Acts 17

He is everywhere present, therefore we may come to walk with God: Enoch walked with God (Genesis 5:21). If God were confined to heaven, a trembling soul might think how can I converse with God, how can I walk with him who lives in Excelsis, above the upper region; but God is not…

The Greek word for power, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], signifies dignity and prerogative; he dignified them to become the sons of God. Our sonship differs from Christ's sonship: Christ was the Son of God by eternal generation, a Son before time; but our sonship is, 1. By creatio…

Now things are out of course. Sin is rampant, saints are wronged, they are often cast in a righteous cause, they can meet with no justice here, justice is turned into wormwood; but there is a day coming, when God will set things right; he will do every man justice; he will crown…

Is it not a mercy for one that is out of the way, to have a guide? First, there is a providential guiding: God guides our affairs for us, chalks out a way he would have us walk in; he resolves our doubts, unties our knots, appoints the bounds of our habitation (Acts 17:26). Seco…

If one should go into a far country, and see stately edifices there, he would never imagine that these could build themselves, but that there had been some artificer there to raise such goodly structures; so this great fabric of the world could not create itself, it must have so…

Do not load yourselves with guilt, and furnish your judge with matter against you. The Lord (says Paul,) has appointed a day in which he would judge the world (Acts 17:21). And how would Paul fit himself for that day (Acts 24:16)?

Response. We are to receive nothing for current but what is agreeable to the Word; as God has given to his ministers gifts for the interpreting obscure places, so he has given to his people so much of the Spirit of discerning, that they can tell (at least in things necessary to…

Greece was counted the eye of the world, for wisdom, and Athens the eye of Greece; but neither of them knew God. (Acts 17:23) I found an altar with this inscription, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; To the unknown God. To know God, in whom is both Verum & Bonum, truth and goodness, is…

Question 1. In what sense is God a Father? Response. 1. By creation; it is he that has made us; Acts 17:28. [in non-Latin alphabet], we are his offspring (Malachi 2:10). Have we not all one Father?

The snake has a fine color, but a sting. A person adorned and cultivated with moral virtue has a secret spleen against sanctity: those Stoics which were the chief of the moralized heathens, were the bitterest enemies Saint Paul had (Acts 17:18). 2. The second counterfeit of Sanc…

(Ezekiel 33:32) You are to them as a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument. Many come to the word only to feast their ears; they like the melody of the voice, the mellifluous sweetness of the expression, the newness of the notion,…

The Greek word [in non-Latin alphabet] signifies to search as for a vein of silver. The Bereans (Acts 17) searched the [text unclear] daily. The word [in non-Latin alphabet] signifies to make a curious and critical search.

To imagine that the work of the creation was not framed by God, is as if we should conceive a curious landscape to be drawn by a pencil without the hand of an artist. (Acts 17:24) God that made the world, and all things therein. To create is proper to a deity.

(1.) Christ has better things than these to bestow upon his followers; the holy anointing, the white stones, the hidden manna, the crown of glory. (2.) All Christ's followers are not humbled with poverty; Abraham was rich in gold and silver as well as rich in faith: though not m…

We must know God's will before we can do it; knowledge is the eye which must direct the foot of obedience. At Athens there was an altar set up 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to the unknown God (Acts 17:23). It is as bad to offer the blind to God as the dead.

A moral man does as much hate holiness as he does vice. The Stoics were moralists, and had sublime notions about virtue, yet were the deadliest enemies Saint Paul had (Acts 17:18). So that this is a counterfeit jewel.

I answer first; We refuse no traditions, which are agreeable to the Scripture, and analogy of faith: but such as are agreeable to one of these, we receive them, though not as Scripture. Secondly, if the Apostles in the New Testament do add anything in any story, which is not in…

And Jeremiah says, I am in derision daily: every one mocks me, Jeremiah chapter 20, verse 7: Yea, our Savior Christ upon the Cross, when he was working the blessed work of man's redemption, was even then mocked by the spiteful Jews, Matthew 27:41. And Paul was mocked of the Athe…

But alas, it seems they care not for this shame; for where is security, wantonness, profaneness, oppressions, so common, as in these great cities? And as in the Apostles' times, the country town Berea, was more zealous and religious, than the rich and stately city of Thessalonic…

If any further object; The first world was begun, and multiplied by two alone, Adam and Eve, and no more: why then should there be so many for the beginning of the second world? I answer: God did so in the beginning, to show that all mankind came of one blood (Acts 17:26); and t…

- 3. Every action so far forth as it is an action is good, and of God. (Acts 17:28) In him we live, move, and have our being. Therefore God is a worker in temptations, so far forth as they are actions.

The second degree is the presence of grace, whereby he does not only preserve the substances of all his creatures, but also gives grace to them: and this agrees to the church and people of God upon earth. The third degree is the presence of glory peculiar to the saints and angel…

1. This soul was by its first creation a spirit, and that in the substance or native kind thereof; and in that respect (considered apart from its union with the body) is in a more special manner allied to God, than all other creatures (but angels) are. You have the pedigree of m…

When the Gospel comes to invite men to the wedding (Matthew 22), when Christ is praised and commended as to what he is, what he has purchased, and what he freely offers to sinners, it's said, that those who were bidden made light of it, and went away, one to his farm, another to…

7. Consider further, how our Lord Jesus seeks, and presses for this satisfaction from you; He [reconstructed: sends forth] His friends, and ambassadors to woo in His name, and to beseech you to be reconciled, and to tell you that it will not be thousands of rams, nor your firstb…

There is a solemn decree passed, that, as all men shall die, so every man shall be brought to a reckoning, and judgment. And (Acts 17:31): He has appointed a day in which he shall judge the world in righteousness, etc., and that cannot be reversed. See (2 Corinthians 5:10): For…

Then saints may fall a swooning at the very sight of the cross in others. And Peter (1 Peter 4:12) says, [illegible], Be not stricken with wonders, or astonished, as at new things and miracles (Acts 17:20) when you are put to a fiery trial. The comforts of the cross are the swee…

1. Because by this dream God has not a dominion and sovereign power over the created will of man to determine it for his own ends, and to make use of it for the glory of his grace, though the Lord with his soul desire so to do, but the creature has an absolute, free and independ…

Nor need we flee to that exposition ever and anon, that Christ died for all, that is, all ranks of men. For "all" is put in Scripture ordinarily for many; as (Deuteronomy 1:21; Psalm 71:18; Jeremiah 15:10; Jeremiah 19:9; Jeremiah 20:7; Jeremiah 23:30; Jeremiah 49:17; Ezekiel 16:…

We must make use of the Scripture as a rule to measure all the sermon by that we hear, whether it be of just length and breadth of God's word or no, as the balance of the Sanctuary, the two testaments be, and when you weigh what is said, then you are confirmed and established in…

4. Do you receive it as the word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13) It may be you do not contradict the divine authority in the Scriptures, but do you soundly believe them, and know the certainty of those things wherein you are instructed (Luke 1:4) Have you done anything to prove th…

He therefore that will preach Christ truly, and confess him to be our righteousness, must be content to hear that he is a pernicious fellow, and that he troubles all things. They which have troubled the world (said the Jews of Paul and Silas, Acts 17) are also come to us, and ha…

I. When we have to deale with heathen men (who will not be so easily mooued with the authoritie of the Scriptures) we may conuict them by the testimonie of their own writers, as Paul did the Athenians, Epicures, and Stoikes, by the testimonie of Aratus, Act 17:28. and the Cretia…

The Prophet speaks not simply of the nature of man as it is created of God: but his purpose is to beat down and to bring to nothing all their presumption and pride, when they dare set themselves above him. We know it is impossible to subsist, or be without God, for in him only w…

For, if God had favored the Babylonians, it would thereupon have followed, that he had also approved of their idolatry: and thus his glory should have been given from him, to senseless creatures. To conclude, hence we may gather a general doctrine (as Saint Paul fitly applies it…

Saint Stephen alleges this place to very good purpose, in Acts 7:48. And the Apostle Paul closely applies it to the sense that we have touched, Acts 17:24. For both of them show, that such grossly deceive themselves, who bring carnal rites to God; as if his service and true reli…

Also when as he says (Romans 3) that the faith whereby we are justified, was witnessed before in the Law and the Prophets. We read also in Acts 17 that he did the same when he preached of faith to them of Thessalonica, whom he called to the Scriptures and expounded the same to t…

All Life is from God. The Life which we have in common with all other living Creatures is from him, Acts 17. 28. Psal. 104. 30.

But he in whom it is, has a Fitness, Readiness and habitual Power for all vital Actions, yet so as without the Concurrence of God in his Energetical Providence, moving and Acting of him, he can do nothing. For, in God we live, and move, and have our being, Acts 17. 28. And if an…

This is said by the Christians of the circumcision at Jerusalem, upon Peter's giving an account of the conversion of Cornelius and his family, and their embracing the gospel, though Peter had said nothing expressly about their sorrow for sin. Acts 17:30: 'But now commandeth all…

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lye, that they all migh be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Nay, you might have fallen into the same Land in which your habitation now is, and yet have had n…

It is the greatest evil that can befall the creature, when God regards it not; all the blessings of the creature are bound up (like Jacob's life in the life of Benjamin) in that respect which God bears to them, and in the care which he has of them. The Apostle Paul disputing wit…

For still God suffered them to go on in their own wayes, and winked at their Ignorance. So again, Acts 17:23, 24, 25, 26, 27. Whom you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you, God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth, dwe…

The consideration whereof teaches us, First, to understand aright that saying of Paul, Act. 17. 28. In him weliue, move, and have our beeing: we are not in God, as parts of God, for his essence is most simple; & yet it is true we are in God, because his essence is every where: i…

And both these are forbidden in this commandment: First, idolatry is a part and species of superstition; so we find it expressly (Acts 17:16) compared with verse 22. In verse 16 it is said, that Paul's spirit was stirred in him; when he saw the city of Athens wholly given to ido…

For the illustrating and clearing the proposition, I shall show, 1. What violence is not meant here: This violence in the text excludes 1. An ignorant violence; to be violent for that which we do not understand (Acts 17:23). As I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an…

They were so placed, the bounds of their habitation so limited round about the land of Canaan, the place laid out for the habitation of God's people, as most suited the design of propagating the gospel among them: Deuteronomy 32:8 "When the Most High divided to the nations their…

See 1 Corinthians 1:19, 20, 21. After God had showed the vanity of human learning, when set up in the room of the gospel, God was pleased to make it subservient to the purposes of Christ's kingdom, as an handmaid to divine revelation; and so the prevailing of learning in the wor…

Multitudes flocked into the church of Christ in a great number of cities where the Apostle came. So the number of the members of the Christian church that were Gentiles, soon far exceeded the number of its Jewish members; yet so, that in less than ten years time after Paul was s…

O that with eyes and hands lifted up to heaven, I might bless the Lord, that ever I was brought forth in an age of so much light! in a valley of visions, in a land flowing with Gospel mercies. Has not God made of one blood, all the nations of men, to dwell on the face of the ear…