The fruits of faith.
"And the Word of God increased," etc. Connect with the preceding description of a prayerful, obedient, spiritually minded Church. How different the result might have been had the murmuring gone on to increase and become a strife which would have broken up fellowship, dishonored the Name of Jesus, and stopped the mouths of the preachers!
I. THE FIELD in which such fruits were gathered—Jerusalem and neighborhood.
1. In some measure prepared for the new seed. God works by a deeply laid method of orderly progress The gospel the beginning of the new world because it was the end of the old; taking up into itself all that was really Divine m Judaism.
2. Broken up by the new ministry, so different from that of scribes and Pharisees.
3. A continuation of Christ's own work, upon the basis of the great facts of his history.
II. THE LABOURERS.
1. Apostles. Their spirit and method adapted to achieve spiritual success; informal; earnest; devout; inspired. Accompanied with miraculous attestation.
2. The multitude of believers. All spoke more or less. Their fellowship was an eloquent fact. Their order and self-denial and separation from the world.
III. THE HARVEST.
1. Large. Immense population of Jerusalem; continually changing.
2. Representative of the future. The center of religious life, sending streams of light over the world; devout men of all nations. Special adaptation of the Jewish mind to preaching. Knowledge of the Old Testament. Connection with Greek through Alexandria, with Latin through Rome.
3. Wonderful. Overcoming Jewish prejudice; winning many of the priests, notwithstanding opposition and persecution; foretelling the downfall of Judaism. Multiplication of disciples a spiritual fruit. Let God add to the Church. Preserve the distinction between the Church and the world.—R.