Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

expectation of a future judgment, which haunts even the hardened sinner; his agitation and terror seemed to say, Almost thou persuadest me to repent. But it was only an almost; for immediately he says to Paul, what he ought to have said to sin, Go thy way. He was convinced, for the time, by the reasoning of the Apostle; he believed that there would be a day, on which God would judge the world in righteousness; or he would not have trembled. But he resisted conviction, and loved darkness rather than light, because his deeds were evil; and forced himself to disbelieve that, which he was afraid might be true; and therefore he affected to treat the awful doctrines, and powerful reasonings of the Apostle, as the dreams of a doating superstition. He informed Festus that when Paul's accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as he had supposed: but had certain questions against him of their own superstition; and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.* With the same contemptuous unbelief did Festus himself, when the Apostle preached repentance and the resurrection, exclaim, Paul, thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad.t

* Acts xxv. 18.

+ Acts xxvi. 24.

In censuring the obstinate unbelief, or the stupid self-delusion of these ignorant heathens, let us consider, how far the moral of their history is applicable to ourselves.

"Methinks if I could but once hear an Apostle reason of righteousness and temperance, and a judgment to come, I should not only tremble, like Felix, but feel my conscience stirred within me to a thorough repentance, and exclaim with an earnest anxiety, What shall I do to be saved? Yes," the careless sinner may say, " to an Apostle indeed I could not do otherwise than listen with respect: the commission of the Spirit would carry with it so much weight of authority, that I should pay a serious attention to every thing which fell from his lips. But your preaching is only the advice of a man like myself; and I feel none of that alarm or edification, while listening to you, which an Apostle, or even an apostolical man, would inspire."

Such is the reasoning, by which the hypocrite and the self-deceiver bring themselves to contemn the authority of those, who are appointed to reprove, rebuke, and exhort them: Nay, but if one came unto us from the dead, we should repent. My brethren, you have the words, if not the voice of an Apostle, in your Bibles, and

in the ministry of the Church. You have the preaching of the Lord Jesus himself. He reasons with you, in language too plain to be misunderstood, of righteousness, temperance, and judgment. But it is on that very account, because the language of the Gospel is alarmingly plain and uncompromising, that so many refuse to listen to it: they will not believe that law to be of divine authority, which proscribes so many opinions and practices, approved of and rewarded by the world. To general and indefinite commendations of virtue they can listen with complacency; and they assent to the truth, that sin is displeasing to God: but when the preacher applies himself directly to their consciences; fixes the Gospel prohibitions upon their own particular indulgences; enforces the necessity of personal holiness; and points out their individual danger; they tremble, perhaps; but their pride straitway rises; the fancied security of a determined, or careless unbelief is contrasted with the fearful anxiety of a convinced and self-condemned sinner; and the preacher is dismissed and would be, even were he an apostle-Go thy way.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In the different discourses of St. Paul, before Felix and Agrippa, we have another instance of the discernment and prudence, with which he

accommodated his mode of reasoning to the intellectual, or moral peculiarities of his hearers. To Felix, a heathen in religion, and a profligate in practice, he argued, upon those principles of right and wrong, which even the heathens understood and acknowledged, for the duties of righteousness and temperance; and pointed out, from the marks of God's providential government, which were upon the face of nature and the surface of events, the high probability of a judgment to come: from thence he proceeded to declare its revealed certainty, and the necessity of repentance, because God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man, whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Such was the line of argument, which he pursued with the Athenians; and such no doubt was his mode of reasoning with Felix. But in his pleading before Agrippa, who was expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews, he appeals both to the writings of the Old Testament, and to the received opinions and constant, traditions of his nation; and argues for the credibility of the resurrection, from the hope of the promise made

[ocr errors]

*Acts xxvi. 3..

R

of God to their fathers- saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come. This mode of reasoning was so strange to Festus, that he treated the Apostle as a madman: but Agrippa, to whom it was more immediately directed, felt its force, when he said, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

When Paul was in custody at Jérusalem, the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome. It is possible, that this intimation was present to the mind of the Apostle, when he appealed from the judgment of Festus to that of Cæsar; a necessary consequence of which appeal would be, the being sent to abide by it at Rome. No doubt he was influenced, in part, by the persuasion, that justice would not be done to him by Festus; whose interest it was, to gratify the Jews upon his coming into the province. As Felix, willing to shew the Jews a pleasure, had left Paul bound; so it was to be apprehended, that Festus, from the same motive, would act towards the Apostle, as Pilate had acted towards a holier and a nobler victim, Acts xxiv. 27.

* Acts xxiii. 11.

[ocr errors]
« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »