Acts 26:9-11 I truly thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.… 1. Emerson verily thought with himself that every subject was to be brought before him for his individual approval or disapproval. In nearly the last sermon he ever preached, he said, that how plainly soever such an ordinance as the Eucharist might seem, to others, to have been appointed by Christ Himself, unless it commended itself to his own judgment, he should have nothing to do with it. Paul condemned Christianity because it did not commend itself to his private judgment. He went much farther, too, than the philosopher. He not only thought, but did many things "contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." A formidable example this of the extreme lengths to which the mind will go, when it decides against Christianity, not by testimony from without, but by the impulses of corrupt and obstinate self-will within. Then it falters not before the most terrific issues. It will try to demolish Christianity, and if it cannot accomplish quite so much in an age like this, when Christianity has become incorporate with the framework of civil society, it will, nevertheless, do its utmost in levelling its doctrines to its own equality, and pronouncing upon them as if questions of mere expediency, subject to its arbitrary and final settlement. What a parallel to Paul's "havoc of the Church" is the havoc which a man's thinking with himself is making in that time-honoured system of the Faith which the Church Catholic, in "the ages all along," has upheld and sanctioned. 2. What cured Paul of his thinking for himself, and converted him into a believing and obedient Christian? His very first exclamation, after his restoration to moral soundness, furnishes the reply. He acted now in the spirit of that pledge which our Saviour made, when He said, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." A pledge this so natural, that it was at once assented to by an Indian. "He that is above," said Wesley to the Creek Indians, "will not teach you, unless you avoid that which you already know is not good." One of the Indians answered, "I believe that. He will not teach us while our hearts are not white." So then we must be content to receive the faith, as prepared for us by God's own hands, and not manufactured out of our inward light, our unassisted mental resources. Then we shall make the grand discovery about which multitudes now fail, that the soul, when she surrenders at discretion, and leans on God, and on God's providences to His Church, with a child's implicit trust, has a sustenance and support before undreamed of; and which reason, fretting for certainties, and often groping in the dark, or seeing as by the light of a tallow candle never can supply. (T. W. Colt, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. |
    |