The Acts of the Apostles, with a Comm. by F. C. Cook

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ...us ram from ch. 17. 30. 1 Pet. 4. 3. 'eta. 17. 27. Horn. 1. 20. Lev. 26. 24. Dout. 11. 14. & 28.12. Job S. 10. Ps. 05. 10. & 68.9. & 147. 8. Jcr. 14. 22. Matt. 5. 49. nature, yet they come with a peculiar office--as messengers of glad tidings, and announcing the living God. 'These vanities' The false deities, for whom ye take us, and whom ye ignorantly worship. The word means that they are lifeless and powerless; in fact, having no existence but in the imagination of the superstitious. 'The living God, who made, ' &c. God is contrasted with idols, as the source of all life and the creator of the universe. The heathens did not even imagine that their deities were the makers of heaven and earth. Their Jupiter, according to their own legends, was born at a period long subsequent to the formation of both. They differed as to the forming or moulding power, but universally held the eternal pre-existenee of matter. Hence St. Paul saith, --' Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.' Hebrews xi. 3. It is important to observe how the apostle adapts his arguments to the intellectual position of his audience. In addressing heathens, he first appeals to the elementary principles of what is called natural religion; a mode of argument which, as Grotius observes, should be borne in mind by those who have to preach the Gospel to persons educated in idolatry. 16. 'Suffered all nations, ' &c. He left them without a special revelation of His attributes and will; without the restraints and directions of a miraculously attested law. St. Paul expresses the same fact even more strongly (chap. xvii. 30): VThe times of this ignorance God...