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Our apostle, being accused of three notorious crimes, namely, sedition, heresy, and profanation of the temple, answers distinctly to every one of them.
Where observe, 1. How undaunted innocency is in a good person, and in a good cause; St. Paul was so far from being daunted by the greatness of his enemies, or by the vehemency of their accusation, that he tells the governor, he did with all cheerfulness undertake his defence.
Observe, 2. How the apostle answers distinctly to the particulars of his accusation. And first, As to the crime of sedition, charged upon his person. Secondly, as to the crime of heresy, charged upon his religion.
As to the former, the crime of sedition, this is a very infamous charge; what schism is in matters ecclesiastical, that is sedition in matters temporal and civil. As the one violates the peace of the church, so doth the other the peace of the commonwealth.
Sedition is committed three ways; by the head, by the tongue, and by the hand. A seditious head plots and contrives mischief, a seditious tongue vents it, and a seditious hand executes it.
None of these ways was the apostle guilty of sedition, he never employed his head to contrive, nor his tongue to utter, nor his hand to practise, any thing that tended that way; yet he is charged with it, We have found this fellow a mover of sedition.
Learn thence, It is no new stratagem to represent the faithful servants of God as enemies to states and kingdoms, as disturbers of the peace, as troublers of Israel, as trumpets of rebellion, as movers of sedition, on purpose to bring them into hatred with princes, that they may fall under the sword of the magistrate as malefactors, and be looked upon as persons unworthy to live.
But how does St. Paul free himself from the charge and imputation of sedition?
Thus, 1. By demonstrating the improbability of it; how unlikely it was, that he who came up to the temple to worship God, and to bring alms to the poor, and was in Jerusalem but a very few days, and did not so much as dispute either in the temple or in the synagogues, should yet stir up the people to sedition.
2. He puts his adversaries upon proof of their articles, Act_24:13 Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.
From the apostle's practise in clearing his own innocency, we learn, That it is a piece of justice which every man owes to himself, to vindicate and clear his reputation from all guilt falsely imputed to him, and especially from that of sedition.