Between the promise of the Messiah (even the latest of those promises) and his coming many ages intervened; but between the promise of the Spirit and his coming there were but a few days; and during those days the apostles, though they had received orders to preach the gospel to every creature, and…

We have here an account of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the disciples of Christ. Observe, I. When, and where, this was done, which are particularly noted, for the greater certainty of the thing. 1.

We have here an account of the public notice that was taken of this extraordinary gift with which the disciples were all on a sudden endued. Observe, I. The great concourse of people that there was now at Jerusalem, it should seem more than was usual at the feast of pentecost.

We have here the first-fruits of the Spirit in the sermon which Peter preached immediately, directed, not to those of other nations in a strange language (we are not told what answer he gave to those that were amazed, and said, What meaneth this?) but to the Jews in the vulgar language, even to…

We have seen the wonderful effect of the pouring out of the Spirit, in its influence upon the preachers of the gospel. Peter, in all his life, never spoke at the rate that he had done now, with such fulness, perspicuity, and power.

We often speak of the primitive church, and appeal to it, and to the history of it; in these verses we have the history of the truly primitive church, of the first days of it, its state of infancy indeed, but, like that, the state of its greatest innocence. I.