The Pulpit Commentary — Acts — Volume 1 — Section 401

Goa'a prote~ei~e presenre. So suddenly had persecution burst upon them, so over- whelming did 1t eeem, that they were for the moment paralyzed with fear-just as the sorvant of Elisha was when the Syrian army surrounded the house-and nothina could so immediately and etliciontly recall them to calmness and trust as this wonderful rescue of St. Peter, convincing them, as it did, how tenderly near to them was their livina and almighty Lord. Such a moral result will in every age suffice to explain a Divin: miraculous revelation or intervention.-R. T. Ver. 15.-Testimony versus reasoning. The subject is suggested by the persistence of Rhoda and the incredulity of the disciples. Upon the evidence of her senses Rhoda constantly affirmed that it was St. Peter who stood at the gate. The disciples vigorously argued that it could not be he, and tried to reason away her testimony St. Peter was in prison, e.nd it was simply impossible that he could be knockina at the gate. So much is made in our time of the demand for facts and evidence "'and verification of a.II statements, and it is so often assumed that reasoning can destroy testimony, or that testimony, as we have it on the Christian theme, is insufficient to support our elaborate reasoning, that the trustworthiness of each, and the relations in which each stands to the other, may be profitably considered. I. THE IMPORTANOE OF TESTIMONY. Our senses are the appointed media for our communication with the outer world, and they are both the first and constant sources of our knowledge. We learn to trust them. We readily receive the testimony of others as to what they have seen and heard, and, with limitations, as to what they have felt. There is, then, (1) knowledge received directly upon the testimony of our own senses; and (2) knowledge received indirectly upon the testimony of others who tell us what they know through the senses. And as the sphere directly open to each one of us is very limited, we a.re very largely dependent for our knowledge on the testimony of others, upon such witness of personal knowledge as Rhorla gave. In the matters of the Christian religion we are wholly dependent on this indirect witness of the senses. What the apostles themselves saw, and tasted, and handled, and felt of the Word of life, that they declare unto us. The four Gospels come to us as the testimony of the senses of men who looked on Christ, lived with him, listened to him, and knew him in the intimacy of e. close and dear friendship. We cannot too constantly or too earnestly urge that Christianity rests upon a basis of sensible facts, and that of them we have the testimony directly from the very persons who witnessed them. Therefore, though all the world may please to declare that we are mad, as the disciples said that Rhoda was, we too shall constantly affirm that it is even so as we have testified. No facts of human history can be received by us save on principles which compel us also to receive the facts of our Redeemer's lifo and death. II. HUMAN TESTIMONY MUST ALWAYS BE UNCERTAIN. This should be fully admitted. It is uncertain, because (1) our senses may be untrained and so unfit to receive impressions; or (2) diseased, and so likely to receive distorted impressions; or (3) the subjects with which they are concerned may be altogether new to us, and we may thus be unprepared duly to correct impression. Still, so far as the bare facts are con- cer;ned, the uncertainty is not such as to prove a practical disability. In the range of fact men are found generally to agree. III. HUMAN REASONING 18 NECESSARILY UNCERTAIN, As in the case of the disciples who reasoned against Rhoda. The uncertainty comes out of: 1. Prejudice and bias (see the idola of Bacon). 2. Insufficient facts ; some of the worst reasoning is explained by incomplete knowledge of the facts on which the reasoning is based. 3. False methods (see the fallacies explained in books on logic). IV, THE TRUTH MAY BE BEACHED BY WISE REASONING UPON SUFFICIENT TESTIMONY. To receive testimony alone may be mere credulity. To receive upon argument alone may be to yield to mere human force, to the power of superior iutellect. But with due inquiry into basis-facts, and careful reasoning upon the facts, we may arrive at eatisfying apprehensions of the truth. Apply to the acceptance of Christianity, with its difficulty of the miraculous. The four Gospels are a fourfold testimony to the great Christian fe.ots. We must build our reasoning on the facts; just as those disciples should have received Rhoda's fe.ot, and followed it up with· their reasoning, and not , m11de their reasoning oppose the faots.-R. T. 898 THE AOTS OF THE APOSTLE& [oH, ll:11, 1-26,