the apostle's doctrine. Here Dr. Sisson takes the literal sense for granted; and gives a poor explanation, not applicable to the subject.

42. St. Paul's free citizenship of Rome.

See Art. 4. The freedom of Rome (claimed by Paul when about to be scourged in the Prætorium) might be obtained by money, merit, or favour. When purchased, as by the captain of the guard, who seems to have been a Greek (Acts xxi. 27), the price was considerable, ἐγὼ πολλοῦ κεφαλαίου .... ἐκτησάμην. When this man wondered that a man of so mean an appearance, who had told him he was a Jew of Tarsus (Acts xxi. 39), should be a Roman citizen, Paul replies, I am free by birth. people of Tarsus had taken part with Julius Cæsar; in consequence of which Anthony made them free, and Augustus confirmed their privileges. Tarsus was thus no mean city (Acts xxi. 39), and was called Juliopolis. Appian de Bell. Civil. p. 1077; Dio Chrys. xlvii. p. 508.

The

43. Distinguish the two Antiochs of the New Tes

tament.

There were several cities (i. e. fourteen, Sisson) called Antioch, built by the Seleucidæ, in the East; but the principal two, founded by Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus, king of Syria and Asia, were Antioch in Syria, on the Orontes, his capital, and Antioch in Pisidia, the capital city of that province.

At Antioch in Pisidia the apostles Paul and Barnabas preached, and converted many Jews; but were expelled from the city by their unbelieving brethren, Acts xiii. 14, &c.

Antioch in Syria is distinguished as the city where the disciples were first called Christians (A.D. 41, Acts xi. 26), having previously been termed Nazarenes by the Jews, and Galileans by the Gentiles-both as terms of reproach. This Antioch was the birth-place of St. Luke (Euseb. lib. iii. c. 4), and of its celebrated bishop and martyr Ignatius, who suffered in the year

107 at Rome, under Trajan, being exposed to wild beasts when upwards of one hundred years old. Evans' Scripture Biography.

44. Absolution, or power of the keys, as founded on Matt. xvi. 19.

The Romish heresy has built on this passage its double error of making the popes, as the (pretended) successors of Peter, the vicegerents of Christ on earth; and pronouncing that idolatrous church infallible in its sentences, particularly in regard to absolution. See Burton on the Power of the Keys; and sermon in the Preacher, No. 201, by the Rev. J. Grant, 1834.

Now, some divines think that our Saviour resolved to build his church, as on a rock (Peter or Cephas, Greek, and Syriac, signifying a rock or stone), not on Peter's authority, but on the principle just before advanced by him (Matt. xvi. 16), that Jesus was the Christ, ò Xplorós, the Son of the living God. According to other commentators, as Christ addressed the question, Whom say YE that I am? to his apostles in general, Peter was only the spokesman of them all; and the rock on which the church should be built was the whole apostolic college.

But as the former interpretation seems hardly reconcileable to the personal address to Peter, and to the paronomasia on his name; and as the latter is contrary to the obvious sense of the passage; we are willing to admit, that on Peter's preaching, the church should rest as its foundation,-a promise fulfilled at the first Pentecost, when, by Peter's preaching to the Jews, three thousand souls were gained; and afterwards, at Cæsarea, when at the baptizing of Cornelius, he gathered the first-fruits of the Gentiles.

The gates of hell shall not prevail against my church, signifies that death-the gate of hades-shall not shut out true believers from everlasting life.

On this declaration, popery has established a right of its bishops, as successors of St. Peter, to be the supreme heads of

the Christian church. But Eusebius only says (lib. i. c. 19), "After the death of Peter and Paul, Linus was the first bishop of Rome." Nor had Peter any supremacy over any other apostle. Paul withstood him to his face at Antioch; and when the apostles called him before them, to account for his intercourse with the Gentiles, he acknowledged their authority, by pleading his cause before them. In the first Council of Jerusalem, James, the metropolitan bishop, and not Peter, occupied the chair, and arbitrated on the question of Judaizing. Peter, with his accustomed ardour, had counselled an unlimited exemption of the Jewish converts from all the Mosaic ordinances; but James (the less) qualified this counsel by requiring them to abstain from meats offered to idols, through fear of giving offence to Jews of weak consciences,-Men and brethren, hear me (Acts xv.); and in this decision Peter and the rest acquiesced.

Next, as to absolution, or the power of the keys. Peter was the individual immediately addressed; but here all the twelve were evidently included: for in Matthew xviii. 18, our Lord told them, Whatsoever YE shall bind or loose on earth, shall be bound or loosed in heaven; a power again imparted before the ascension, when Jesus breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit or retain, they are remitted or retained.

The power, then, was equally imparted to all the apostles; and, though in a very modified manner, to the ministers of Christ, as their successors. Among the miraculous gifts communicated to the earliest rulers of the church, St. Paul mentions the discerning of spirits. That Peter was endowed with this gift is evident from his detecting the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira; but St. Paul's words (1 Cor. xii. 10) shew that it was common to the apostles and others. The apostles, then, acting on the principle that the sins of a sincere penitent are forgiven through Christ, could confidently exercise the power of absolution, because they were enabled to look into the heart, and to discern whether the penitent were truly sincere. No minister of Christ can now confidently apply this rule to an individual penitent; for the like reason, that they cannot discern the spirit, or know its sincerity. Consequently, their pronuncia

tion of absolution can be only conditional: if otherwise, it would be the daring usurpation of a prerogative belonging only to the great Searcher of hearts.

The ancient form of absolution was supplicatory; and even then not till penitence was manifested in overt acts of holiness. The absolute form, "I absolve thee," was not introduced until near the time of Thomas Aquinas in the 12th century.

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In the English liturgy there are three forms of absolution; the first at the beginning of morning and evening prayer, which is a truism; a declaration on the part of God that he pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and believe. The second occurs in the communion, or sacramental service, and is a prayer, may He pardon," &c. The third is that in the office for visiting the sick, which the Catholics say is as strong as any absolution of theirs. But this, though its strong language implies that the sincerity of a dying man's penitence is not to be doubted, and though it pours consolation into his breast in that dread extremity, amounts not to the presumption of the Romish priesthood. It is still conditional, for it is followed by a prayer that God would open the eye of his mercy on that sick servant, who earnestly desires pardon and forgiveness; a prayer which would be superfluous on the supposition of a judicial acquittal from the priest. Men desire that which they have not; not that which they have already.

45. Οἱ μάρτυρες ἀπέθεντο τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν, κτλ, Acts vii. 58. The meaning of pápтupes. The difference between ἱμάτιον and χιτών.

A worshipper of strange gods was by the Mosaic law stoned to death; but only by the testimony of two witnesses, Deut. xvii. 2-7. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people, Deut. xvii. 17.

The witnesses cast the first stone to denote their responsibility for the transaction. The loose garments were necessarily laid aside, to obtain greater freedom for the office, Deut. xxii. 23. The inner garment was xɩrúv, a vest or tunic, Matt. v. 40,

Luke vi. 29: iμáriov was the mantle or outer garment, which both Hesiod and Virgil shew that husbandmen in warm countries threw aside in ploughing, sowing, and reaping. In John xix. 2, the soldiers divided the iμáriov of Jesus into four parts; but cast lots for the seamless xiTWV. Persons stoned by a decree of the Sanhedrim were dashed down a small eminence to fall on a great stone; and if not killed, a witness threw another large stone on the offender (Brown's Antiq.). This explains Matt. xxi. 44, Whosoever shall fall on this stone, &c., and on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

46. Jewish days and nights. Watches in the night.

The Hebrews computed their day from evening to evening (Levit. xxiii. 32), probably in memory of the creation; for darkness was before light (Exod. xii. 18), and the evening and the morning were one day. Some think that this computation only began at the Exodus, to distinguish the Hebrews from the idolatrous nations of the East, who began the day with the sun-rising. In Daniel viii. 14, a day is called, the same as the Greek vuxenμɛpov; as in English we say se'nnight, fortnight.

This was the sacred day; but there was also a civil or working day, corresponding with light, for God called the light day (Gen. i. 5); and this day was divided latterly into twelve hours. This commenced when dials were introduced from Babylon, whence Ahaz received one в.c. 713, 2 Kings xx. 11, Is. xxxviii. 8. Are there not twelve hours in the day? John xi. 9, where it is evidently the time of light. But as the length of the day, or time of light, varied in different seasons of the year, so the twelve hours varied in length. See the parable of hiring labourers into the vineyard. This civil day was generally computed from six in the morning, particularly at the time of the passover, which was the equinox; and hence St. Matthew writes (xxviii. 1), In the evening of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week.

It appears from Nehemiah (ix. 3), that the civil or working day was divided into four parts, varying in length as the hours and seasons varied.