Acts 14:13-17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then the priest of Jupiter Who was esteemed the tutelar deity of that place, and whose statue stood just without the gate; brought oxen, or bulls rather, and garlands To put on the victims; the usual offerings to Jupiter; to the gates Of the place where Paul and Barnabas were; and would have done sacrifice to them To acknowledge the obligation they were under to them for this condescending and beneficent visit, and to take this opportunity of imploring their continued protection in their public and private affairs. Which when the apostles heard As they were leading on the sacrificial procession toward them; they rent their clothes In token of that mixture of indignation and sorrow with which they beheld this strange abuse of a miracle, wrought to destroy that idolatry, which from thence they took occasion to practise; and ran in among the people, crying With the greatest vehemence, as in a fire, or other sudden and great danger; Sirs, why do ye these things With regard to us? We are not what you imagine us to be; but men of like passions with you Obnoxious to the same common infirmities of human life with yourselves; and preach that ye should turn from these vanities From worshipping any but the true God. He does not deign to call them gods; unto the living God Not like these dead idols; who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea Each of which they supposed to have its own gods. Who in time past He prevents their objecting, “But if these things were so, we should have heard them from our fathers;” steered all nations to walk in their own ways In the idolatries which they had chosen, without instructing them by divinely-inspired teachers; which was an awful, but just judgment upon them. Observe, the multitude of them that err, does not turn error into truth. Though all nations practised idolatry, yet every kind and species of it is founded on a lie. Nevertheless Though even then; he left not himself without witness Of his being, perfections, and providence, in any country. Besides the witness for God within them, the dictates of conscience, they had witnesses for God around them, in the bounties of his providence. Their not having inspired teachers among them, nor the Holy Scriptures, did in part excuse them; and therefore God did not destroy them for their idolatry, as he did the Jewish nation. But that did not wholly excuse them; notwithstanding it they were deeply criminal before God: for there were other witnesses for God, sufficient to inform them that he, and he only, was to be worshipped; and that to him they owed all their services, from whom they received all their comforts, and therefore were guilty of the highest injustice and ingratitude imaginable, in alienating their services from him. In that he did good To all his creatures, with a bountiful hand, and especially to mankind. Even by punishments God testifies of himself: but more peculiarly by benefits. And gave us All, whether Jews or Gentiles; rain from heaven and fruitful seasons Which could not come by chance, nor were caused by the vain idols of the heathen. Observe, reader, 1st, All the powers of nature witness to us a sovereign power in the God of nature, from whom they are derived, and on whom they depend. It is not the heaven that gives us rain, but God that gives us rain from heaven. 2d, The benefits which we have, by these powers of nature, witness to us that we ought to make our acknowledgments, not to the creatures that are made serviceable to us, but to the Creator, who makes them so. God seems to reckon the instances of his goodness to be more cogent proofs of his title to our homage and adoration, than the evidences of his greatness; for his goodness is his glory. “As a friend, in sending us frequent presents, expresses his remembrance of us and affection to us, though he neither speak nor write to us; so all the gifts of the divine bounty, which are scattered abroad on every side, are so many witnesses sent to attest the divine care and goodness, and they speak it in very sensible language to the heart, though not to the ear.” And with these sayings Plain and reasonable as they were; scarce restrained they the people From their purpose of sacrificing to them. So strongly were idolaters in love with their idolatrous practices!