St. Paul's liberty.
"He commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty." It is evident that the prosecution of the apostle by the Jewish party had utterly broken down. No charge could be substantiated which made him amenable to punishment according to Roman law. If Felix had been a free man, and, as a judge, free of all other considerations than the doing of justice, he would have liberated St. Paul at once, declaring publicly his innocence. But Felix was not free. No man is really free who does not dare to do the right. And we can recognize a gracious overruling providence in St. Paul's being kept for a while longer under Roman protection. So great was the enmity against him of the Jewish party, that his life would have been in extreme peril if he had been liberated. Knowing that he was dealing unfairly by the prisoner, and impressed by his dignity of bearing, Felix compromised matters with himself, persuaded himself that he could secure Paul from the schemes of the Sanhedrim by keeping him prisoner; put off Paul's enemies by an excuse that he would confer with Lysias; and privately arranged for Paul to have a real, though not an apparent, liberty. Through all the ages some of the worst wrongs have been done in the name of compromise, which is too often the weak device of those who cannot "stand firm to the right."
I. FELIX BOUND.
1. By the weakness of his moral character.
2. By the desire to please an important section of those whom he had to govern.
3. By the consequences of his own wrong-doings, which it cost him all his effort to keep off as long as possible.
4. By the circumstances in which he found himself placed, and which he had no strength of will or purpose to master. The man of vice and self-indulgence enervates his will, and becomes the slave of his sin as truly as does the drunkard.
II. PAUL APPARENTLY BOUND. He had been tied by a chain to a Roman soldier day and night, according to the usual Roman custom, and if Felix relaxed this, still Paul was a prisoner in the barracks, and probably a soldier-guard waited on him constantly. If his friends were free to come to him, he was not free to go out to them. If we estimate his character aright, we shall feel that even the slightest form of bondage must have been most painful to him. His was a soul so noble than even the limitations of a frail body were to him an agony.
III. FELIX GETTING AS FREE AS POSSIBLE FROM HIS BONDS. Not free enough to say, honestly and. honorably, "This man is innocent of all crime against the state, and must be set at liberty at once." Only able to shake the fetters off enough to say, "Forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come unto him," and only able to give this order in a private way to the centurion.
IV. PAUL REALLY FREE. However he might seem to be still set under outward limitations, nothing can imprison a man save his own wilful sin. Nobody can put any real fetters on any fellow-man. Each man who wears fetters puts them on himself; each man who dwells in a prison goes in himself, and himself bolts the door.
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage."
But "whosoever committeth sin becomes the slave of sin." So, whatever may have been the limitations of the apostle's circumstances, there was no bondage, for there was no conscience of sin. The freedom of Paul
The substance of the faith in Christ.
From Farrar's 'Life of St. Paul,' note to p. 340, vol. 2., see the relations of Felix to this Drusilla. She was a Jewess by birth, and would be interested in a man who was the object of such virulent persecution. She had, no doubt, heard of the Prophet of Nazareth, and was likely to show some curiosity when one of his leading disciples was a prisoner at the court. Private audiences were given to Paul, and he was invited to speak freely concerning "the faith in Christ." It is a side light thrown upon the greatness of St. Paul's nature, that he used his opportunities at once so skillfully and so nobly. "With perfect urbanity, and respect for the powers that be, he spoke of the faith in Christ which he was bidden to explain, in a way that enabled him to touch on those virtues which were most needed by the guilty pair who listened to his words. The licentious princess must have blushed as he discoursed of continence; the rapacious and unjust governor as he spoke of righteousness; both of them as he reasoned of the judgment to come. Whatever may have been the thoughts of Drusilla, she locked them up in her own bosom; but Felix, unaccustomed to such truths, was deeply agitated by them" (Farrar). The word "faith" is employed in Scripture with several distinct meanings; here it is used of the Christian doctrine, but St. Paul deals with the practical rather than the theoretical aspects of it. His remarks bore upon that first necessity of Christianity, the conviction of sin. Bungener puts the point of his preaching both succinctly and forcibly when he says, "Paul, as usual, wished to press certain consequences; and it is always against these that people resist, even when they are far better than Felix and Drusilla. 'He heard him concerning the faith in Christ; and as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come'—of righteousness, to a cruel and unjust despot; of temperance, to a debauchee whose very marriage had been but one scandal the more; and of judgment to come, to a man who had doubtless sought in Epicurean negations a refuge from the gods—'then Felix trembled.' St. Paul's theme finds expression in three words: righteousness, full and honorable discharge of all the duties which man owes to God, and man owes to man; temperance, or the due control of all the appetites and passions of the body; judgment to come, or the certainty that all life-conduct must, sooner or later, be perfectly appraised, and due punishment be inflicted. "St. Paul does not confine himself, as a merely ethical teacher might have done, to abstract arguments on the beauty or the utility of 'justice' and 'temperance.' Here, also, his own experience was his guide, and he sought to make the guilty pair before whom he stood feel that the warnings of conscience were but the presage of a Divine judgment which should render to every man according to his deeds. It will be noted that there is here no mention of the forgiveness of sins, nor of the life of fellowship with Christ. Those truths would have come, in due course, afterwards. As yet they would have been altogether premature. The method of St. Paul's preaching was like that of the Baptist and of all true teachers" (Plumptre). The three topics may be treated in a more general way if presented thus:
1. Righteousness, or the Divine ideal of a human life.
2. Temperance, or a man's personal responsibility in the use of his body, and the shapings of his human relationships.
3. Judgment to come, or the appalling fact for all who follow their own willful ways, that results must be divinely recognized. Compare the convincing of the Spirit, which is of sin, righteousness, and judgment; and press that only upon the conviction of sin can the message of a Savior from sin come with power to any one of us.—R.T.