The God of this people— The apostle preached the same God in whom the Jews already believed, and would have persuaded them likewise to have believed in Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Messiah, the eternal Son of God, God over all, blessed for ever. To convince them that he was so, they argued both from facts, and from the prophesies of the Old Testament. This was their usual method of treating both the Jews and devout Gentiles; but when they addressed devout Gentiles alone, they did not recite the history of the Old Testament, and take their rise from the renowned ancestors of the Jewish nation; on the contrary, their language then was, In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him: but when the Jews were the only, or the principal persons addressed, then they took their rise from the history of past dispensations, and particularly from Abraham the father of the nation, who was the first that was separated from an idolatrous world, and had the most express promise, that in his Seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed, as they were very eminently in Jesus Christ, his great Descendant. Abraham, for his faith and cheerful obedience, wasentitled, "The father of the faithful;" and pious holy men were stiled, "The children of Abraham." His name was in high esteem among the Jews, and one of the most likely to procure attention. St. Matthew, who wrote his gospel more immediately for the use of the converted Jews, begins our Lord's genealogy with Abraham. St. Peter introduces his discourse to the Jews with the name of that great patriarch, ch. Acts 3:13. So does St. Stephen, ch. Acts 7:2 and St.
Paul in this place mentions the name of Israel, takingoccasion from the history of past dispensations to introduce the gospel doctrine; which was in brief, that the great promise made of old to the fathers, was now accomplished, and the Messiah actually come; for the Abrahamic covenant and the gospel had a great affinity, the law of Moses being only an intermediate state, to preserve at least one nation from idolatry, and prepare them for the reception of the Messiah. May we not hence conjecture, whenever they are said to go to the Jewish synagogue, and preach the word, that this was their common method, which they used more largely or briefly, as they saw occasion. Instead of exalted, Dr. Heylin reads signalized; and instead of, brought them out with an high hand, he reads, brought them forth with high demonstrations of his power. The sense of the verse may be expressed thus: "The God of Israel, the one only living and true God, chose our fathers, to bear their testimony against idolatry, and to receive the revelations of his mind and will; and he increased their numbers, and made them considerable: even when they were strangers in the land of Egypt, and when they were oppressed there, he miraculously, and by his mighty power, raised them from their low estate, and brought them out thence."