for the preachers of a new religion to learn what other
novelties they introduced, or what deeper mysteries they
might expound. He could not be supposed to know much
of the gospel, yet he seems to style it " the word of God,"
for it was in its character of a divine revelation that he
wished to hear it. It was not speculation or philosophy
that his soul thirsted after, but an oracular intimation of
58 SAUL IN CYPRUS.
duty and destiny. He would not be chilled with Stoicism,
nor lulled into Epicurean indifference. His anxiety was not
to hear hypotheses, or be amused with reverie, but to have
something said to him of his religious interests, something
which referred itself to a divine source, and brought with
it supreme authority.
The addresses or conversations of the evangelists pro-
duced a deep impression on the mind of the proconsul.
The sorcerer who had arrogated to himself the Arabic term
Elymas, or wise man wizard a term still applied to the
Mahometan doctors in the Turkish empire, could not
suffer those impressions to be deepened, but sought by
every means to disturb and remove them. His selfish
schemes would all vanish if his patron should yield to the
teaching of the two strangers. Such an issue must at all
hazards be prevented, and therefore the impostor withstood
the apostle, and sought to prejudice the mind of the gover-
nor against him. He sought " to turn away the deputy
from the faith;" he was loath to lose his victim, and
struggled hard to retain him in bondage. How he strove
to keep his ground is not known; but, perhaps, if the
rebuke of Saul have any special reference to the mode
of his antagonism, it points to sophistry and malignant
insinuation ; perversion of facts, and wilful misinterpreta-
tion of doctrines and motives ; an attempt so to picture the
faith in its proofs, precepts, experiences, or results, as to
induce the deputy to dislike it, suspect its teachers, and
refuse their message. So pertinacious was he and dex-
terous, that an example must be made of him ; and Saul's
first miracle must be one of judgment on a spiteful and
DARK ARTS. 59
irreclaimable adversary. The contest was, whether Elymas
the sorcerer or the truth of Christ was to have the ascen-
dancy over the mind of the insular governor. The new
power was about to dash and confound the old and cunning
errors, and to show its superiority to all that kind of hidden
deceit, charms, and " curious arts " with which it might be
ignorantly and popularly identified. It was to disentangle
itself from all those superstitions which, from Syria and
Judea, had overspread the empire. Just as Bar-Jesus was
with Sergius Paulus, so had a Syrian seeress been with
Marius in his campaigns j so had oriental astrologers been
occasionally with Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus; so had
Thrasyllus been with the emperor Tiberius ; and Josephus
speaks of a Cypriot named Simon who rose into high favour
with the governor Felix. The apostle Peter had already
unmasked another Simon, and a few years later the Ephe-
sian converts burned their costly books. Banished from
Rome again and again, those spiritualists maintained a
place in it, for they were feared, and yet courted; and
while they were frowned upon, they could not be dispensed
with. Thus Saul, the king of Israel, had put down all
that had " familiar spirits," and yet, in his extremity, he
resorted to a woman reported to have one of them.
Saul, henceforth to be named Paul, has been during
this mission rising to a full conception of his apostolical
dignity and prerogative. " The Spirit of God came upon
him " to do a mightier act than Samson ever did by the
same influence. Intensely conscious of his position and what
it involved at that awful moment, and looking on the wizard
with an eye that read his soul, the anathema burst from
60 SAUL IN CYPRUS.
his lips. It was no idle rebuke his word came with
power. The magician might be appalled at the fulmina-
tion, but could scarce expect such an instant retribution.
Filled with the Holy Ghost armed with a supernatural
power to chastise the incorrigible Paul said : " O full of
all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou
enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert
the right ways of the Lord?" What a concentration
of scorn and wrath ! every word withers and denounces.
full of all subtilty! a master of low cunning and in-
genious retort ; so that he easily turned the edge of the
apostle's arguments. He understood the weak points in
the character of Sergius Paulus, and knowingly plied him
with such objections as should most powerfully tell upon
him. Such subtilty is not penetration, and such casuistic
ingenuity soon imposes on its possessor, and he comes to
have faith in his own coinage. And all mischief facility
of evil-working ; he was clever in his mischief. Highest
mischief, not to enter into the kingdom himself, nor yet to
suffer the proconsul to enter either; infinite harm so to
trade on man's spiritual instincts, and tamper with his
eternal destiny !
Thou child of the devil the devil's own ; not a child of
Jesus the Blessed, as thy name is, but a child of the devil
proving thy lineage by showing thy father's spirit and
doing thy father's work, the very work he did in Eden
when by hellish craft and falsehood he seduced the first pair
to their ruin. He tempted Eve by the tree of knowledge,
insinuated into her mind doubts of God's disinterestedness,
as if He were jealous lest she should rise to an equality with
MIRACLE OF DOOM. 61
Himself by her eating of that fruit; so that under this
delusion she felt it to be a duty to eat, become a goddess,
and be wise. Elymas, in a similar spirit, had persuaded
the proconsul that highest wisdom dwelt with him the
knowledge of God and of the way of life. And surely
error in the guise of truth, or death wearing a mask of
life, is the devil, or the child of the devil. " Thou enemy
of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the
right ways of the Lord?" This terrible interrogation
was a solemn command to desist, and it tells his crime.
"The right ways of the Lord" is a phrase which may be
employed to characterize not only the gospel as the true
path, but also the old dispensation. He might pervert
it so as by it to oppose Christianity, or use it as a prin-
cipal engine to perplex the mind of his victim, so that it
might repel Christianity. He contrived either to give a
crooked turn to the right way, that it might lead in an
opposite direction, or he hoped to make it such a labyrinth
that none could find their way in it save such as paid him
for the clue to guide them. Wicked and wilful cleverness
dexterity in the devil's own likeness so to "pervert the
right ways of the Lord," so to misrepresent Judaism or
Christianity, as that in either case poison should be plucked
from the tree of life !
The apostle adds the terrible words "And now,
behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou
shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season." This
challenge, so far as we know, was Paul's first conscious
putting forth of supernatural power. Strange that his
earliest miracle should be one of doom the infliction of
62 SAUL IN CYPRUS.
such a blindness as in the moment of his conversion had
come upon himself. He could not but compassionate the
guilty wretch, as he saw him gradually losing the power
of vision, gazing around him with wild eyeballs, and
groping in dismay. The miracle is described with awful
precision. "And immediately there fell on him a mist
and a darkness ; and he went about seeking some to lead
him by the hand." A mist gathered over his eyes, so
that he saw indistinctly, but it soon thickened into total
obscurity. The haze that for a moment floated before him
darkened into midnight j and his frantic gesticulations
indicated his desire for " some to lead him by the hand."
That blindness was a symbol of his own spirit and work.
His moral sense was blunted, and in attempting to sway
Sergius Paulus, it was the blind leading the blind, while
he needed to be led himself. He might profess to work
by the finger of God, but the heavy hand of God fell upon
him, and its shadow extinguished his vision. His sin
might be read in his judgment. His boast was of insight,
but he was taught that he saw nothing.
Infliction coming direct from God's hand, often takes
its shape from the crime. Ham mocked his father, and
his doom was one of servitude, under which a father's
claims are ignored, and he is valued but as the pro-
ducer of living marketable tools. Abimelech wished to
add Sarah to his harem, and sterility was the penalty of
his household. Israel, God's first-born, are kept in bon-
dage, and Pharaoh's first-born fall before the destroying
angel. Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and On conspired to
undermine the authority of Moses, but a mine was sprung
JUDGMENT SHAPED BY SIN. 63
under themselves "they went down alone into the pit,
and the earth closed upon them." Miriam murmured that
the alien wife of her brother should be naturalized, and she
was smitten with a loathsome distemper, which instantly
excluded her from the camp. Jeroboam put forth his
hand against "the man of God which had cried against
the altar in Bethel," "and his hand which he had put
forth against him dried up, so that he could not pull it in
again to him." When Uzziah "was strong, his heart was
lifted up to his destruction ; " and when he intruded into
the temple to burn incense, "the leprosy rose up in his
forehead," and he durst not afterwards pass beyond his own
dwelling ; "and he was cut off from the house of the Lord."
Those that exhausted the flesh of Israel by labour and
slavery, shall be fed " with their own flesh," according to
the menace of Jehovah. " They have shed the blood
of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood
to drink." In the hour of his impious exultation, when
he thought himself a " mortal God," Nebuchadnezzar
was smitten with a strange mania, and herded with the
beasts of the field. The tongue which had spoken proud
words imitated the lowings of the oxen ; the fingers
which had grasped the sceptre carried the green provender
to the royal lips ; and all this " till his hair was grown like
eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws." Zecha-
riah saw the vision, but spoke to Gabriel in incredulity ;
therefore he was struck dumb, and was "not able to speak"
till the promise was fulfilled. When Herod accepted hom-
age as a god, his godship set upon by the lowest vermin
" was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost."
64 SAUL IN CYPKUS.
Paul had risen to the dignity and authority of his
apostolate. He had a "power to edification," though it
now assumed a terrific aspect ; and the deputy, awed and
overcome, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the
Lord at the way in which the Lord taught, and so
strikingly authenticated His doctrine. The blindness
inflicted on his evil genius for endeavouring so malig-
nantly to prevent the true light from entering into his
heart, proved to him that Paul was no pretender, and
that the doctrine which could take so sudden and signal
vengeance on its opponent, was armed with a power that
betokened its supernatural origin. He was awe-struck, and
was unable to refuse his assent. He could not allow the
sorcerer to trifle with him any longer, nor durst he longer
"halt between two opinions;" but he bowed to the truth
proclaimed by the Hebrew missionaries. Thus judgment
and mercy have been often associated. The acceptance of
Abel led to the banishment of Cain ; the water that bore up
Noah's ark drowned the old world ; the escape of Lot was
the signal for the fire-shower upon Sodom ; the exodus of
Israel was preceded by the doom of Egypt ; the posses-
sion of Canaan is the expulsion of the Canaanites; the
child Jesus is " set for the fall and rising again of many;"
the life of the world springs from the murder of Calvary;
men live to righteousness in proportion as they die to sin ;
the casting away of the chosen race was the " reconciling
of the world ; " and the enlightenment of Sergius Paulus
has by its side the blinding of Elymas the sorcerer.
" Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God ! "
V. PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
ACTS riii. 1352.
BARNABAS and Saul had gone to Cyprus, but their rela-
tive position was changed during their residence in the
island ; and in the record of their departure from it, Paul
occupies the place of honour and prominence. The con-
version of Sergius Paulus seems to remind the historian
that he of Tarsus then assumed, and afterwards bore, the
similar name of Paul ; and that with the proper commence-
ment of his labours as the apostle of the Gentiles, the
native Hebrew name of Saul is for ever dropped. The
subsidence of Barnabas into a subordinate position may
have offended his nephew Mark, and been one of the rea-
sons which induced him to desert the enterprise and return
to his mother at Jerusalem. At length "Paul and his
company loosed from Paphos," passed over to Asia
Minor, skirting the western confines of Cilicia, and sailed
up the Oestrus, landing at Perga in Pamphylia. Then
crossing the great table-land of the country, they entered
Antioch of Pisidia a city, the ruins of which have been
only recently discovered. What induced them to make
this visit we know not ; perhaps they anticipated that this
second Antioch would be as rich in its spiritual harvest
as the first Antioch on the Orontes. They took an early
opportunity of worshipping on Sabbath in the synagogue ;
E
66 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
and " after the reading of the law and the prophets/' an
appeal was made to the two strangers, or rather a mes-
sage was sent to them by the presiding elders. Paul at
once rose, and, waving his hand, solicited the attention of
the audience. It has been asserted with some show of
probability, that on this sacred day the portion of the law
read was the first chapter of Deuteronomy, and the corre-
sponding section of the prophets, the first chapter of Isaiah.
The discourse of the apostle grew out of the scripture
which had been repeated, and he takes from it some of his
historical allusions. In the synagogue of Nazareth Jesus
read the scripture for the day, and proceeded to expound
and apply it; but the apostle speaks after it had been
chanted by the appropriate officer, and introduces such
ideas and associations as the word which they had heard
must have stirred up within them. His audience was
composed of Jews and proselytes men of Israel by birth,
and those that fear God those of other nations who had
renounced idolatry for the spiritual worship of Jehovah.
This discourse, the first of Paul's discourses reported at
any length, dwells on three points the prior history of
the people, and its connection with the advent ; then the
Messiahship of Jesus, and its proofs ; and lastly, the solemn
application of the truth to themselves.
The historical exordium of the apostle is brief but pointed.
" Men of Israel, and those fearing God, listen. The God
of this people chose for Himself our fathers, and the people
He exalted during their sojourn as strangers in the land
of Egypt, and with a high arm did He lead them out of it,
and for about forty years did He nurse them in the wilder-
DIVINE GIFTS TO ISRAEL. 67
ness ; and, having destroyed seven nations in the land of
Canaan, he assigned by lot their land to them ; and after
these things, for about four hundred and fifty years he
gave them judges, until Samuel the prophet ; and thereafter
they desired for themselves a king, and God gave them
Saul, the son of Kish a man of the tribe of Benjamin
for forty years; and, having deposed him, he raised up
David to them >r a king, to whom he spoke, giving this
testimony ' I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man
according to my own heart, who shall perform all my will
(all the expressions of my will).' Of this man's seed has
God, according to promise, brought to Israel a Saviour
Jesus ; John having preached beforehand, before His
entrance (on His public ministry) the baptism of repen-
tance to all the people of Israel. And as John was ful-
filling his course, he was wont to say 'Whom do ye
suppose me to be ? (the Messiah ?) I am not. But, behold,
there cometh one after me, whose footstrap I am not
worthy to loose.' Men brethren, children of the stock of
Abraham, and those among you fearing God, to you was
the word of this salvation sent. n
And first, be it remarked, the leading feature of this
portion of the address is what God had done for the
nation. A series of divine benefactions is detailed, culmi-
nating in the gift of a Saviour Jesus. Each of these divine
interpositions was a salvation for the time ; each hero and
legislator had been a saviour; but this great salvation
was now finally sent. Each crisis in Israel's history pro-
claimed "this is the Lord's doing ;" but the last was the
most glorious of all. Every period was preparatory to this
68 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
great end the election, the emancipation, the settlement,
the judges, the monarchy, Saul's elevation and deposition,
the choice of David, and the baptism of John. Christ's
mission was the crowning act, to which all these acts of
God had pointed, and for which they all prepared.
" The God of this people chose our fathers " this people,
in contradistinction to the worshipping proselytes, or, for
the sake of emphasis, a people so special in origin and
history. Israel did not choose God, but God chose them,
and chose them neither for their numbers, intelligence,
civilization, nor piety. It was by no spirit of indepen-
dence or heroism that they formed themselves into a
nation ; but God organized them. Their origin was of His
sovereign choice, without aspiration or effort of their own.
The same God who had chosen them " exalted the
people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt"
exalted them, perhaps brought them up, or perhaps gave
them numbers and strength. Nay more, the same God's
"high arm brought them out" of Egypt. They did not
take up arms and beat back their oppressors. Their own
courage did not secure their independence, as Scotland did
at Bannockburn. or as when the Swiss peasantry repelled
the legions of Austria. They departed from Egypt without
so much as striking a blow for liberty. The common motto
" Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,"
was in their case reversed. When they left they did not
sharpen their swords, but they buckled on their kneading
troughs; they did not carry a spear, but only a staff
in their hand ; for plagues in succession smote Pharaoh
WANDEEINGS IN THE DESERT. 69
and his people, and in their panic they let Israel go.
The Lord brought them out another divine interposition.
Their leader was not a conqueror with a sword, but a
shepherd with a crook. Their prowess did not break the
yoke, nor did Pharaoh emancipate them ; but Jehovah
" brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with
gladness."
And, being brought out, they were utterly helpless.
They could not sustain themselves, and they had only
provisions for a few days' march. But the Lord " nursed
them," as the proper reading is. They did not sow, they
did not plunder sown fields. The sands of Arabia could
supply nothing more than a scanty herbage for their cattle.
For about forty years, that is, thirty-eight years, were
they in this predicament. But the manna fell around
them, the water gushed from the rocks, and quails flew
into their camp. The cloud by day and pillar of fire by
night protected them. The divine oracle was with them,
and the divine hand was round them. One day of their
own will would have brought them into jeopardy. Like
a nurse with a weak and wayward child, so was Jehovah
with them in their wanderings.
They marched at length to the eastern bank of the Jor-
dan, and under Joshua, crossing it, took possession of the
country. The Canaanitish heptarchy was subdued, and
the land divided equitably and by lot. They fought,
indeed, against the aborigines, but their own bow and
sword did not gain them the victory. Priests, and not
warriors, marched round Jericho; nor was the assault made
with engines of war ; but at the blast of the rams' horns
70 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
the walls fell unstruck by human hand a symbol of the
entire conquest. In such an army idolatry was as fatal
as cowardice, and disobedience to God as bad as treason
to the general. The Lord " destroyed seven nations in
the land of Canaan." According to Josh. iii. 10, these
seven nations, so steeped in odious sins that they had
forfeited all right to their territory, were the Canaanites,
used there in a restricted sense to denote the tribes that
dwelt on the western bank of the Jordan and the coasts
of the Mediterranean, and which, from their numbers
and influence, gave their name to the entire population;
the Hittites, from Hebron to Beersheba; the Hivites,
near Gibeon and toward the north as far as Baal-
hermon ; the Perizzites, in the villages of Jezreel ; the
Girgashites, the smallest of the septs ; the Amorites,
occupying the mountains in the south, and stretching to
the hills of Gilead; and the Jebusites, possessing the
central territory of Jerusalem. In the promise given to
Abraham ten nations are mentioned as then existing, but
some of those earlier aborigines had been dispossessed by
the Canaanites. He divided their land by lot, as recorded
in Joshua, the old Doomsday-book of the nation, and
the charter of their inheritance. -The lot was a direct
appeal to God, and was so sanctioned by Himself. Joshua
died, and the nation again and again sank into anarchy.
Each tribe had its separate and independent jurisdic-
tion, and the principle of federal unity was not fully
recognized nor acted out. Judges or dictators were occa-
sionally raised up as exigency required, but they seldom
had power over the entire country. And even that form
SAUL DAVID. 71
of provisional government was of God, not the result of
their own political sagacity. This period lasted four
hundred and fifty years, as may be computed from the
book of Judges ; and it was also the popular chronology,
as may be seen in Josephus.
Samuel was the last of the judges, and toward the close
of his life, and from a combination of circumstances, the
nation " desired a king." Samuel's sons did not walk in
their father's steps; and there was no reason why they
should succeed him, the hereditary principle not being
recognized in the succession of the judges. The nation
had ceased to leel the power of faith. Jehovah was their
first magistrate and their general-in-chief, but they could
not endure "as seeing Him who is invisible." They
clamoured for a visible leader, one who, mailed and hel-
meted, should marshal them to battle and victory. On a
similar principle they had already taken the ark out into
the camp, as a palpable token of the divine presence.
They, therefore, in demanding a king, rejected not Samuel,
but God. And " God gave unto them Saul, the son of
Cis," who reigned in Samuel's lifetime eighteen years, and
twenty-two years after his death. The Hebrew king was
virtually God's lieutenant or representative, raised up to act
out or defend the principles of the theocracy. Saul, whose
heart was spoiled by his elevation, in course of time did
his own will, not God's forgot his peculiar function,
became disloyal to his divine Head, and, therefore, He
"removed him," and "raised up" the son of Jesse in his
room. This shepherd-king was the most illustrious occu-
pant of the Hebrew throne. The divine eulogy is, " a man
72 PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA.
after mine own heart " no formal quotation, but rather
the spirit of several passages. No little wit and malicious
ingenuity have been expended upon this saying, as if it
threw a covering over David's sins. Primarily, it refers
more to his official than to his personal character that he
should vindicate the theocracy, put down idolatry, make no
political compromise at variance with the Mosaic law, and
confer on the nation the possession of the whole territory
which God had given Abraham in charter. That this is the
meaning of the phrase may be learned from the language of
the book of Kings. Any future sovereign who patronized
idolatry or wicked superstitions, is spoken of as not walking
"with a perfect heart, like David his father." His successors
are indeed judged of and praised or censured according as
they resembled their ancestor, or did not resemble him, in
the royal care he took of the spirituality and purity of