125 they date the transaction in the third year of the reign of Claudius. It was the usual practice of the Jews, during the festival, to indulge in mirth and jollity, and at the end to release the prisoners. On this occasion, however, they were anticipating the high satisfaction of seeing, as soon as the paschal lamb was eaten and the festival quite ended, the foremost of this sect brought out and put to death. His enemies congratulated themselves in thinking that they had him secure. The next day was appointed by Herod for his being publicly executed. But the night before this was to take place, the Lord interposed and rescued him out of their hands. Peter, in all probability, knew the time they had appointed for his martyrdom; but he seems to have been in the enjoyment of a serene and tranquil mind, and not in the least alarmed about their machinations. He was sleeping very composedly between the two soldiers, chained by the arm to each of them, when the angel of the Lord came upon him, accompanied by an effulgent brightness, and smiting Peter on the side, raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly; and his chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said, "Gird thyself and bind on thy sandals; and he did so. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee and follow me, and he went out and followed him," apprehending that he saw a vision. The prison was in the suburbs of Jerusalem, and when they had passed the first and second watch, they came unto the great iron gate which led towards the city. This opened to them f its own accord; and the angel having escorted Pe er hr ng ore street, and completely delivered him out of the hands of his enemies, he departed from him.

In the morning, Herod found himself disappointed of his prey! The guards were examined, but being unable to give a satisfactory account of their prisoner, he com

manded them to be put to death. It is not improbable that Herod might suspect a miraculous interposition in this instance; but to punish the guards as if they had been guilty of conniving at his escape, was the likeliest method to stop further inquiry, and prevent the people from suspecting any thing extraordinary in the affair.*

Herod did not long survive this event. He lived and died a monument of the instability of human greatness. He was much devoted to his Roman masters, and had a taste for their magnificence. This induced him to celebrate games and shows at Cæsarea in honour of the emperor; on which occasions he laboured to display the utmost of his grandeur. His pride was farther flattered by an embassy from Tyre and Sidon. Those cities had incurred his displeasure; but as they chiefly drew their subsistence from his dominions, they were compelled to supplicate peace, which, though they had highly offended him, they obtained by their interest with Blastus, his chamberlain. The king appointed a day on which to receive their submission, when he appeared in the theatre with a splendour that dazzled the eyes of the spectators. He addressed himself to the ambassadors in a pompous oration, suited, we may suppose, to give them the highest idea both of his power and clemency. When he had ended, he heard his praises resound from every quarter;-the multitude shouted, "It is the voice of a god and not of a man." His vain heart was elated with this impious compliment, which, considering that Herod professed the knowledge of the true God, displayed an awful instance of pride and impiety. The angel of the Lord smote him with an irresistible though invisible stroke, because he gave not God the glory; and while surrounded with the fancied insignia of majesty, and in the midst of their idolatrous acclamations, he was seized

Acts xii. 1-19.

with excruciating pains, "worms bred in his putrified flesh and devoured him alive." In this wretched condition he continued five days, and then expired, an awful instance of God's just judgment, "who resisteth the proud, and will not give his glory to another.”*

While these things were transacting in Judea, the church of Antioch increased greatly, both in numbers and in gifts. For besides the stated office-bearers of bishops and deacons, which were common to all the churches, this at Antioch had several eminently gifted persons, as prophets (or exhorters), and teachers (or ministers of the word); among whom were Barnabas and Simeon, and Lucius, and Manaen, and Saul. By means of a certain prophet who had come down from Jerusalem to Antioch in those days, the Lord was pleased to intimate his will that, among other things, a season of scarcity was approaching which would severely affect the disciples in Judea; an event which accordingly took place in the latter end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth year of the reign of Claudius, as is noticed by Josephus, Eusebius, and Orosius. In this calamitous event, we have a signal display, not only of the care of the blessed God

The account which Josephus gives of the death of Herod, coincides with that given by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, except that the former goes more into detail, and has particularly noticed that the king himself could not but acknowledge the hand of God in his sufferings, and how flattering and unjust the acclamations were, which ascribed divinity to him, a mortal being, now seized with a disease which would quickly hurry him out of the world. He left behind him a son named AGRIPPA, then seventeen years of age, before whom Paul afterwards appeared and made the well known apology for Christianity, by which he "almost persuaded Agrippa to be a Christian. He also left two daughters, who are noticed in the New Testament, viz. BERNICE, who was married to Herod, king of Chalcis, her father's brother, when she was only sixteen years of age; and DRUSILLA, who was afterwards married to the governor Felix. After the death of Herod Agrippa, the kingdom was again reduced to a Roman province, and then the persecution of the Christians, for a while, abated.

over his people, in revealing its approach by the ministry of this prophet, and thus giving them an opportunity to provide against it, at a time when many of the Christians in Jerusalem had forsaken all for the gospel's sake, and were labouring under peculiar difficulties; but we have also a manifestation of his divine wisdom and goodness in so ordering the course of events, as that, in the generous and disinterested conduct of the believing Gentiles, the church at Jerusalem should have a pledge of their fervent love and affection towards them as their Christian brethren, and of the sense they entertained of their obligations to those from whom the sound of the gospel first came out; for "having been made partakers of their spiritual things, they thought it perfectly reasonable to minister unto them in temporal things." And if we also take into the account, that even among the believing Jews there was at that time some little remains of the ancient jealousy about the admission of the Gentiles into the kingdom of Christ, we cannot but see how wisely adapted this was to dissipate all evil surmising from the minds of the former, and to promote the most cordial amity and concord between these different classes of Christians. Nothing has so powerful a tendency to meliorate the human heart, as acts of kindness and love; nothing softens the mind of man and infuses into it a favourable opinion of others like expressions of charity! No sooner was the approach of this famine intimated in the church at Antioch, than "the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren which were in Judea, which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul."

Soon after Barnabas and Saul had returned from Jerusalem to Antioch, the Lord was pleased to make known his will, that they should be separated for the great work

whereunto he had called them, which was accordingly done by fasting and prayer, accompanied with the imposition of hands. Saul had long been invested with the apostolic office; for he received it not from any man or body of men, as he himself declares, but immediately from Jesus Christ. We are not therefore to imagine that the act of the church, on this occasion, constituted either Saul or Barnabas apostles-but it recognized them as the apostles of Christ; and from the whole transaction we may at least deduce this instruction, that as God is not the author of confusion, but of order and peace in all the churches of the saints, so it is his will that all the affairs of his kingdom should be conducted, not as human wisdom may suggest, but from a regard to his authority, under the control of his revealed will, and in a dependence upon him for his blessing, without which the wisest and best concerted measures must prove fruitless.

Thus sent forth "by the Holy Spirit," concurring with the act of the church at Antioch, they accordingly departed unto SELEUCIA, a place fifteen miles below Antioch, and situated upon the same river, Orontes, and five from the place where that river runs into the sea. From thence they sailed to the island of Cyprus, situated in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, being the native country of Barnabas. As this island lay contiguous to Judea, it abounded with Jews, as is attested by several ancient authors. The first place which the apostles visited in that island was

SALAMIS, a city lying on the eastern extremity, and one of the nighest ports to Syria. The gospel had already reached that island, but the knowledge of it was confined to the Jews.* The apostles here found Jewish synagogues, which they frequented, and in which they