"The times or the seasons."] As these words (χρόνους ἢ καιροὺς) are distinguished by the disjunctive particle "or," they cannot be considered as exactly synonimous, but must be taken in some sense contrasting with each other. "Time," for instance, is used as " delay," Revelations x. 6, namely, "the fulfilment shall no longer be delayed, but in the days of the seventh angel the mystery shall be finished.”

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Season," on the other hand, signifies the convenient, the happy, the appropriate time. I am fortified in this case, by the parallel passage of Demosthenes: "What time or what season," or in other words, "what delay or what opportunity can you expect, superior to that which now offers?" But as we have, perhaps, in English, no two words exactly corresponding with the Greek originals, the real meaning, expressed circuitously, would be, "It is not for you to know the time to which it is postponed, or the season when it will take take place.

After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."] Literally, when the Holy Ghost comes upon you. The Syriac, as well as some other translations, render it," but ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you." If

this, however, were the correct translation, the Greek, rendered by " of the," would stand in another place.

Witnesses."] Not preachers, as we sometimes hear it stated from the pulpit, but witnesses, in the actual sense of the word, of what they had seen and heard, and, in particular, of their having seen him, after his resurrection from the dead.

9. And a cloud received him."] I do not understand this to be, that a cloud descended from the mountain and afterwards served to convey him to the skies, this would be contrary to the order in which the words stand, but that his body began to rise from the earth, ascended gradually, and at length a cloud intervened between him and the sight of his disciples, covered him, and drew, as it were, a curtain around him. Independent of the dignity of the fact recorded, it coincides with what profane writers have handed down to us, when describing the appearance and the evanescence of superior beings. Wetstein and Kypke have given us several instances of it. A cloudy atmosphere, an air, or some medium not directly transparent, received their divinities, or upon the commands of their divinities, men. I do not conceive that

profane writers have imitated the appearances described in the Bible, of which they were confessedly ignorant; but when God visibly interferes in human affairs, he acts according to the measure of human conception and human capacities; a truth which we read in the fables and poems of the most polished people and of the greatest poets. These fables and these poems are, if I may so express myself, the archives of the opinions of the human race, relative to the manner in which they conceive the Divinity would act with regard to his creatures.

10. Shall so come."] This is generally understood as an assurance that Jesus would come again, in the same manner as they, his disciples, had seen him ascend to heaven. In this case we must take the words" in like manner,” in a very extended sense; for, according to the doctrine of the apostles, Jesus will appear, at the last judgment, very different from what the apostles saw him, when he ascended to heaven; namely, in a public manner, and not before eleven disciples, but before the whole world, accompanied by his angels, amidst the sound and conflagration of a world in ruins, not with the body with which he rose, but with a transfigured and a glorious body. I am therefore

inclined to agree with Wetstein and others, who look to the whole as a question, and who give it this meaning: "Why are ye looking after him, with your eyes directed towards heaven? Do you imagine, that he will return again in the same manner as you have seen him ascend into heaven? Such a hope is illusory."

12. Moses has no where defined the extent of a sabbath day's journey, but, according to his dispensation, it was permitted to extend to any distance, provided it was not bodily labour, undertaken with a view to gain; even the violent action of dancing was connected with the solemnity of the sabbath. The sabbath day's journey is a pharisaical institution, deeply tinged with ignorance, as I have shown in my discourse upon the Mosaic jurisprudence. It was taken from Exodus xvi. 29, and Numbers xxxvi. 5, and in the time of Christ it was already in practice, so that it at length became a measure of distance, as with us the league and the mile. The sabbath day's journey, or the distance allowed out of the walls of the town, (for within the town, if it was as long as London, or as Nineveh, which was three day's journey, it was permitted to move about at pleasure,) was 2000 cubits beyond the city walls;

and this they reckoned, probably not with mathematical accuracy, at seven stadia; hence the Syriac translation renders "the sabbath day's journey," by "seven stadia." The sense, if we read Luke without comment, is sufficiently easy. He is speaking of the Mount of Olives; and in describing it to persons unacquainted with its situation, he says it lies so near to Jerusalem, as to be a sabbath day's journey from it. According to Josephus (Antiq. b. xx. s. 8, 6,) it was only five stadia from Jerusalem, and consequently within that distance; consequently on the sabbath day one might go to the foot of the mountain. It is astonishing what difficulties the commentators, and even very learned ones, have found in this passage, because they imagined that Luke and Josephus contradicted one another. Grotius and Waser wish to alter the reading in Josephus, (though in all the manuscripts,) and to read seven for five; rather a hardy alteration, since Josephus in another place (Jewish Wars, b. 2, s. 2, 3,) says, " Titus Vespasian erected his camp six stadia from Jerusalem, upon the Mount of Olives." Others have conceived that the situation of the Mount of Olives, where Jesus ascended to heaven, may have been seven stadia from Jerusalem, but