How many, by confounding the self and free agency of God with a sort of continual impulsive necessity, have raised that necessity into an all-commanding and overruling energy, to which God himself is made subject! Very properly did Milton set his damned spirits about such work as this, and has made it a part of their endless punishment: -
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate; and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate;
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Parad. Lost, b. ii. l. 557.
Among some exceptionable expressions, the following are also good thoughts on the flee agency and fall of man: - - I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
When only what they needs must do appeared,
Not what they would? What praise could they receive?.
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,
Made passive, both had served Necessity,
Not Me. -
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge, and what they choose, for so
I formed them free, and free they must remain
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained
Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.
Ibid, b. iii. l. 98, 103, 120.
I shall conclude these observations with a short extract from Mr. Bird's Conferences, where, in answer to the objection, "If many things fall out contingently, or as it were by accident, God's foreknowledge of them can be but contingent, dependent on man's free will," he observes: "It is one thing to know that a thing will be done necessarily; and another, to know necessarily that a thing will be done. God doth necessarily foreknow all that will be done; but he doth not know that those things which shall be done voluntarily will be done necessarily: he knoweth that they will be done; but he knoweth withal that they might have fallen out otherwise, for aught he had ordered to the contrary. So likewise God knew that Adam would fall; and get he knew that he would not fall necessarily, for it was possible for him not to have fallen. And as touching God's preordination going before his prescience as the cause of all events this would be to make God the author of all the sin in the world; his knowledge comprehending that as well as other things. God indeed foreknoweth all things, because they will be done; but things are not (therefore) done, because he foreknoweth them. It is impossible that any man, by his voluntary manner of working, should elude God's foresight; but then this foresight doth not necessitate the will, for this were to take it wholly away. For as the knowledge of things present imports no necessity on that which is done, so the foreknowledge of things future lays no necessity on that which shall be; because whosoever knows and sees things, he knows and sees them as they are, and not as they are not; so that God's knowledge doth not confound things, but reaches to all events, not only which come to pass, but as they come to pass, whether contingency or necessarily. As, for example, when you see a man walking upon the earth, and at the very same instant the sun shining in the heavens, do you not see the first as voluntary, and the second as natural? And though at the instant you see both done, there is a necessity that they be done, (or else you could not see them at all), yet there was a necessity of one only before they were done, (namely, the sun's shining in the heavens), but none at all of the other, (viz. the man's walking upon the earth.) The sun could not but shine, as being a natural agent; the man might not have walked, as being a voluntary one." This is a good argument; but I prefer that which states the knowledge of God to be absolutely free, without the contradictions which are mentioned above. "But you deny the omniscience of God." - No, no more than I deny his omnipotence, and you know I do not, though you have asserted the contrary. But take heed how you speak about this infinitely free agent: if you will contradict, take heed that you do not blaspheme. I ask some simple questions on the subject of God's knowledge and power: if you know these things better than your neighbor, be thankful, be humble, and pray to God to give you amiable tempers; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. May he be merciful to thee and me!
Introduction
Peter and John go to the temple at the hour of prayer, and heal a man who had been lame from his mother's womb, [Act 3:1-8]. The people are astonished, and the apostles inform them that it was not by their own power they had healed the man, but through the power of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, [Act 3:9-16]. Peter both excuses and reproves them, and exhorts them to repentance, [Act 3:17-21]. Shows that in Jesus Christ the prophecy of Moses was fulfilled; and that all the prophets testified of Jesus and his salvation, [Act 3:22-24]; and that, in him, the covenant made with Abraham is fulfilled; and that Christ came to bless them by turning them away from their iniquities, [Act 3:25], [Act 3:26].
Verse 1
Peter and John went up together - The words επι το αυτο, which we translate together, and which are the first words in this chapter in the Greek text, we have already seen, [Act 2:47], are added by several MSS. and versions to the last verse of the preceding chapter. But they do not make so good a sense there as they do here; and should be translated, not together, which really makes no sense here, but at that time; intimating that this transaction occurred nearly about the same time that those took place which are mentioned at the close of the former chapter.
At the hour of prayer - This, as is immediately added, was the ninth hour, which answers, in a general way, to our three o'clock in the afternoon. The third hour, which was the other grand time of public prayer among the Jews, answered, in a general way, to our nine in the morning. See the note on [Act 2:15].
It appears that there were three hours of the day destined by the Jews to public prayer; perhaps they are referred to by David, [Psa 55:17] : Evening and Morning, and at Noon, will I pray and cry aloud. There are three distinct times marked in the book of the Acts. The Third hour, [Act 2:15], answering, as we have already seen, to nearly our nine o'clock in the morning; the Sixth hour, [Act 10:9], answering to about twelve with us; and the Ninth hour, mentioned in this verse, and answering to our three in the afternoon.
The rabbins believed that Abraham instituted the time of morning prayer; Isaac, that at noon; and Jacob, that of the evening: for which they quote several scriptures, which have little reference to the subject in behalf of which they are produced. Others of the rabbins, particularly Tanchum, made a more natural division. Men should pray,
1. When the sun rises;
2. when the sun has gained the meridian;
3. when the sun has set, or passed just under the horizon.
At each of these three times they required men to offer prayer to God; and I should be glad to know that every Christian in the universe observed the same rule: it is the most natural division of the day; and he who conscientiously observes these three stated times of prayer will infallibly grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Verse 2
A - man lame from his mother's womb - The case of this man must have been well known:
1. from the long standing of his infirmity:
2. from his being daily exposed in a place so public.
It appears that he had no power to walk, and was what we term a cripple, for he was carried to the gate of the temple, and laid there in order to excite compassion. These circumstances are all marked by St. Luke, the more fully to show the greatness and incontestable nature of the miracle.
The gate - which is called Beautiful - There are different opinions concerning this gate. Josephus observes, Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 5, sect. 3, that the temple had nine gates, which were on every side covered with gold and silver; but there was one gate which was without the holy house, and was of Corinthian brass, and greatly excelled those which were only covered with gold and silver: πολυ τῃ τιμῃ τας καταργυρους και περιχρυσους ὑπεραγουσα. The magnitudes of the other gates were equal one to another; but that of the Corinthian gate, which opened on the east, over against the gate of the holy house itself, was much larger: πεντηκοντα γαρ πηχων ουσα την αναστασιν, τεσσαρακοντα πηχεις τας θυρας ειχε, και τον κοσμον πολυτελεστερον, επι δαψιλες παχος αργυρου τε και χρυσου· for its height was fifty cubits, and its doors were forty cubits, and it was adorned after a most costly manner, as having much richer and thicker plates of silver and gold upon them than upon the other. This last was probably the gate which is here called Beautiful; because it was on the outside of the temple, to which there was an easy access, and because it was evidently the most costly, according to the account in Josephus; but it must be granted that the text of Josephus is by no means clear.