an ability given to the Apostles and others of readily
and intelligibly speaking a variety of languages which they had never
learned. This was a glorious and decisive attestation to the Gospel, as
well as a suitable, and, indeed, in their circumstances, a necessary
qualification for the mission for which the Apostles and their
coadjutors were designed. Nor is there any reason, with Dr. Middleton,
to understand it as merely an occasional gift, so that a person might
speak a language most fluently one hour, and be entirely ignorant of it
the next; which neither agrees with what is said of the abuse of it, nor
would it have been sufficient to answer the end proposed, Acts ii. Some
appear to have been gifted with one tongue, others with more. To St.
Paul this endowment was vouchsafed in a more liberal degree, than to
many others; for, as to the Corinthians, who had received the gift of
tongues, he says, “that he spake with tongues more than they all.”
and intelligibly speaking a variety of languages which they had never
learned. This was a glorious and decisive attestation to the Gospel, as
well as a suitable, and, indeed, in their circumstances, a necessary
qualification for the mission for which the Apostles and their
coadjutors were designed. Nor is there any reason, with Dr. Middleton,
to understand it as merely an occasional gift, so that a person might
speak a language most fluently one hour, and be entirely ignorant of it
the next; which neither agrees with what is said of the abuse of it, nor
would it have been sufficient to answer the end proposed, Acts ii. Some
appear to have been gifted with one tongue, others with more. To St.
Paul this endowment was vouchsafed in a more liberal degree, than to
many others; for, as to the Corinthians, who had received the gift of
tongues, he says, “that he spake with tongues more than they all.”