmuringly and impatiently may chide what seems its lingering, halting step, when it comes how grateful its advent I how true to exact need and to the nick of oce&sion I How simple iu its helpfulness and real in its usefulness! There is so little sound of profession about it, but all is deed. IV. ITS CONDESOE?>"DING WILLINGNESS TO FORM PABT OF BOMAN WORKING, The interposition that it• most marked for its superhuman element <loes not hold itself in lofty and haughty isolation, but begins from some human suggestion, and leaves just as though it put the rest trustingly into man's hand again. The angel did all tho.t was needful to get Peter outside the prison, and passed with him safely the first ward and the second ward, and through the iron gate that kuew the step of its master and opened of its own accord, and "through one street," and then departed. And Peter sees after that for himself, and understands and carries on the work, showing himself to many praying friends (ver. 12), sending express word to "James and the brethren" (ver. 17), and putting himself beyond present danger, as one more mindful of Divine protection and goodness than rashly courting danger and notoriety. V. THE JOYFUL SURPRISE IT wn.L REPEATEDLY SPREAD. From the rescued Peter himself to the delighted damsel Rhoda, to the party of the pious praying at the house of her of the auspicious name, Mary, to the fellow-apostle James and to the brethren, the tones of gladsome surprise die down, only to wake and revive again and again. '.!'he echoes of human sorrows, sighs, wails, are not, after all, the only echoes heard in this world. These others ring through the circles of the earth's &ir and the heaven's with lighter, merrier bound, a:id fail not to give some forewarning of the endless echoes of " gladness and joy and singing " that shall be ere long. VI. A.FTER .ALL, ITS SUPREME Al>'D DECISIVE CONFUSION OF BUMAN OPPOSITION, Many an earthly conflict, settled w:ith all the wisdom and devotion that human mind and heart can bring to bear, seems still left an unsettled conflict, The wound is not certainly healed up; the difference is not absolutely removed; the victory is not really satisfactory. But how is it when God interposes? How is it when Jesus speaks, whether to wind and sea or to saint or sinner? How is it when the Spirit comes upon the scene into the heart? And this was well illustrated now. Where now are the prison, and the chains, and the soldiers, and the keepers? And where is the guilty temporizer himself, Herod? They none of them can bear the light of that next morning. They cannot "abide the day of his coming." After no "small stir," the soldiers lose rank, the keepers lose life, Herod abundantly loses dignity, and" goes down from Judrea to Cresarea, and there abides," probably sorry he ever went up or began to care "to please the Jews." And past the storm, the song of the servant of Christ is heard, repeating itself and confirmed," Now I know of a surety, that the Lord bath sent his angel, and bath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews." Who so safe, who so blessed as those "delivered" by the Lord from their foes and his, and kept thenceforth in his sure 'lllace a.J.id the i;ecret hiding-place of his pavilion ?-B., Vere. 21-23.-Hollow grandeur exposed. There is no doubt that the time of our Saviour and the apostles was a time which witnessed some of the worst, the lowest, and the most malign forms of bodily disease. Similarly the time owned to some of the most monstrollS types of moral deformity. The same chapter that tells us of tho kindly, pitiful, "very present h~lp in tim_e of troubl~" that the _innocent and God- fearing Peter found, records, as 1f for telliu~ contr&l!t B sa~1e, ~h_e Judgment that was ciivinely aimed at Herod," suddenly and without remedy VlSlted on one who now had filled up the measure of hi,; iniquities. A triple t}'.pe of cruelty, vain_-glory, and irreligion is here before us. It i.s, however, roore part1_cularly the crowmng an~ at the same time killu.g point of a godlell8 i:areer which demands now attention. ls11~- OH, ][U, 1-26,] THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 8:.J3