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Observe here, 1. The penman of this sacred history, St. Luke, the same that wrote the gospel, which he calls his former treatise, dedicated, both that and this, to the same Theophilus: The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus.
Observe, 2. The time when St. Luke wrote this holy history, and the place where, namely, when he was the companion of St. Paul; and, as some think, during the time of his imprisonment at Rome: If so, we may profitably remark, the favour which God gave the apostle and his companion in the sight of the keeper of the prison, that they were not denied pen and paper. When persecutors send the saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.
But how doth the apostle and his companion spend their time in prison?
Very advantageously: the former in writing epistles to the churches for their confirmation; the latter in recording the acts and monuments of the holy apostles for our imitation. There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their malice and spite against us, as by doing all the good we can, wherever we come. Satan had better have left these two holy men alone, than have cast them into prison: for by their pens they battered the walls of his kingdom, and made them shake about his ears.
Observe, 3. The integrity and impartiality of this historian St. Luke; he wrote of all things that Jesus both did and taught in his Gospel, and what the apostles did and taught, in the Acts; not that this is to be understood strictly and absolutely, but comparatively only; not as if St. Luke recorded every action that Jesus did, or every expression our Saviour said; for St. John says, they were so many, that they could not be written, Joh_21:25.
But by all things, we are to understand very many things; the most principal and chief things, the most necessary and useful things; every thing that the Holy Ghost thought fit to dictate to him, and enjoin him to publish for the church's use and service.
Learn thence, That St. Luke was a very faithful and impartial historian, withholding nothing which was necessary for the church to know, and leaving no room for unwritten and uncertain traditions: I have wrote all that Jesus began both to do and teach.