his Epistles. And these Epistles, as if through design, open with that 'to the beloved of God called to be saints' in that very city, the mention of his residence in which concludes the preceding narrative.

that the New Testament should in some part, but in the doctrines of the saint. In fact, to the present to us a full exemplification of its doc-history of Paul in the Sacred Oracles succeed trines and of its spirit; that they should to produce their practical effect, be embodied in a form purely human,-for the character of the founder of its religion is deified humanity. Did the Scriptures present no such exhibition, infidelity might have availed itself of the omission, for the purpose of asserting that Christianity was only a bright chimera, a beautiful fiction of the imagination; and Plato's fair idea might have been brought into competition with the doctrines of the Gospel. But in St. Paul is exhibited a portrait which not only illustrates its Divine truth, but establishes its moral efficacy; a portrait entirely free from any distortion in the drawing, from any extravagance in the colouring.

It is the representation of a man struggling with the sins and infirmities natural to man; yet habitually triumphing over them by that Divine grace which had first rescued him from prejudice, bigotry, and unbelief.—It represents him resisting, not only such temptations as are common to men, but surmounting trials to which no other man was ever called; furnishing in his whole practice not only an instructor, but a model; showing every where in his writings, that the same offers, the same supports, the same victories, are tendered to every suffering child of mortality, that the waters of eternal life are not restricted to prophets and apostles, but are offered freely to every one that thirsteth-offered without money and without price.

CHAP. III.

On the epistolary writers of the New Testament, particularly St. Paul.

Had the Sacred Canon closed with the evangelical narrations, had it not been determined in the counsels of Divine Wisdom, that a subsequent portion of inspired Scripture in another form, should have been added to the historical portions, that the Epistles should have conveyed to us the results of the mission and the death of Christ, how immense would have been the disadvantage, and how irreparable the loss: May we presume to add, how much less perfect would have been our view of the scheme of Christianity, had the New Testament been curtailed of this important portion of religious and practical instruction.

We should indeed have felt the same adoring gratitude for the benefits of the Redeemer, but we should have been in comparative ignorance of the events consequent upon his resurrection. We should have been totally at a loss to know how and by whom the first Christian churches were founded; how they were conducted, and what was their progress. We should have had but a slender notion of the manner in which Christianity was planted, and how wonderfully it flourished in the heathen soil. Above all, we should have been deprived of that divine instruction, equally the dictate of the Holy Spirit, with which the Epistles abound; or, which would have been worse than ignorance, uninspired men, fanatics, or impostors would have attached to the Gospel their glosses, conceits, errors, and misinterpretations.-We should have been turned over for information to some of those spurious gospels, and more than doubtful epistles, of which mention is made in the early part of ecclesiastical history. What attempts might have been made by such writers, to amuse curiosity with a sequel of the history of the persons named in the New Testament! How might they have misled us by unprofitable details of the Virgin Mary, or of Joseph of Arimathea!

CAN the reader of taste and feeling who has followed the much enduring hero of the Odys sey with growing delight and increasing sympathy, though in a work of fiction, through all his wanderings, peruse with inferior interest the genuine voyages of the Apostle of the Gentiles over nearly the same seas? The fabulous ad. What legends might have been invented, what venturer, once landed, and safe on the shores idolatry even might have been incorporated with of his own Ithica, the reader's mind is satisfied the true worship of God; what false history apfor the object of his anxiety is at rest. But not pended to the authentic record! Not only is the so ends the tale of the Christian hero. Whoever Divine Wisdom manifest in carrying on through closed Saint Luke's narrative of the diversified | the Epistles a confirmation of the Spirit and events of Saint Paul's travels; whoever accom-power of Christianity, but the same design is no panied him with the interest his history de. less apparent in closing the book with the Apomands, from the commencement of his trials at Damascus to his last deliverance from ship. wreck, and left him preaching in his own hired house at Rome, without feeling as if he had abruptly lost sight of some one very dear to him, without sorrowing that they should see his face no more, without indulging a wish that the intercourse could have been carried on to the end, though that end were martyrdom.

calypse,- -a writing which contains the testimony of the last surviving disciple of Jesus is extreme old age, to which he seems to have been providentially preserved for the very pur pose of protecting the Gospel from innovations which were beginning to corrupt it.

The narratives of the Evangelists would indeed have remained perfect in themselves, even without the Epistles; but never could its truths Such readers, and perhaps only such, will re- have been so clearly understood, or its doctrines joice to renew their acquaintance with this very so fully developed, as they now are. Our Sa. chiefest of the Apostles; not indeed in the com-viour himself intimated, that there would be a munication of subsequent facts, but of important more full and complete knowledge of his docprinciples; not in the records of the biographer, trines, after he had ceased to deliver them, than

there was at the time. How indeed could the, doctrine of the atonement, and of pardon through his blood, have been so explicitly set forth during his life, as they afterwards were in the Epistles, especially in those of St. Paul.

Saint Luke, in the opening of the Acts of the Apostles, referring the friend to whom he inscribes it, to his former Treatise of all that Jesus began to do, and to teach, till he was taken up, after that he had through the Holy Ghost given commandment to the Apostles' seems plainly to indicate that the doing and the teaching were to be carried on by them. All their doubts were at length removed. They had now a plenary conviction of the divinity of Christ's person, and of the dignity of his mission. They had now witnessed his glorious resurrection and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost. They had attained the fullest assurance of the truths they were to proclaim, and had had time to acquire the completest certainty of their moral efficacy on the heart and life.

It was therefore ordained by that Wisdom which cannot err, that the Apostles, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, should work up all the doctrines of the anterior Scriptures into a more systematic form :—that they should more fully unfold their doctrines, extract the essence of their separate maxims, collect the scattered rays of spiritual light into a focus; and blend the whole into one complete body.

The Epistles, therefore, are an estimable appendix to the Evangelists. The memoir, which contains the actions of the Apostles, the work of an Evangelist also, stands between these two portions of the New Testament. Thus, no chasm is left, and the important events which this connecting link supplies-particularly the descent of the Holy Spirit, the emblematic vision of Saint Peter, and the conversion and apostleship of Saint Paul,-naturally prepare the mind for that full and complete commentary on the historical books, which the Epistles, more especially those of Saint Paul, present to us.

St. Paul was favoured with a particular revelation, a personal disclosure to him of the truths with which the other disciples were previously acquainted. This special distinction placed Paul on a level with his precursors. Though, in point of fact, he added nothing to the Gospel revelation, and in point of doctrine he only gave a larger exposition of truths previously communicated, of duties already enjoined, yet here was the warrant of his teaching, the broad seal of his apostleship. And unless we fall into the gross error of insisting that the Epistles in general would not equally be given by inspiration with other parts of the New Testament, I see not how any can withhold, from the Epistles of St. Paul in particular, that reverence which they profess to entertain for the entire letter of revelation.

It is a hardship to which all writers on subjects exclusively religious are liable, that if, while they are warmly pressing some great and important point, they omit at the same time, to urge some other point of great moment also, which they equally believe, but which they cannot in that connexion introduce without breaking in on their immediate train of argument, VOL. II.

they are accused of rejecting what they are obliged to overlook, though in its proper place they have repeatedly insisted upon that very truth; nay, though the whole tendency of their writings shows their equal faith in the doctrine they are said to have neglected. To this disingenuous treatment, amongst other more serious attacks upon his character, no author has been more obnoxious than the Apostle Paul. It has been often intimated, that in dwelling on the efficacy of the death of Christ, he has not urged with sufficient frequency and energy the importance of Christian practice. He seems him. self to have foreseen the probability of this reproach, and has accordingly provided against the consequence that would be drawn from his positions, if taken separately. It would be an endless task to cite the passages in which he is continually defending his doctrine against these anticipated misrepresentations. Among other modes of refutation, he sometimes states these false charges in the way of interrogatories: Do we make void the law through faith?' And not contented with the solemn negative, 'God forbid!' he adds a positive affirmative to the contrary: Yea we establish the law.' In a similar manner he is beforehand with his censors in denying the expected charge-Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?' and he obtests the same Almighty name to his opposite practice. Readers, of different views, are without ceasing, on the watch to take advantage of all the epistolary writers in this respect, while the fair method would surely be to form the general judgment, from the whole tenor and collective spirit of their writings.

But it has been argued with still greater boldness, that St. Paul was not a disciple. Granted. But his miraculous conversion entitled him to the confidence, which some men more willingly place in those who were. This event is substantially recorded by Saint Luke: as if he foresaw the distrust which might hereafter arise, he has added to his first relation, in the 9th chapter of the Acts, two several reports of the same circumstance made by Saint Paul himself, first to the Jews, and afterwards to Festus and Agrippa. As Luke has recorded this astonishing fact three several times, we are not left to depend for its truth entirely on Saint Paul's own frequent allusions to it.

Much suspicion of this great Apostle is avowedly grounded on the remark of Saint Peter, who in adverting to his beloved brother Paul,' observes, that in his Epistles are some things hard to be understood, which they who are unstable and unlearned wrest to their own destruction.' Here the critic would desire to stop, or rather to garble the sentence which adds, 'as they do also the other Scriptures; thus casting the accusation, not upon Saint Paul or 'the other Scriptures,' but upon the misinterpreters of both. But Saint Peter farther includes in the same passage, that Paul accounts the long-suffering of God to be salvation, according to the wisdom given him.' It is apparent, therefore, that though there may be more difficulty, there is not more danger in Saint Paul's Epistles, than in the rest of the Sacred Volume. Let us also observe what is the characters of these subverters of truth,

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the 'unstable' in principle and 'unlearned' in doctrine. If, then, you feel yourself in danger of being misled, in which of these classes will you desire to enrol your name? But it is worthy of observation, that, in this supposed censure of Saint Peter, we have in reality a most valuable testimony, not only to the excellence, but also to the inspiration of Saint Paul's writings; for he not only ascribes their composition to the wisdom given unto him, but puts them on a par with the other Scriptures,-a double corroboration of their Divine character.

Epistles from this cause,-that they enforce doctrines. The former, the generality feel they dare not resist; the latter they think they can oppose with more impunity. But of how much less value would be the record of these astonishing facts if there were neither doctrines to grow out of them, nor precepts to be built upon them! And whère should wo look for the full instruction to be deduced from both, but in the commentaries of those, to whom the charge of expounding the truths previously taught was committed? Our Saviour himself has left no written record. As the Father committed all judgment to the Son, so the Son committed all written in

This passage of St. Peter, then, is so far from impugning the character of Paul to Divine Inspiration, that we have here the fact itself esta-struction to his select servants. blished upon the authority of a favourite disciple and companion of Jesus. To invalidate such a testimony would be no less than to shake the pillars of revelation.

Besides, as an eminent divine has observed, 'if Saint Paul had been only a good man writing under that general assistance of the Spirit common to good men, it would be ascribing far too much to his compositions to suppose that the misunderstanding them could effect the destruction of the reader.'

Saint Peter says only, that'some things' are difficult; but are there not difficulties in every part of Divine revelation, in all the operations of God, in all the dispensations of Providence; difficulties insuperable in the natural as well as the spiritual world? Difficulties in the formation of the human body; in the union of that perishable body with its immortal companion? Is it not then probable that some difficulties in various parts of the Divine Oracles may be purposely left for the humiliation of pride, for the exercise of patience, for the test of submission, for the honour of faith? But allowing that in Paul some things are hard to be understood, that is no reason for rejecting such things as are easy, for rejecting all things. Why should the very large proportion that is clear, be slighted for the very small one that is obscure? Scholars do not so treat an ancient poet or historian. One or two perplexing passages, instead of shaking the credit of an author, rather whet the critic to a nearer investigation. Even if the local diffi. culty should prove invincible, it does not lessen the general interest excited by the work. They who compare spiritual things with spiritual, which is the true Biblical criticism, must perceive that the epistolary writers do not more entirely agree with each other, than they agree with the doctrines, precepts, and promises deli. vered on the Mount. And as the Sermon on the Mount is an exposition of the law of Moses, so the Epistles are an exposition of the law of Christ. Yet some persons discredit the one, from an exclusive veneration for the other.

But is it not so derogatory from the dignity of our Lord to disparage the epistolary discussions written under the direction of his Holy Spirit, written with a view to lay open in the elearest manner the truths he taught in the Gospel, as it would be to depreciate the facts themselves, which that Gospel records?

The more general respect for the Gospels seems partly to arise from the circumstance that they contain facts: the disregard implied for the

One of these, who had written a Gospel, wrote also three Epistles. Another carried on the sequel of the Evangelical history. If these men are worthy of confidence in one instance, why not in another? Fourteen of the Epistles were written by one who had an express revelation from Hea. ven; all the rest, the single chapter of Saint Jude excepted, by the distinguished apostles who were honoured with the privilege of witnessing the transfiguration of their Lord. The three Epistles of Saint John are only a prolonged expression of the devout feelings which breathe throughout his narrative, the same lively mani festation of the word made flesh, which shines throughout his Gospel.

In the Gospel, the doctrines and precepts are more dogmatically enjoined in the Epistles they are enforced more argumentatively. The structure of the Epistle addressed to the Romans is the most systematical. All are equally consistent with each other, and with the general tenor of the antecedent Scriptures.

Does it not look as if the marked distinction which some readers make between the historical and the epistolary portions, arose from a most erroneous belief that they can more commodiously reconcile their own views, opinions, and practice, with the narratives of the Evangelists, than with the keen, penetrating, heart-exploring exposition of those very doctrines which are equally found, but not equally expanded, in the Gospels? These critical discoverers, however, may rest assured, that there is nothing more strong, nothing more pointed, nothing more unequivocally plain, nothing more awfully severe in any part of Saint Paul's writings than in the discourses of our Lord himself. He would in. deed have overshot his duty in the same proportion in which he had outgone his Master. Does Paul enjoin any thing more contrary to nature than the excision of a right hand, or the plucking out of a right eye? Does Paul any where exhibit a menace, I will not say more alarming, but so repeatedly alarming, as his Divine Master, who expressly, in one chapter only, the 9th of St. Mark, three several times denounces eternal punishment on the irreclaimably impenitent, awfully marking out not only the specific place, but the specific torment,-the undying worm, and the unquenched fire?

No: these scrupulous objectors add nothing to the character of our Lord, by what they subduct from that of his apostle. Perfection admits of no improvement; deity of no addition. To degrade any portion of the revealed will of God,

not, in his adding the perusal of the Epistles to that of the Acts, pour in upon his mental eye the full and perfect day?

is no proof of reverence for Him whose will is revealed. But it is preposterous to insinuate, that a regard for the Epistles is calculated to diminish a regard for the Gospels. Where else As there was more leisure, as well as a more can we find such believing, such admiring, such appropriate space, in the Epistles for building adoring views of him whose life the Gospel re-up Christianity as a system than in the Gospels, cords? Where else are we so grounded in that so these wise master-builders, building on no love which passeth knowledge? Where else are other foundation than that which was laid,' borwe so continually taught to be looking unto rowed all the materials for the glorious edifice Jesus? Where else are we so powerfully re- from the anterior Scriptures. They brought minded that there is no other name under hea- from their precursors in the immortal work, the ven by which we may be saved? We may as hewn stones with which the spiritual temple is well assert, that the existing laws, of which constructed, and having compacted it with that Magna Charta is the original, diminish our re- which every portion supplied; squared, rounded, verence for this palladium itself; this basis of and polished the precious mass into perfect form our political security, as the Gospel is of our and shape, into complete beauty and everlastmoral and spiritual privileges. In both cases ing strength. the derived benefit sends us back to the wellhead from whence it flows.

He who professes to read the Holy Scriptures for his 'instruction,' should recollect, whenever he is disposed to be captious, that they are written also for his correction. If we really believe that Christ speaks to us in the Gospel, we must believe that he speaks to us in the Epistles also. In the one he addresses us in his militant, in the other in his glorified character. In one, the Divine Instructor speaks to us on earth; in the other, from heaven. The internal wisdom, the divinity of the doctrines, the accordance both of doctrine and precept with those delivered by the Saviour himself, the powerful and abiding effects which, for near two thousand years they have produced, and are actually producing, on the hearts and lives of multitudes; the same spirit which inspired the writer is still ready to assist the reader; all together forming, to every serious inquirer who reads them with an humble heart and a docile spirit, irrefragable arguments, unimpeachable evidence that they possess as full a claim to inspiration, and consequently have as forcible demand on his belief and obedience, as any of the less litigated portions of the book of God.

CHAP. IV.

Saint Paul's Faith, a Practical Principle.

THERE are some principles and seeds of nature, some elements in the character of man, not indisposed for certain acts of virtue; we mean virtue as distinguished from the principle of pleasing God by the act or sentiment. Some persons naturally hate cruelty, others spurn at injustice, this man detests covetousness, that abhors oppression. Some of these dispositions certain minds find, and others fancy, within themselves. But for a man to go entirely out of himself, to live upon trust, to renounce all confidence in virtues which he possesses, and in actions which he performs,; to cast himself entirely upon another; to seek to be justified, not by his own obedience, but by the obedience of that other; to look for eternal happiness, not from the merit of his own life, but from that of another's death, that death the most degrading, after a life the most despised; for all this revolution in the mind and heart, there is no foundation, no seed, no element in nature; it is foreign to the make of man; if possessed, it is bestowed; if felt, it is derived; it is not a production, but an infusion; it is a principle, not indigenous, but implanted. The Apostle implies that faith is not inherent, when he says, to you it is given to believe.'

Whoever, then, shall sit down to the perusal of these epistles without prejudice, will not rise from it without improvement. In any human science we do not lay aside the whole, because some parts are more difficult than others; we are rather stimulated to the work by the difficulty, than deterred from it; because we believe the attainment will reward the perseverance. There This superinduced principle is Faith, a prinis, indeed, an essential difference between a ciple not only not inherent in nature, but diadiagram and a doctrine, the apprehension of metrically contrary to it; a principle which the one solely depending on the capacity and takes no root in the soil of the natural heart; application of the student, while the understand-no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the ing of the other depends not merely on the industry, but on the temper with which we apply. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, and it shall be given him.'

Let any reader say, if after perusing Saint Luke's biographical sketch of the Acts of the Apostles, after contemplating the work of the Spirit of God, and its effects on the lives and the preaching of these primitive saints, whether he has not attained an additional insight into the genius and the results of Christianity since he finished reading the Evangelist? Let him say further, whether the light of Revelation, shining more and more as he advances, does

Holy Ghost. Its result is not merely a reform, but a new life-a life governed by the same principle which first communicated it.

The faith of mere assent, that faith which is purely a conviction of the understanding seldom stirs beyond the point at which it first sits down. Being established on the same common ground with any scientific truth, or any acknowledged fact, it is not likely to advance, desiring nothing more than to retain its station among other ac cepted truths, and thus it continues to reside in the intellect alone. Though its local existence is allowed, it exhibits none of the undoubted signs of life,-activity, motion, growth.

But that vital faith with which the souls of the Scripture saints were so richly imbued, is an animating and pervading principle. It spreads and enlarges in its progress. It gathers energy as its proceeds. The more advanced are its at tainments, the more prospective are its views. The nearer it approaches to the invisible realities to which it is stretching forward, the more their dominion over it increases, till it almost makes the future present, and the unseen visible. Its light becomes brighter, its flame purer, its aspirations stronger. Its increasing proximity to its object fills the mind, warms the heart, clears the sight, quickens the pace.

notion, a visionary, unproductive conceit, or an imaginary enthusiastic feeling. He combats this opinion by exhibiting characteristically the rich and the abundant harvest, springing from this prolific principle. On these illustrious examples our limits will not permit us to dwell; one or two instances must suffice.

The patriarchal father of the faithful, against hope believed in hope. Natural reliance, reasonable expectation, common experience, all were against him. From all these impediments he averted his eyes; he raised them to Him who had promised. Though the promise was so great as to seem incredible, his confidence in Omnipotence overbalanced all his

But as faith is of a spiritual nature, it cannot be kept alive without spiritual means. It re-apprehensions of any hindrances. With the quires for its sustenance aliment congenial with itself. Meditation familiarizes it with its object; prayer keeps it close to its end. If thus cherished by perpetual exercise, sustained by the habitual contemplation of the oracles of God, and watered with the dews of his grace, it becomes the pregnant seed of every Christian virtue.

The Holy Scriptures have not left this faith to grow merely out of the stock of injunction, exhortation or command; the inspired writers have not merely expatiated on its beauty as a grace, on its necessity as a duty, on its use as an instrument, but having infused it as a living and governing principle, have fortified their exhortations with instances the most striking, have illustrated their definitions with examples the most impressive.

eye of faith he not only saw his offspring as if immediately granted, but all the myriads which should hereafter descend from him. He saw the great anticipated blessing; he saw 'the star come out of Jacob,'-' the sceptre rises out of Israel.' Though an exclamation of wonder escaped him, it was astonishment untinctured with distrust; he disregarded second causes; difficulties disappeared, impossibilities vanished, faith was victorious.

In this glorious catalogue of those who conquered by faith, there is perhaps not one who effers a more appropriate lesson to the higher classes of society than the great legislator of Israel. Here is a man sitting at ease in his possessions, enjoying the sweets of plenty, the dignity of rank, the luxuries of literature, the distinction of reputation. All these he voluntarily renounces; he foregoes the pomps of a court, the advantages of a city, then the most learned in the world; he relinquishes the delights of polished society: refused to be called the grandson of a potent monarch; chooses rather to suffer

The most indefatigable but rational champion of faith is the Apostle Paul. He every where demonstrates, that it is not a speculative dogma remaining dormant in the mind, but a lively conviction of the power and goodness of God, and of his mercy in Christ Jesus; a principle received into the heart, acknowledged by the un-affliction with his believing brethren than to enderstanding, and operating on the practice.

joy the temporary pleasures which a sinful conSaint Paul, among the other sacred authors, nivance could have obtained for him : he esteems seems to consider that faith is to the soul, what the reproach of Christ,-a Saviour unborn till the senses are to the body; it is spiritual sight. many ages after, unknown but to the eye of God is the object, faith is the visual ray. Christ faith,-greater than all the treasures of Egypt. is the substance, faith is the hand which lays The accomplished, the learned, and the polite, hold on it. By faith the promises are in a man- will be best able to appreciate the value of such ner substantiated. Our Saviour does not say, a sacrifice. Does it not seem to come more home 'he that believeth on me shall have life, but has to the bosoms of the elegant and opulent; and life.' It is not a blessing, of which the fruition to offer an instruction more intimate perhaps is wholly reserved for heaven: in a spiritual than is bequeathed even by those martial sense, through faith the promise becomes per- and heroic spirits who subdued kingdoms, formance, and assurance possession. The im- quenched the violence of fire, stopped the mouths mortal seed is not only sown, but already sprung of lions, and turned to flight the armies of the up in the soil of the renewed heart. The life aliens? These are instances of faith, which, if of grace becomes the same in nature and quality more sublime, are still of less special applica with the life of glory, to which it leads. And tion. Few are now called to these latter suffer. if in this ungenial climate the plant will not at-ings, but many in their measure and degree to tain its maturity, at least its progress intimates that it will terminate in absolute perfection.

In that valuable epitome of Old Testament biography, the eleventh of Hebrews, Paul defines faith to be a future but inalienable possession. He then exhibits the astonishing effects of faith displayed in men like ourselves, by marshalling the worthies who lived under the ancient economy, as actual evidences of the verity of this Divine principle; a principle which he thus, by numberless personifications, vindicates from the charge of being nothing more than an abstract

the other. May they ever bear in mind that Moses sustained his trials only as seeing him who is invisible !

To change the heart of a sinner is a higher exertion of power than to create a man or even a world; in the latter case, as God made it out of nothing, so there was nothing to resist the operation; but in the former he has to encounter, not inanity, but repulsion: not an unobtrusive vacuity, but a powerful counteraction; and to believe in the Divine energy which effects this renovation, is a greater exercise of faith than to