Acts 4:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And when they had set them in the midst,— It was the custom for the Sanhedrim to sit almost in a circle, or oval, and to set the prisoners in the midst of them: St. Peter and St. John being so placed, the court demanded of them, "By what power, human or diabolical, angelic or divine, have you cured this man; whose name have you invoked to the working of this miracle; or from whom had you your authority to preach so publicly to the people?—From us you had it not, though we alone have the authority to give a commission to any man to do so?"