The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Part 2 · Acts 2
ACTS CHAP. XIX. from Ver. 1, to Ver. 19.
OThers at Ephesus there were, that were no further gone in Christianity neither, then the knowledge of the Baptisme of Iohn: Paul asks them, Have ye received the holy Ghost? they answer, We have not yet so much as heard whether the holy Ghost be: In which words they refer to a common and a true tenet of the Nation, which was, that after the death of Ezra, Haggai, Zachary and Malachy, the holy Ghost departed from Israel and went up: Iuchas. fol. 15. and they professe they had never yet heard of his restoring. And it is very probable, that they had never heard of Iesus; whom when Paul had preached to them, they imbrace; and the text saith, they were then baptized in the Name of the Lord Iesus. Not that they were rebaptized, but that now coming to the knowledge of the proper end of Iohns baptisme, namely to beleeve in Iesus as ver. 4. they own their baptisme to such an end and construction. For 1. What need had they to be rebaptized, when in that first baptisme they had had taken, they had come in to the profession of the Gospel and of Christ, as farre as the doctrine that had brought them in could teach them? It was the change of their profession from Iudaisme to Evangelisme, that required their being baptized, and not the degrees of their growth in the knowledge of the Gospel, into the profession of which they had been baptized already. How many baptismes must the Apostles have undergone, if every signall degree of their coming on to the perfect knowledge of the mystery of Christ, might have required, nay might have admitted a new baptizing? 2. If these men were rebaptized, then must the same be concluded of all that had received the baptisme of Iohn, when they came to the knowledge of Iesus: which as it is incredible, because there is not the least tittle of mention of such a thing, so is it unimaginable in the case of those of the Apostles that were baptized by Iohn; for who should baptize them again in the name of Iesus, since Iesus himself baptized none? Ioh. 4.3. 3. These men had taken on them the baptisme of repentance, and the profession of Christ, in the baptisme of Iohn, that they had received: therefore unlesse we will suppose a baptisme of faith, different from the baptisme of repentance, and a baptisme in the name of Iesus different from the baptisme in the name of Christ, it will be hard to finde a reason, why these men should undergo a new baptizing.
And if it should be granted [which is against reason to grant,] that these men were really rebaptized, yet were not this a warrantable ground for rebaptization now, in regard of these main differences betwixt the case then and now. 1. That great controversie then on foot, about, Whether Iesus were the true Messias or no, which caused their rebaptization, if they were rebaptized. 2. The visible conferring of the holy Ghost upon them, upon their baptisme if they were rebaptized: as being a main induction of such a thing, if such a thing were, that the name of Iesus might be so apparently glorified, upon their being baptized in the name of Iesus: which indeed was equally glorified, when they received those gifts upon their acknowledging of Iesus, and owning their baptisme that they had of old been baptized with, as a badge of that acknowledgment, though not baptized again.
ACTS CHAP. XIX. from Ver. 9. to Ver. 21.
CHRIST. LIII. LIV. CLAVDIVS. XIII. XIV. THe Apostle hath a long time to stay at Ephesus: in which he first begins for the space of a quarter of a year to dispute in the Synagogue: and then when divers were hardened and beleeved not, he separated the Disciples, and disputed daily in the School of Tyrannus: Hitherto what converts there were to the Gospel, they resorted still to the publick service in the Synagogue, where Paul reasoned daily for the truth of the Gospel: but finding dangerous opposition, he gets away the Disciples from thence, and in the School of one Tyrannus they are a particular Congregation.
In these great Towns where there were many Jews, both in Iudea and elswhere, they had a Synagogue and a Divinity-School: This Divinity-School they called Beth Midrash, and thither they used to go every Sabbath day, after they had been at the Synagogue: whereupon they had this for a common proverb, foreign: From the Synagogue to the Divinity-School. In the Synagogue they had prayers and reading of the Law, and plain Sermons of Doctrine, exhortation and comfort: In the Divinity-School were discussed and taught, dogmaticall and controversall points concerning the difficulties of the Law, and other high matters. And hence it be those different titles and administrations of Pastor and Teacher, Ephes. 4.11. and He that teacheth, and he that exhorteth, Rom. 12.7, 8. took their pattern: if Pastor mean one of the Ministerial function.
In the time of this stay of Paul at Ephesus, He fought with beasts there after the manner of men, 1 Cor. 15.32. which seemeth to be understood, of a proper foreign or fighting with wild beasts in the Theater, as was the barbarous and bestiall custom of the R…mans and those times. For 1. Observe in the hubbub of Demetrius, Pauls companions are haled presently into the Theater, ver. 29. as if there the people had that that would take a course with them. 2. Observe that the Asiarchae or Theater-Officers are Pauls friends, as having knowledge and acquaintance of him and with him before. 3. Demetrius his uproar which was the greatest danger that Luke hath mentioned of him, was not till after he had written his Epistle to Corinth, in which, he speaks of fighting with beasts, and therefore that could not be meant. 4. The phrase foreign doth seem cleerly to distinguish it from any combate in a borrowed sense. 5. The trouble that befell him in Asia, by which he was pressed above measure, and even despaired of life, 2 Cor. 1.8, 9. cannot be understood so well of the tumult of Demetrius, for we read not of any hand laid upon Paul in it, as of some other danger neerer dearth.
In the latter year of these two above written, which was part of Pauls last year at Ephesus, on the 13th day of October of that year, Claudius the Emperour dieth, and Nero succeedeth him: a wretch whose memory is not worth looking after, unlesse it be for detetestation: yet must we in our further progresse of viewing the actions of Paul, and ranking his Epistles, be beholden to the Chronicall observation of his years.
Paul himself saith to the Elders of Ephesus, By the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one, Acts 20.31. And yet Luke in this Chapter specifieth only two years and a quarter, ver. 8.10. The comparing of which two summes together, doth help us to measure the time of his abode there mentioned from ver. 20. and forward. Namely that he spent three moneths in disputing in the Jews Synagogue: and two years in the School of Tyrannus: and three quarters of a year after, in going up and down Asia. The expiration of his three years was about Pentecost in the first year of Nero.
CHRIST. LV NERO. I ACTS CHAP. XIX. Ver. 21, 22.
After these things were ended, Paul purposed in spirit when he had passed thorow Macedonia and Achaia to go to Ierusalem, saying, When I have been there, I must also see Rome.
22. So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministred to him, Timotheus and Erastus, but he himself staid in Asia for a season.
PAuls thoughts of going to Rome, do argue the death of Claudius, who had banished all the Jews from thence, Acts 18.2. and that by the coming in of Nero, a new Emperour, that Decree was extinct, and freedom of access to Rome opened to them again: For it can be little conceived that Paul should think of going thither, when he could neither finde any of his nation there, nor he himself come thither without certain hazzard of his life: as the case would have been if Claudius and his Decree were yet alive. It is therefore agreeable to all reason, that the death of Claudius, and the succession of Nero was now divulged, and Paul thereupon knowing that it was now lawfull again for a Jew to go to Rome, intendeth to take a farewell journey and visit to Macedonia, Achaiah and Ierusalem, and then to go and preach there.
Claudius died the 13th day of October, as was said before, and Nero instantly succeeded him. A Prince of so much clemency and mansuetude in the beginning of his reign, that Titus the Emperour afterward used to say, that the best Princes exceeded not the first five years of Nero in goodnesse. And Seneca, if he flatter not the Prince, or his own tutorage of him, gives him this among many other Encomiums of him, Lib. de Clementia, which he dedicates to him: Potes hoc Caesar praedicare audacter, omnium quae in fidem tutelám que tuam venerunt, nihil per te, neque vi, neque clam, reipublicae ereptum. Rarissimam laudem, & nulli adhuc principum concessam concupisti, innocentiam: Nemo unus homo uni homini tam charus unquam fuit quam tu populo Romano, magnum longum que ejus bonum.
It must be some space of time before Claudius death could come to be reported at Ephesus: it is like, the new year after the Romane account, might be stept in. Whensoever it was that Paul heard the news, and that a door of access to Rome was opened for the Jews again, he sets down his determination to stay at Ephesus till Pentecost, and then to set for Macedon, and back to Ierusalem, and then to Rome. Upon this resolution he sendeth Timothy and Erastus into Macedon before him: appointeth them to call at Corinth in the way, and intends himself to stay at Ephesus till they should come thither again to him, 1 Cor. 16.10, 11.
Between Ver. 22. and Ver. 23. of this XIX CHAP. of the ACTS, falleth in the time of Pauls writing