An ability given to the apostles of readily and intelligibly speaking a variety of languages which they had never learnt. This was a most glorious and important attestation to the Gospel, as well as a suitable, and indeed, in their circumstances, a necessary furniture for the mission for which the apostles and their assistants 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 in the next; which neither agrees with what is said of the abuse of it, nor would have been sufficient to answer the end proposed.
See Acts 2:1-47 :
See Gill and Henry in Loc.; Jortin's Remarks, vol. 1: p. 15-21; Essay on the Gift of Tongues; Middleton's Miscel. Works, vol. 2: p. 379; Doddridge's Lect. lec. 141.
Despite a stated reliance on the plain meaning of the Bible and the dictates of common sense, Buck's Theological Dictionary, first published in London in 1802, seeks to provide a textual basis for the evangelical community. By combining brief essays on orthodox belief and practice with historical entries on various denominations, Buck provided an interpretive lens that allowed antebellum Protestants to see Christianity's almost two millennia as their own history.Wikipedia
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