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СНАР. Х.

PAUL

BEREA AND ATHENS.

AUL was conducted from Theffalonica to Berea, a city of Macedonia. Here alfo was a Jewish fynagogue, and here the preaching of the Crofs was candidly received by Jews for the first time. A very fingular character is given of the Jews of this place; -they poffeffed a liberality of mind, which difpofed them to liften with attention, and to search the Scriptures of the Old Teftament with daily affiduity. The grace of God feems to have prepared these perfons for the Gospel; and Paul had the pleasure to find a number of the ftamp of Cornelius, who were groping their way to happinefs, and were ready to hail the light as foon as it fhould dawn upon them. Many Jews of Berea believed, and not a few Gentiles alfo of both fexes: thofe of the female fex were perfons of quality. The rage of the Theffalonian Jews foon, however, disturbed this pleasing scene, and stirred up a perfecution, which obliged the Chriftians to ufe fome art in faving the Apostle's life. His conductors at firft took the road toward the fea, which might lead the perfecutors to fuppofe he had quitted the continent. They then brought him fafe to Athens *, once the first city of Greece in all views, and still renowned for taste and science, the school in which the greatest Romans ftudied philofophy. Here, while he waited for the arrival of Silas and Timothy, he beheld the monuments of the city with other eyes than thofe of a scholar and a gentleman. No place in the world

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world could more have entertained a curious and philofophical fpirit than this. Temples, altars, ftatues, hiftorical memorials, living philofophers of various fects, books of thofe, who were deceased, a confluence of polite and humanized perfons of various countries, enjoying the luxury of learned leifure, these things mult at once have obtruded themselves on his notice: and no man in any age, by ftrength of understanding, warmth of temper, and juftnefs of tafte, seems to have been more capable of entering into the fpirit of fuch fcenes than Saul of Tarfus. But Divine Grace had given his faculties a very different direction; and the Christian in him predominated extremely above the philofopher and the critic. He faw here, that even the excess of learning brought men no nearer to God. No place on earth was more given to idolatry. He could not therefore find pleasure in the claffical luxuries prefented before him: He faw his Maker difgraced, and fouls perifhing in fin. Pity and indignation fwallowed up all other emotions: and minifters of Chrift, by their own fenfations in fimilar fcenes, may try how far they are poffeffed of the mind of Paul, which, in this cafe, certainly was the mind of Chrift. If affections be lively, fome exertions will follow. He laid open the reasons of Chriftianity to Jews in their fynagogue, to Gentile worshippers, who attended the fynagogue, and, daily, to any perfons whom he met with in the forum. There were two fects very oppofite to one another among the pagan philofophers, namely, the Epicureans and the Stoics. The former placed the chief good in pleasure, the latter in, what they called, virtue, correfpondent to the two chief fects among the Jews, the Sadducees and the Pharifees, and indeed to the two forts among mankind in all ages, who yet are in a ftate of nature, namely, men

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of a licentious and diffipated turn of mind on the one hand, and on the other felf-righteous perfons who fubftitute their own reafon and virtue in the room of divine grace and divine influence. As thefe will in any age unite against the real friends of Jefus Chrift, fo it was here: The Apostle appeared a mere babbler in their eyes. Jefus and the refurrection, which he preached, were ideas, from which their minds were fo abhorrent, that they took them for a new god and goddefs.

It belonged to the court of Areopagus to take cognizance of things of this nature. This court had unjustly condemned the famous Socrates, as if he had depreciated the eftablished religion, though he had given as ftrong proofs of his polytheiftic attachments, as he had of philofophical pride. It ought not however to be denied, that in a lower fenfe he suffered for righteoufnefs' fake. His honeft rebukes of vice and improbity expofed him to death;-fo unfafe is even the leaft approximation to goodness in a world like this. That St. Paul efcaped condemnation here, feems owing to peculiar circumftances. The court under the tolerating maxims of its Roman fuperiors, feems now to have had only the privilege of examining tenets as a fynod, without the penal power of magiftracy *.

It would carry me too far to dwell on the excellent apology of Paul delivered before this court. He reproved their idolatry in language and by arguments perfectly claffical; and he announced fo much of the Gofpel, as was adapted to the very ignorant ftate of his audience. Whoever duly examines this little mafter-piece of eloquence, may fee that he labours

In this however I am not very pofitive: A greater degree of fceptical indifference might, in the progrefs of refinement, have prevailed at Athens in the days of St. Paul, and the court might itself be as little difpofed to perfecute, as the Roman powers.

labours to beget in them the fpirit of conviction, and to prepare them for Gofpel-mercy, just as Peter did in his firft fermon at Jerufalem. The means ufed by the two Apoftles are as different, as the circumftances of a Jewish and Athenian audience were: The end aimed at by both was the fame.

There is reason to apprehend, that God never fuffers the plain and faithful denunciation of his Gospel to be altogether fruitless. A few perfons believed in reality and with ftedfaftnefs, among whom was Dionyfius a member of the court, and a woman named Damaris. Thefe Paul left to the care of that gracious God who had opened their eyes, and departed from a city as yet too haughty, too fcornful, and too indifferent concerning things of infinite moment, to receive the Gofpel. A Church could hardly be faid to be formed here, though a few individuals were converted. The little fuccels at Athens evinces that a fpirit of literary trifling in religion, where all is theory, and the confcience is unconcerned, hardens the heart effectually. What a contrast between the effects of the fame Gofpel difpenfed to the illiterate Macedonians, and the philofophical Athenians! Yet there want not many profeffing Chriftians, who, while they ftigmatize men of the former fort with the name of barbarians, beftow on the latter the appellation of enlightened perfons.

CHAP.

CHAP. XI.

CORINTH.

THIS was of HIS was at that time the metropolis of Greece. Its fituation in an ifthmus rendered it remarkably convenient for trade. It was the refidence of the Roman governor of Achaia, the name then given to all Greece: and it was, at once, full of opulence, learning, luxury, and fenfuality. Hither the Apoftle came from Athens, and laboured both among the Jews and the Gentiles. Here Providence gave him the acquaintance and friendship of Aquila and his wife Prifcilla, two Jewish Chriftians lately expelled from Italy with other Jews, by an edict of the emperor Claudius. With them he wrought as a tent-maker, being of the fame occupation: For every Jew, whether rich or poor, was obliged to follow fome trade. After the arrival of Silas and Timothy, the Apoftle with much vehemence preached to his countrymen; but oppofition and abuse were the only returns he met with. The modern notions of charity will scarcely be reconciled to the zealous indignation which he fhewed on this occafion. He fhook his garment, and told them, that he was clear of their deftruction; and that he would leave them, and apply himself to the Gentiles in this city. With this denunciation he left the fynagogue, and entered into the house of one Juftus, a devout perfon, well-affected to the Gofpel. Crifpus alfo, the ruler of the fynagogue, with his whole family, received the truth. But we hear of no more Jewish converts at this place, However many Corinthians were converted. And a gracious

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