her to bespeak their promotion in the kingdom of the Son of Man.*

Though none of the Twelve had received a liberal education,t it cannot be said that they were literally "novices" when invested with the ministerial commission. It is probable that, before they were invited to follow Jesus, they had all seriously turned their attention to the subject of religion; some of them had been previously instructed by the Baptist; and all, prior to their selection, appear to have been about a year under the tuition of our Lord himself. From that time until the end of His ministry they lived with Him on terms of the most intimate familiarity. From earlier acquaintance, as well as from closer and more confidential companionship, they had a better opportunity of knowing His character and doctrines than any of the rest of His disciples. When, perhaps about six or eight months‡ after their appointment, they were sent forth as missionaries, they were commanded neither to walk in "the way of the Gentiles," nor to enter "into any city of the Samaritans," but rather to go "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."§ Their number Twelve corresponded to the number of the tribes, and they were called apostles probably in allusion to a class of Jewish functionaries who were so designated. It is said that the High Priest was wont to send forth from Jerusalem into foreign countries certain accredited agents, or messengers, styled apostles, on ecclesiastical errands.||

During the personal ministry of our Lord the Twelve seem to have been employed by Him on only one missionary

* Matt. xx. 20, 21.

↑ Some writers have asserted that Philip and Nathanael were learned men, but of this there is no good evidence. See Cave's "Lives of the Apostles," Philip and Bartholomew.

xxvi.

Greswell makes it nine months. See his "Harmonia Evangelica," p. xxiv. § Matt. x. 5, 6.

See Vitringa "De Synagoga Vetere," p. 577, and Mosheim's "Commentaries," by Vidal, vol. i. 120-2, note.

3

excursion. About twelve months after that event* He "appointed other seventy also" to preach His Gospel. Luke is the only evangelist who mentions the designation of these additional missionaries; and though we have no reason to believe that their duties terminated with the first tour in which they were engaged,t they are never subsequently noticed in the New Testament. Many of the actions of our Lord had a typical meaning, and it is highly probable that He designed to inculcate an important truth by the appointment of these Seventy new apostles. According to the ideas of the Jews of that age there were seventy heathen nations; and it is rather singular that, omitting Peleg the progenitor of the Israelites, the names of the posterity of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, recorded in the 10th chapter of Genesis, amount exactly to seventy. "These," says the historian, “are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations; and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."§ Every one who looks into the narrative will perceive that the sacred writer does not propose to furnish a complete catalogue of the descendants of Noah, for he passes over in entire silence the posterity of the greater number of the patriarch's grandchildren; he apparently intends to name only those who were the founders of nations; and thus it happens that whilst, in a variety of instances, he does not trace the line of succession, he takes

This is the calculation of Greswell. "Harmonia Evangelica," p. xxvi. xxxi. Robinson makes the interval considerably shorter. See his "Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek."

+ They received new powers at the close of their first missionary excursion. See Luke x. 19.

Selden in his treatise "De Synedriis" supplies some curious information on this subject. See lib. ii. cap. 9, § 3. See also some singular speculations respecting it in Baumgarten's "Theologischer Commentar zum Pentateuch,” i. 153, 351. Some of the fathers speak of seventy-two disciples and of seventytwo nations and tongues. See Stieren's "Irenæus," i. p. 544, note, and Epiphanius, tom. i. p. 50, Edit. Coloniæ, 1682; compared with Greswell's "Dissertations,” ii. p. 7. § Gen. x. 32.

care, in others, to mention the father and many of his sons.* The Jewish notion current in the time of our Lord as to the existence of seventy heathen nations, seems, therefore, to have rested on a sound historical basis, inasmuch as, according to the Mosaic statement, there were, beside Peleg, precisely seventy individuals by whom "the nations were divided in the earth after the flood." We may thus infer that our Lord meant to convey a great moral lesson by the appointment alike of the Twelve and of the Seventy. In the ordination of the Twelve He evinced His regard for all the tribes of Israel; in the ordination of the Seventy He inti*The following tabular view of the names of the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, mentioned in the 10th chapter of Genesis, will illustrate this statement:

It often happens that one branch of a family is exceedingly prolific whilst another is barren. So it seems to have been with the descendants of the three sons of Noah. Thus, Elam, Ashur, and others, appear each to have founded only one nation, whilst Arphaxad and his posterity founded eighteen.

mated that His Gospel was designed for all the nations of the earth. When the Twelve were about to enter on their first mission He required them to go only to the Jews, but He sent forth the Seventy "two and two before His face into every city and place whither He himself would come."* Towards the commencement of His public career, He had induced many of the Samaritans to believe on Him,† whilst at a subsequent period His ministry had been blessed to Gentiles in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon; and there is no evidence that in the missionary journey which He contemplated when He appointed the Seventy as His pioneers, He intended to confine His labours to His kinsmen of the seed of Abraham. It is highly probable that the Seventy were actually sent forth from Samaria,§ and the instructions. given them apparently suggest that, in the circuit now assigned to them, they were to visit certain districts lying north of Galilee of the Gentiles. The personal ministry of our Lord had respect primarily and specially to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,¶ but His conduct in this case symbolically indicated the catholic character of His religion. He evinced His regard for the Jews by sending no less than twelve apostles to that one nation, but He did not Himself refuse to minister either to Samaritans or Gentiles; and to shew that He was disposed to make provision for the general diffusion of His word, He "appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before His face into every city and place whither He himself would come.'

It is very clear that our Lord committed, in the first instance, to the Twelve the organisation of the ecclesiastical commonwealth. The most ancient Christian Church, that of the metropolis of Palestine, was modelled under their

* Luke x. 1.

+ John iv. 39.

Mark vii. 24, 26, 30, 31.

§ This is the opinion of Dr Robinson. See his "Harmony." See also Luke ix. 51, 52, x. 33.

Luke x. 13, 17, 18.

T Matt. xv. 24.

superintendence; and the earliest converts gathered into it, after His ascension, were the fruits of their ministry. Hence, in the Apocalypse, the wall of the "holy Jerusalem is said to have “twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." But it does not follow that others had no share in founding the spiritual structure. The Seventy also received a commission from Christ, and we have every reason to believe that, after the death of their Master, they pursued their missionary labours with renovated ardour. That they were called apostles as well as the Twelve, cannot, perhaps, be established by distinct testimony;t but it is certain, that they were furnished with supernatural endowments; and it is scarcely probable that they are overlooked in the description of the sacred writer when He represents the New Testament Church as "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone."§

The appointment of the Seventy, like that of the Twelve, was a typical act; and it is not, therefore, extraordinary that they are only once noticed in the sacred volume. Our Lord never intended to constitute two permanent corporations, limited, respectively, to twelve and seventy members, and empowered to transmit their authority to successors from generation to generation. In a short time after His death the symbolical meaning of the mission of the Seventy was explained, as it very soon appeared that

* Rev. xxi. 14.

+ It is certain that some were called apostles who were not of the number of the Twelve. See Acts xiv. 4. In 1 Cor. xv. 5, 7, both "the Twelve," and "all the apostles," are mentioned, and it may be that the Seventy are included under the latter designation. Such was the opinion of Origen—êñeira тoîs ἑτέροις παρὰ τοὺς δώδεκα ἀποστόλοις πᾶσι, τάχα τοῖς ἑβδομήκοντα. “Contra Celsum," lib. ii. 65. See also "De Recta in Deum Fide," sec. i., Opera, tom. i. p. 806. . Luke x. 9, 16, 19, 24.

§ Eph. ii. 20. See also Eph. iii. 5. It is evident, especially from the latter passage, that the prophets here spoken of belong to the New Testament Church.