were ready to commit all they possessed to the hands of some poor fishermen of Galilee. The inter-community of goods showed their mutual confidence and affection, and doubtless was done in the spirit of Christ's exhortation to the young man, that those who were willing to be perfect, and would dedicate themselves to the service of the Gospel, should sell all they had and follow Christ. It could be no precedent for future ages; nor can it be quoted as an example of an extinction of all property among men, as if one man should have as good an interest in another man's estate as himself; or, what is now called Communism, or Socialism, as if the rich was to bring himself to voluntary poverty, and thus to make one level of rich and poor in the world; for such would cut at the root of all industry, care, natural affection, charity and sympathy, or affection amongst men'. The voluntary resignation of private property to the public stock, was probably necessary in those early days of the Church, when all charity from others ceased towards Christians, and when they scrupled to partake of the Temple sacrifices which were a great resource to the poor in those times. It certainly was not intended to be permanent, because, throughout the New Testament as well as the Old, there is always a distinction supposed to subsist between the rich and the Dr. Lightfoot.

Archbishop Newcome.

7

H

poor; nor indeed could the affairs of the world possibly be carried on without such inequality of ranks and stations. Interested men might have improved such an occasion to their own. advantage. Not so the Apostles; of this community of goods they received no benefit; they distributed "as every man had need ;" and if they shared in this fund themselves, it was certainly to no greater extent than supplied the present necessaries of life, as appears from their subsequent and continued poverty; and even their present necessaries they frequently procured by their own labour.

Among the first who afforded herein an excellent pattern, was Joses, a Levite, "who by the Apostles was surnamed Barnabas (which is, being interpreted, the son of consolation)." Considering the occasion on which this name was imposed, it was probably an honourable acknowledgment of his charity in selling his whole estate for the relief of the Church, and on account of the consolation she received thereby'. Perhaps his being a Levite converted to Christianity, and the first that was so, occasioned him to be thus distinguished by name from the rest for what he did; or perhaps the circumstance of his being afterwards associated with St. Paul in many of those transactions

8 Dr. Hales.

1 Nelson.

9 Dr. Graves.

2

Bishop Pearce.

subsequently recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, and indeed the man who first introduced that eminent Apostle to their fellowship, as well as his great zeal and good conduct in the ministry, may have been the occasion of the praise here bestowed upon him3. According to the law no Levite could have inheritance in Israel; but this only meant that he was not to have a share in the division of the promised land. It did not prevent the Levites from holding lands in Judæa, by purchase or otherwise, or in foreign countries *.

SECT. CLXXXV.-Ananias and Sapphira.-Acts v. 1–11. Ir would have been scarcely reasonable that, amidst such numbers as now comprised the infant Church, there should not have been some who would have joined it from mercenary motives, for the purpose of being maintained out of the common stock. Two persons (whose names of Ananias and Sapphira are set up as everlasting monuments to all generations of God's just indignation against the sin of covetousness, and avarice, and the despisers of the Spirit of Christ) imagined that they were able to deceive the Apostles, and that Holy Spirit by whom they were guided. Though it was entirely at their own choice, whether they should sell their estates and surrender the money into the Apostles' hands;

3 Dr. Stack.
5 Dr. Hales.

4

Bishop Pearce.

6

• Dr. Lightfoot.

yet such was their love of money combined with their pride or ostentation, that, while they wished to appear to the world to have brought their all, they secretly retained a part. They vainly hoped, although they must have witnessed the wonderful effects of the effusion of the Holy Ghost on the disciples, that their avarice and hypocrisy would be concealed from them; and that they might securely make profession of offering God their all, when in truth they offered but a part7. By imposing on the Apostles they attempted, as far as in them lay, to deceive the Holy Ghost; and it was a striking presumption, an aggravation of their crime, to attempt to deceive the Spirit of God. They were taught, however, that a deliberate falsehood thus told to the inspired Apostles was a lying to God, and that having thus agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord, they should be forthwith punished by the withdrawal of that truth of life, which they had misused to their own destruction. First Ananias, and shortly afterwards his wife Sapphira, with the lie on their very tongue, fell down straightway at the feet of Peter, and yielded up the ghost".

SECT. CLXXXVI.-The Apostles do many Miracles.Acts v. 12-16.

66

IN remarking upon 'the signs and wonders wrought by the hands of the Apostles among

7 Biscoe.

8

Dr. S. Clarke.

Dean Howard.

the people," it is stated that "they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch." This was a gallery above the east cloister, upon the outward wall of the mount of the Temple, and the Sanhedrim sat here'. The remark that all the disciples met thus in Solomon's porch, seems to be thrown in, with the object of showing how boldly they now professed belief in Jesus. And after "the fear that had come upon all the Church," consequent upon the death of Ananias, none durst hypocritically to join himself with them for the purpose of receiving their alms; but, on the contrary, “the people magnified them," that is, held them in high honour', and they therefore moved about together in considerable numbers, and in the most public places of resort. An evidence of the great fear, mingled with respect, which those early exertions of the Apostles had excited among the people, may appear in the superstition of the Jews, who had such expectation from the shadow of St. Peter, "that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." "There came also a multitude out of the cities round about Jerusalem, bringing sick folk, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed every one."

'Dr. Lightfoot.

2 Archbishop Newcome.