EPC Australia

How perfectly natural and picturesque are the narratives of the Bible. They serve at once to vouch for the truth of their statements, and to leave their representations fixed in the memory.

The circumstance here mentioned is too simple, striking, and touching, to be overlooked. The poor man had been lame from his mother's womb, and was placed daily at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, to ask alms of the worshippers. Silver and gold Peter and John had none. But they gave him something far better. In the name of the Lord Jesus, said they, rise up, and walk. And immediately his feet and ankle-bones received strength. And he, leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. The people, also, seeing what was done, hastened to Solomon's porch, greatly wondering. But the man that was healed held Peter and John.

Was this the effect of apprehension? Did he imagine their influence was confined to their bodily presence, and that if he let them go his lameness would return?

Or did it result from a wish to point them out to the multitude? "Are you looking after the wonderful men who have made me whole?" "Here," says he, eager and proud to proclaim them, "Here they are; these are they."

Was it not still more the expression of his attachment? "O my deliverers and benefactors, let me attend upon you. Let me enjoy the happiness to serve you. Entreat me not to leave you, nor to return from following after you. Let me live, let me die with you."

So it is in our spiritual cures. It is natural to feel a regard for those who have been the means of our recovery, and to keep hold of them. But let us remember, we may hold them too closely. And we do so, if we suffer them to draw us away from the God of all grace. For whoever are the instruments of doing us good. He is the agent and he will have us to remember, that the excellency of the power is of him, and not of them. Hence the reproof, "For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase." They are something in the order of means, and a proper respect is due to them in this character; but they are nothing as to efficiency: success is entirely from God, and his glory will he not give to another. To idolize a minister is the way to have him removed from us, or rendered unprofitable to us. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." We can never honour God so much as by dependence upon him. And them that honour him he will honour; and they that despise him shall be lightly esteemed.

Morning Exercises For Everyday In The Year
By Rev. William Jay