The dignity of Paul's manner before all these governors is perfect. He
addresses himself to the conscience with a forgetfulness of self that
shewed a man in whom communion with God, and the sense of his relationship
with God, carried the mind above all effect of circumstances. He was acting
for God; and, with a perfect deference for the position of those he
addressed, we see that which was morally altogether superior to them. The
more humiliating his circumstances, the more beauty there is in this
superiority. Before the Gentiles he is a missionary from God. He is again
(blessed be God!) in his right place. All that he said to the Jews was
right and deserved; but why was he, who had been delivered from the people,
subjected to their total want of conscience, and their blind passions which
gave no place for testimony? Nevertheless, as we have seen, it was to be so
in order that the Jews might in every way fill up the measure of their
iniquity, and indeed that the blessed apostle might follow the steps of his
Master.
