Acts 17:26 And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed… I. GOD, AS THE FATHER OF ALL, HAS, IN A SOVEREIGN MANNER, DISPOSED OF THE DIFFERENT NATIONS OF MEN. As a father disposes of his estate to his sons, and as his simple will determines the allotment of each, so has God "appointed men to dwell," etc. (Genesis 1:28). And if it be asked, Why is this nation here or that nation there? the answer is, Not by accident, but because God so determined it. And if it be still further asked, To what is to be ascribed the mutations of nations, the dying out of some peoples, or their absorption into others? the answer is, The will of God hath determined the times as well as the bounds of the habitation of each. This representation of the apostle — 1. Supplies to us a deeper and juster view of the philosophy of human history than is usually suggested. Whilst, on the one hand, we repudiate the doctrine of separate centres of creation, and treat as a fantasy the doctrine of development, we are, on the other hand, taught to turn aside from the opinion that all human varieties are due to mere differences of climate and outward circumstance. The persistency of races — the retention, generation after generation, by whole communities of the peculiar characteristics of the variety to which they belong; and that under the most altered conditions of climate, occupation, food, is against that. Look, e.g., at the Jews, and at the Europeans settled in Africa, or the Africans in North America. 2. Enables us to read and understand aright the world's history. There are some who see in national changes nothing but the results of fixed mechanical laws. Others, again, see nothing but the result of either an ungoverned caprice or of the ordinary passions and tendencies of men. But on neither of these hypotheses can a real philosophy of history be built. We can reach this only by keeping fast hold of the truth, that all human operations are conducted under the superintendence of an infinitely wise and powerful Being, who, without interfering with man's free will, or interrupting any of the ordinary laws of nature, regulates all events according to the council of His own will, and uses all agencies as the instruments of a vast world plan, of which He alone knows the compass and the details. On these two poles all true philosophy of history turns. If we view man as a mere piece of organised mechanism, we cannot bring the phenomena of his history within the range of modern science at all; if we deny or overlook God's supremacy we are out upon a wide sea, across which no path is drawn, and over which no light rests. 3. Shows us how contrary to the primary order of the world, and the will of the great Father of the race, are all attempts to extirpate races, or to drive people from their native soil, or to take forcible possession of it. God, no doubt, may overrule such deeds; but the deeds themselves are impious. Each nation holds the country it has aboriginally occupied by Divine right — by the will of the common Father. Who can tell how many of the calamities that befall great nations are just retributions for the deeds of rapine and wrong perpetrated in the day of the nation's pride and strength on some weaker or some utterly defenceless people? II. THE DUTY BINDING ON MEN TO SEEK AFTER GOD. This Paul brings in as describing the purpose which God had in distributing the nations, and allotting to each its place and time. 1. By being thus distributed over the whole face of the globe, and placed under the constant superintendence of God, the nations had the entire revelation of God in nature and in providence subjected to their study. 2. That it is man's duty to search after God, is one of the primary truths of morals and of natural religion. In his present state man neither knows God aright, nor are his relations with God such as they originally were. Hence he needs to seek after God that he may enter into right relations and true communion with Him. These words depict man's course in regard to this great matter. Endowed with a religious principle, men feel themselves constrained by the highest wants of their nature to seek after God; and yet, when left to their own unaided efforts, it has ever been only as one who gropes in the dark and at a peradventure, that they have pursued their search. To a few of the higher and purer spirits there came, like angels' visits, ever and anon, brief revelations of the hidden mystery, just and true thoughts of the Infinite. But for the mass of men it was a fruitless groping, until at length, baffled and disheartened, they were ready to carry their homage to any altar that priestcraft or superstition might erect, or at the best, to embody at once their deathless longings and their conscious impotence in an altar to "An Unknown God." 3. To what is this melancholy failure to be traced? Not, the apostle reminded the Athenians, to want of means and materials of success. God, whom they thus haplessly groped after, was, all the while, "not far from every one of them." Not only are the evidences of the Divine existence and attributes presented in copious abundance on every hand, but the fact that man is the offspring of God supplies to him the most natural help for realising the truth concerning God. For, if man be God's child, he must have a natural capacity for God. And there is thus a solid basis laid in the very constitution of man's nature on which a true theology may be built; and when the page of creation and providence is opened before a being so fitted and prepared to learn the lessons they so abundantly teach concerning God, it can only be through some perversity of his own mind that he fails to attain to the knowledge of God (Romans 1:20-22). But sin had seduced them from God, so it became the great obstacle to their receiving those right views of God which the phenomena around them so clearly taught. 4. It was thus that the nations were betrayed into idolatry. Nothing can be more absurd in itself than to represent the Great Spirit under the similitude of any creature; and nothing can be more inconsistent than for those who call themselves God's offspring "to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone graven by art or man's device." Who of us would accept any image that human skill could produce as a fit representation of that which really constitutes us — our soul? And this is the true source of all those wrong, deluding, and debasing views of God, by which men are still led astray, even where the light of written revelation is enjoyed. Would that all who shudder at the thought of Atheism were equally alive to the evil and danger of a false, imperfect, or fanciful Theism! (W. L. Alexander, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; |
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