peculiar observations. Leaving her very suddenly, our Lord appeared to the other Mary and Salome, whom he permitted to embrace his feet, comforted them under their fear, and renewed the assurance the angel had given them, that he would meet his disciples in Galilee. While these things were passing at some distance, and the scene at the sepulchre was clear, Joanna and the women who brought the spices, (and of whom Luke only writes,) came, and entering into the sepulchre, at first saw no one in it, till the two angels, who a few minutes before had appeared to Mary Magdalene, made themselves visible to Joanna and her attendants, and assuring them of the resurrection of Jesus, reminded them how it had been foretold by himself, with the previous circumstances of his sufferings, but gave them no charge concerning the information to be carried to the apostles; that having been committed to the others. Yet (as it was natural to suppose they would) some of this second company ran to the city, and, by whatever accident it happened, reached the eleven, and some other disciples who were with them, before the two Maries and Salome arrived, telling them, (which was all they could tell them,) that they had seen a vision of angels, who asserted that Jesus was alive. Peter on this ran a second time to the sepulchre, (Luke xxiv. 12,) and not entering as before, but only stooping down and looking into it, he saw no angels, or any thing else, but a force xupera pora, only the linen clothes lying there, on which he returned; and just on his making that report, the two disciples who went that day to Emmaus, or some from whom they received their information, (Luke xxiv. 22-24,) left the place before the arrival of the two Maries and Salome; who, retarded, as was hinted above, by some unknown accident, (perhaps by guessing wrong as to the place where they might find the largest company together,) at last, however, reached them, and made abundant satisfaction for the little delay, (for all might perhaps have passed in an hour,) by assuring them, not only that they also had seen an angel who informed them of their Lord's resurrection, but that Jesus himself had appeared to them, and had even permitted himself to be touched by two of them. *Our author observes, that this text, I am not yet ascended, &c. comprehends in a few words a variety of most important hints, which have not commonly been taken notice of in them; particularly that our Lord intended by them to recall to the minds of his disciples the discourse he had with them three nights before, in which he explained what he meant by going to the Father; (see John xvi. 28,) and by twice using the word ascend, designed to intimate, that he was to go up to heaven, not merely in spirit, as the pious dead do, but by a corporeal motion and translation, and that it would be some time before he took his final leave of earth by this intended ascension: All which weighty expressions and predictions concur with a thousand other circumstances to show, how impossible it was that such an apprehended appearance should have been merely the result of a disordered imagination; a consideration, which Mr. West illustrates at large, as he also does the mistaken apprehension of the disciples, who, when some of their companions, whose veracity they could not suspect, testified they had scen the Lord, thought his body was not risen, but that it was only his spirit had appeared to them; which hint I mention as a key, by means of which many passages in the Evangelists are explained in this work. This is Mr. West's scheme of this important story; and the reader will easily perceive, that it chiefly differs from mine in these two circumstances: That it supposes the women to have made two different visits to the sepulchre, and in consequence of that, two distinct reports; whereas mine unites them, (though I do not suppose they all came together, but that they met there :) And that it also makes Peter to have run to it twice, of which I now think there can be no reasonable doubt, though I before incorporated Luke's account with that of John, relating to his running thither with John on Mary Magdalene's first report. On the whole, whatever embarrassments some may apprehend, I am fully convinced, that the scheme I have offered in my Harmony, will fully acquit the Evangelists from any charge of absurdity or contradiction; and I think it far preferable to any other method of adjusting them which I ever met with, before or since the publication, till this piece of Mr. West came into my hands: But his plan, though not altogether clear of some difficulties, (especially from the connection of the 1st and 20th verses of the xxivth of Luke with the intermediate,) yet seems on the whole to have so many advantages, that I am inclined to acquiesce in it. I doubt not but those of my readers, who have not read the ingenious piece from which this extract is taken, will be glad to find it here, and will take the first opportunity of perusing the book itself, in which they will find a variety of other excellent remarks. I cannot conclude without recommending it to the divine blessing, and declaring my joy, that so able and worthy a defender of Christianity is risen up, in a rank of life which leaves no room for insinuating any suspicion of those secular views to which some, who may perhaps judge of others by what they know of their own low principles of action, may be ready ungenerously, and in many instances ridiculously, to impute those efforts, which the ministers of the gospel are so frequently making for its vindication. Since all the preceding part of this Postscript was written, the world has been blessed with another admirable production of this kind, from the pen of one of the politest writers and worthiest of men, who is lately become the public advocate of that religion, to which he hath much longer been a distinguished ornament. Many of my readers will undoubtedly know, that I refer to the Observations on the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul, by the honourable George Lyttleton, Esq. one of the Lords of the treasury; a piece, if I may presume to give my opionion of it, as perfect in its kind as any our age has produced. I cannot but greatly regret, that I have not the opportunity of enriching my notes on the Acts with several of this gentleman's judicious and entertaining remarks, which I shall not fail to attempt, if a second edition should be required. In the mean time, I mention it here, that no one who has it in his power may lose the pleasure and benefit of perusing that masterly treatise; in which he will find a most compendious yet unanswerable demonstration of Christianity, proposed in so clear, elegant, and nervous a manner, with such intermingled traces of the author's excellent heart, that he must surely be among the most perfect, or the most unteachable of mankind, who is not greatly instructed and edified by it. Oct. 28, 1747. THE FAMILY EXPOSITOR. The ACTS of the HOLY APOSTLES, written by SECT. I. St. Luke connects this history with his gospel, by a more particular account of the ascension of Christ than he had there given. Acts I. 1-12. ACTS I. 1. HE TH former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, ACTS I. 1. THE former treatise, which I lately com- SECT. posed, and inscribed to thee, O Theophi of all that Jesus lus, contained a faithful narrative, as far as began both to do and might be necessary for the confirmation of a Christian convert, concerning all the most considerable things which Jesus began both to do teach, a The former treatise I composed.] This former treatise is undoubtedly the Gospel, which was written by St. Luke, and dedi. cated by him to Theophilus: and, as this history of the Acts was written by the same person, it is allowed by all antiquity, the author of it was St. Luke, whom the apostle Paul styles the beloved physician, (Col. iv. 14) and speaks of as his fellow labourer, (Philem. ver. 24) who was with him at Rome, when he wrote his epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, and again afterwards when he wrote his Second Epistle to Timothy; (2 Tim. iv. 11) and so continued an associate and companion to the apostle Paul, as it is evident, from his manner of expression, the penman of the Acts had been, in several of his travels, and in his dangerous voyage when he went first to Rome. This book is generally thought to have been written about the year of our Lord 63, at which time the history ends, which it is reasonable to sup. pose would have proceeded further, if it had been written later: and probably, as i. Acts Mr. L'Enfant and others have observed, it made as it were a second Part of St. Luke's Gospel, which in all copies has the author's name prefixed, while this is left without a title in the oldest manuscripts; though in. the Syriac Version it is expressly ascribed to Luke, whom the translator seems to call his master. Not to mention the supposed allusions to this book in Barnabas, Clemens Romanus, Hermas Ignatius, and Polycarp, it is certain that Irenæus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius, bear the most express testimonies to the genuineness of it, in a multitude of passages, which I need not here insert, as they are produced at large by Dr. Benson, in the first Part of the Ap pendix to his History of the Plantation of Christianity, Vol. III. p. 295-310; and, since the publication of that, by Mr. Biscoe, in his learned Discourses at Boyle's Lecture, chap. xiv. xv. where he has shewn in a most convincing manner, how capable these ancient writers were of judging in this matter, and how universally it was 2 Acts i. 2 Christ being now to take leave of his disciples, he had chosen. SECT. and to teach,b and gave an account of the mani. ner in which Christ opened the gospel, and in which he confirmed it, from his first appearance on earth to the last period of his abode upon it; Even to the very day in which he was 2 Until the day in taken up into heaven again, after he had by the which he was taken influence and assistance of the Holy Spirit,c up, after that he through the Holy with which he himself was so abundantly Ghost had given anointed, given a proper charge to the apostles, commandments unwhom he had chosen to be the prime ministers to the apostles whom of his kingdom, and the great instruments of 3 extending it in the world: To whom also, 3 To whom also he in order to fit them more completely for the shewed himself alive after his passion, discharge of their important office, he presented by many infallible himself alive after his sufferings, with many proofs, being seen of most evident testimonials of the truth of his them forty days, and resurrection; while, though he declined ap- things pertaining to speaking of the pearing publicly among the Jews, he often the kingdom shewed himself to his disciples, being seen by God: them at various times for no less than forty days, and speaking to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God, which was then shortly to be erected by their means. owned by the Christians of the first ages as a sacred book. How incontestibly it demonstrates the truth of Christianity, is shewn at large in both these useful treatises, and every attentive reader must needs observe it for himself. Began both to do and to teach.] To begin to do a thing, as Heinsius and many other critics have observed, is a common Greek idiom for doing or undertaking a thing. Compare Mat. xii. 1, with Luke vi. 1; and Mark vi. 2; with Mat xiii. 54. See also Gen. iii. 3; Septuag. Numb. xxv. 1; Judg. xiii 5; xx. 31; Luke iii. 8; xxi. 28; and A cts ii. 4. Yet in most of these places it refers to some of the first actions or events of the kind. Accordingly I apprehend, with Chrysostom, that the phrase here refers to the account which Luke had given of Christ's ministry, from the begin ning and first rise of it, (as he speaks, Luke i. 2, 3,) to the ascension, with which he concludes his Gospel. By the Holy Spirit.] It is certainly much more agreeable to the order and construction of the words in the original, to connect and explain them as above, than to refer them, as the Syriac and Ethiopic Versions do, to his choosing the apostles, by of the Spirit, or with Elsner, (Observ. Vol. I. p. 353,) to his being taken up by it. It is no wonder, considering how short a history we have of what passed between Christ's resurrection and ascension, that this should be the only place which speaks of his acting by the Spirit after he rose from the dead: nor can I, with a late learned and ingenious writer, think that a sufficient reason for adhering to the versions mentioned above. (See Benson's Plantation of Christianity, Vol I. p. 14, 15.) His breathing on the Spirit; (John xx. 22) seems also to apostles, and saying, Receive ye the Holy agree very well with this interpretation. To render it, the orders they were to execute by the Holy Spirit, (as in the Translation of 1727) is altogether arbitrary, and is substituting a quite different truth instead of what was written by Luke. I have before inserted the remaining verses of this section in the two last sections of the second volume, to complete the History of our Lord to the time of his ascension. (See noted, Vol. II. sect. ccii.) But notwithstanding this it will be easily excused, that I have not omitted them here in their proper place, that the whole History of the Acts might stand together, and the work be kept entire. |