FOOTNOTES:
[77] And they had also John to their minister, 13:5. What John was this? Answer, see chap. 15:37 to 40. This appears to have been that John, whose surname was Mark, who was the cause of the angry separation of Paul from Barnabas.
[78] Another branch of his trade, already mentioned in this same chapter, as having been carried on by him in this same place, namely, Ephesus,—and which, where circumstances created a demand for the article, appears to have been more profitable than that of expelling devils or diseases,—is that, of which the Holy Ghost was the subject. This power of conferring—that is to say, of being thought to confer—the Holy Ghost,—such, and of such sort was the value of it, that Simon Magus, as there may be occasion to mention in another chapter, had, not less than one-and-twenty years before this, offered the Apostles money for it. Acts 8:18-24, A.D. 34. This power, two preceding verses of the same 19th chapter, namely the 5th and 6th, represent Paul as exercising: and, whatsoever was the benefit derived, twelve is the number of the persons here spoken of as having received it.
Acts 19:5-7. After "they," the above twelve, v. 7, disciples, v. 9, "were baptized, v. 5, in the name of the Lord Jesus;" when Paul, v. 6, "had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." Here then, if, by thus laying on of hands, it is by Paul that any operation is performed, it is the conferring of "the Holy Ghost." But this power, whence had Paul received it? Not from Jesus, had the self-constituted Apostle received this gift, whatever it was, any more than he had baptism, by which ceremony, as appears from Acts 8:16, it was regularly preceded: as in the case of the magician it actually had been. Not from Jesus: no such thing is anywhere so much as pretended. Not from the Apostles, or any of them; from two, for example, by commission from the rest—as in the case of Peter and John, Acts 8:14-19:—no such thing is anywhere so much as pretended. In no such persons could this—would this—their self-declared superior, have vouchsafed to acknowledge the existence, of a power in which he had no share. On this occasion, as on every other, independently of the Apostles did he act, and in spite of the Apostles.
As to the "speaking with tongues and prophesying," these are pretensions, which may be acknowledged without much difficulty. Tongues are the organs most men speak with. As to prophesying, it was an operation that might as well be performed after the fact as before the fact: witness in Luke 22:64, "Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?" Read the Bible over from beginning to end, a prophet, whatever else be meant, if there be anything else meant, you will find to have been a politician: to prophesy was to talk politics. Make a new translation, or, what would be shorter, a list of corrigenda, and instead of prophet put politician,—a world of labour, now employed in explanations, will be saved.