Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles; Delivered in the Parish Church of Stockton Upon Tees, During Lent in the Years 1803, 1804, 1805, & 1806 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE IV. ACTS II. 1?41. The Effusion of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost, and its happy Consequences. Jerusalem, A. D. 33. When we reflect on the primitive history of the Apostles, when we attend them in the different stages of their pious travels, when we accompany them in the progress of their preaching, and observe the solemn and gradual disclosure of those divine truths which they were particularly commissioned to inculcate, we feel something like the dawning of a new day, and the day-star, the bright and morning star of redemption, arising in our hearts. But when we are led by the authentic records of our faith to the very apartment where they were so frequently assembled, and which was the first visible Church of Christ; when we there behold the accomplishment of an ancient prophecy, as well as the fulfilling of a sacred promise made by our Lord himself; we exclaim with one voice? " the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth V 1 1 John ii. 8. What event, in the early history of the Church, is so impressive in its appearance, or so important in its consequences, as the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost! " When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all, with one accord, in one place." The day of Pentecost was a solemn festival of the Jews, so called by the Greeks, because it was holden on the fiftieth day after the Passover, or feast of unleavened bread. Ye shall count unto you, says Moses, from that time seven sabbaths complete1, that is, forty-nine days, the fiftieth being the day of the feast. Hence from this particular computation, it was called by the Jews thefeast of weeks; on the day after which was celebrated the day of the first fruits, because then were offered the first fru...