pro

Christian era, in which century these epistles un- Beside these, I know not whether any ancient doubtedly existed.-I shall set down under this writer mentions it. It was certainly unnoticed proposition the guarded words of Lardner him- during the first three centuries of the church; and self: "There are no quotations of any books of when it came afterwards to be mentioned, it was them (spurious and apocryphal books) in the mentioned only to show, that, though such a apostolical fathers, by whom I mean Barnabas, writing did exist, it obtained no credit. It is Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Poly-bable that the forgery to which Jerome alludes, is carp, whose writings reach from the year of our the epistle which we now have under that title. Lord 70 to the year 108. I say this confidently, If so, as hath been already observed, it is nothing because I think it has been proved."-Lardner, more than a collection of sentences from the vol. xii. p. 158. genuine epistles; and was perhaps, at first, rather the exercise of some idle pen, than any serious attempt to impose a forgery upon the public. Of an Epistle to the Corinthians under St. Paul's name, which was brought into Europe in the present century, antiquity is entirely silent. It was unheard of for sixteen centuries; and at this day, though it be extant, and was first found in the Armenian language, it is not, by the Christians of that country, received into their Scriptures. I hope, after this, that there is no reader who will think there is any competition of credit, or of external proof, between these and the received Epistles; or rather, who will not acknowledge the evidence of authenticity to be confirmed by the want of success which attended imposture.

When we take into our hands the letters which the suffrage and consent of antiquity hath thus transmitted to us, the first thing that strikes our attention is the air of reality and bu

Nor when they did appear were they much used by the primitive Christians. "Irenæus quotes not any of these books. He mentions some of them, but he never quotes them. The same may be said of Tertullian: he has mentioned a book called 'Acts of Paul and Thecla:' but it is only to condemn it. Clement of Alexandria and Origen have mentioned and quoted several such books, but never as authority, and sometimes with express marks of dislike. Eusebius quoted no such books in any of his works. He has mentioned them indeed, but how? Not by way of approbation, but to show that they were of little or no value; and that they never were received by the sounder part of Christians." Now if with this, which is advanced after the most minute and diligent examination, we compare what the same cautious writer had before said of our received Scriptures, "that in the works of three only of the above-mentioned fathers, there are more and larger quotations of the small volume of the New Tes-siness, as well as of seriousness and conviction, tament, than of all the works of Cicero in the writers of all characters for several ages;" and if with the marks of obscurity or condemnation, which accompanied the mention of the several apocryphal Christian writings, when they happened to be mentioned at all, we contrast what Dr. Lardner's work completely and in detail makes out concerning the writings which we defend, and what, having so made out, he thought himself authorized in his conclusion to assert, that these books were not only received from the beginning, but received with the greatest respect; have been publicly and solemnly read in the assemblies of Christians throughout the And here, in its proper place, comes in the arworld, in every age from that time to this; early gument which it has been the office of these pages translated into the languages of divers countries to unfold. St. Paul's epistles are connected with and people; commentaries writ to explain and il- the history by their particularity, and by the nulustrate them; quoted by way of proof in all ar-merous circumstances which are found in them. guments of a religious nature; recommended to When we descend to an examination and comthe perusal of unbelievers, as containing the au-parison of these circumstances, we not only obthentic account of the Christian doctrine; when serve the history and the epistles to be indepenwe attend, say, to this representation, we per-dent documents unknown to, or at least unconceive in it not only full proof of the early no-sulted by, each other, but we find the substance, toriety of these books, but a clear and sensible and oftentimes very minute articles, of the history. line of discrimination, which separates these from the pretensions of any others.

which pervades the whole. Let the sceptic read them. If he be not sensible of these qualities in them, the argument can have no weight with him. If he be; if he perceive in almost every page the language of a mind actuated by real occasions, and operating upon real circumstances, I would wish it to be observed, that the proof which arises from this perception is not to be deemed occult or imaginary, because it is incapable of being drawn out in words, or of being conveyed to the apprehension of the reader in any other way, than by sending him to the books themselves.

recognized in the epistles, by allusions and references, which can neither be imputed to design, The epistles of St. Paul stand particularly free nor, without a foundation in truth, be accounted of any doubt or confusion that might arise from for by accident; by hints and expressions, and this source. Until the conclusion of the fourth single words dropping as it were fortuitously from century, no intimation appears of any attempt the pen of the writer, or drawn forth, each by some whatever being made to counterfeit these writings; occasion proper to the place in which it occurs, and then it appears only of a single and obscure but widely removed from any view to consistency instance. Jerome, who flourished in the year 392, or agreement. These, we know, are effects which has this expression: "Legunt quidam et ad Lao-reality naturally produces, but which, without dicenses; sed ab omnibus exploditur;" there is also reality at the bottom, can hardly be conceived to an Epistle to the Laodiceans, but it is rejected by exist. every body. Theodoret, who wrote in the year 423, speaks of this epistle in the same terms.+ ↑ Ibid. vol. xi. p. 88.

* Lardner, vol. x. p. 103.

When therefore, with a body of external evidence, which is relied upon, and which experience proves may safely be relied upon, in appreciating the credit of ancient writings, we combine charac

ters of genuineness and originality which are not found, and which, in the nature and order of things, cannot be expected to be found in spurious compositions; whatever difficulties we may meet with in other topics of the Christian evidence, we can have little in yielding our assent to the following conclusions: That there was such a person as St. Paul; that he lived in the age which we ascribe to him; that he went about preaching the religion of which Jesus Christ was the founder; and that the letters which we now read were actually written by him upon the subject, and in the course of that his ministry.

mediately present and active. I do not allow that this insinuation is applied to the historical part of the New Testament with any colour of justice or probability; but I say, that to the Epistles it is not applicable at all.

III. These letters prove that the converts to Christianity were not drawn from the barbarous, the mean, or the ignorant set of men which the representations of infidelity would sometimes make them. We learn from letters the character not only of the writer, but, in some measure, of the persons to whom they are written. To suppose that these letters were addressed to a rude tribe, incapable of thought or reflection, is just as reasonable as to suppose Locke's Essay on the Huinstruction of savages. Whatever may be thought of these letters in other respects, either of diction or argument, they are certainly removed as far as possible from the habits and comprehension of a barbarous people.

And if it be true that we are in possession of the very letters which St. Paul wrote, let us consider what confirmation they afford to the Chris-man Understanding to have been written for the tian history. In my opinion they substantiate the whole transaction. The great object of modern research is to come at the epistolary correspondence of the times. Amidst the obscurities, the silence, or the contradictions of history, if a letter can be found, we regard it as the discovery of a landmark; as that by which we can correct, adjust, or supply the imperfections and uncertainties of other accounts. One cause of the superior credit which is attributed to letters is this, that the facts which they disclose generally come out incidentally, and therefore without design to mislead the public by false or exaggerated accounts. This reason may be applied to St. Paul's epistles with as much justice as to any letters whatever. Nothing could be farther from the intention of the writer than to record any part of his history. That his history was in fact made public by these letters, and has by the same means been transmitted to future ages, is a secondary and unthought-of effect. The sincerity therefore of the apostle's declarations cannot reasonably be disputed; at least we are sure that it was not vitiated by any desire of setting himself off to the public at large. But these letters form a part of the muniments of Christianity, as much to be valued for their contents, as for their originality. A more inestimable treasure the care of antiquity could not have sent down to us. Beside the proof they afford of the general reality of St. Paul's history, of the knowledge which the author of the Acts of the Apostles had obtained of that history, and the consequent probability that he was, what he professes himself to have been, a companion of the apostles; beside the support they lend to these important inferences, they meet specifically some of the principal objections upon which the adversaries of Christianity have thought proper to rely. In particular they show,

IV. St. Paul's history, I mean so much of it as may be collected from his letters, is so implicated with that of the other apostles, and with the substance indeed of the Christian history itself, that I apprehend it will be found impossible to admit St. Paul's story (I do not speak of the miraculous part of it) to be true, and yet to reject the rest as fabulous. For instance, can any one believe that there was such a man as Paul, a preacher of Christianity in the age which we assign to him, and not believe that there was also at the same time such a man as Peter and James, and other apostles, who had been companions of Christ during his life, and who after his death published and avowed the same things concerning him which Paul taught? Judea, and especially Jerusalem, was the scene of Christ's ministry. The witnesses of his miracles lived there. St. Paul, by his own account, as well as that of his historian, appears to have frequently visited that city; to have carried on a communication with the church there; to have associated with the rulers and elders of that church, who were some of them apostles; to have acted, as occasions offered, in correspondence, and sometimes in conjunction with them. Can it, after this, be doubted, but that the religion and the general facts relating to it, which St. Paul appears by his letters to have delivered to the several churches which he established at a distance, were at the same time taught and published at Jerusalem itself, the place where the business was transacted; and taught and published by those who had attended the founder of the institution in his miraculous, or pretendedly miraculous, ministry?

I. That Christianity was not a story set on foot amidst the confusions which attended and immediately preceded the destruction of Jerusalem; It is observable, for so it appears both in the when many extravagant reports were circulated, Epistles and from the Acts of the Apostles, that when men's minds were broken by terror and dis-Jerusalem, and the society of believers in that city, tress, when amidst the tumults that surrounded them inquiry was impracticable. These letters show incontestably that the religion had fixed and established itself before this state of things took place.

II. Whereas it hath been insinuated, that our Gospels may have been made up of reports and stories, which were current at the time, we may observe that, with respect to the Epistles, this is impossible. A man cannot write the history of his own life from reports; nor, what is the same thing, be led by reports to refer to passages and transactions in which he states himself to have been im

long continued the centre from which the missionaries of the religion issued, with which all other churches maintained a correspondence and connexion, to which they referred their doubts, and to whose relief, in times of public distress, they remitted their charitable assistance. This observation I think material, because it proves that this was not the case of giving our accounts in one country of what is transacted in another, without affording the hearers an opportunity of knowing whether the things related were credited by any, or even published, in the place where they are reported to have passed.

VI. These letters are decisive as to the sufferings of the author; also as to the distressed state of the Christian church, and the dangers which attended the preaching of the Gospel.

V. St. Paul's letters furnish evidence (and what I deeply impressed, but not more so than the occabetter evidence than a man's own letters can be sion merited, with a sense of its importance. This desired?) of the soundness and sobriety of his produces a corresponding animation and solicitude judgment. His caution in distinguishing between in the exercise of his ministry. But would not the occasional suggestions of inspiration, and the these considerations, supposing them to be well ordinary exercise of his natural understanding, is founded, have holden the same place, and produced without example in the history of human enthu- the same effect, in a mind the strongest and the siasm. His morality is every where calm, pure, most sedate? and rational; adapted to the condition, the activity, and the business of social life, and of its various relations; free from the overscrupulousness and austerities of superstition, and from what was more perhaps to be apprehended, the abstractions of quietism, and the soarings and extravagancies of fanaticism. His judgment concerning a hesitating conscience; his opinion of the moral indifferency of many actions, yet of the prudence and even the duty of compliance, where non-compliance would produce evil effects upon the minds of the persons who observed it, is as correct and just as the most liberal and enlightened moralist could form at this day. The accuracy of modern ethics has found nothing to amend in these determina

tions.

What Lord Lyttleton has remarked of the preference ascribed by St. Paul to inward rectitude of principle above every other religious accomplishment, is very material to our present purpose. "In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xiii. 1-3, St. Paul has these words: Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Is this the language of enthusiasm? Did ever enthusiast prefer that uni versal benevolence which comprehendeth all moral virtues, and which, as appeareth by the following verses, is meant by charity here; did ever enthusiast, I say, prefer that benevolence" (which we may add is attainable by every man)" to faith and to miracles, to those religious opinions which he had embraced, and to those supernatural graces and gifts which he imagined he had acquired; nay, even to the merit of martyrdom? Is it not the genius of enthusiasm to set moral virtues infinitely below the merit of faith; and of all moral virtues to value that least which is most particularly enforced by St. Paul, a spirit of candour, moderation, and peace? Certainly neither the temper nor the opinions of a man subject to fanatic delusions are to be found in this passage."-Lord Lyttleton's Considerations on the Conversion, &c.

I see no reason therefore to question the integrity of his understanding. To call him a visionary, because he appealed to visions; or an enthusiast, because he pretended to inspiration, is to take the whole question for granted. It is to take for granted that no such visions or inspirations existed at least it is to assume, contrary to his own assertions, that he had no other proofs than these to offer of his mission, or of the truth of his relations.

One thing I allow, that his letters every where discover great zeal and earnestness in the cause in which he was engaged; that is to say, he was convinced of the truth of what he taught; he was

"Whereof I Paul am made a minister; who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, which is the church," Col. ch. i. 24.

"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable," 1 Cor. ch. xv. 9.

"Why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?" 1 Cor. ch. xv. 30, &c.

"If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” Rom. chap. viii, 17, 18.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter," Rom. ch. viii. 35, 36.

'Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer," Rom. ch. xii. 12.

"Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; yet I give my judgment as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress; I say, that it is good for a man so to be," 1 Cor. ch. vii. 25, 26.

"For unto you it is given, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me," Phil. ch. i. 29, 30.

"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

"From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus," Gal. ch. ví. 14, 17.

"Ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost," 1 Thess. ch. i. 6.

"We ourselves glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure," 2 Thess. chap. i. 4.

We may seem to have accumulated texts unnecessarily; but beside that the point which they are brought to prove is of great importance, there is this also to be remarked in every one of the passages cited, that the allusion is drawn from the writer by the argument or the occasion; that the notice which is taken of his sufferings, and of the suffering condition of Christianity, is perfectly in

cidental, and is dictated by no design of stating things which Christ hath not wrought by me, the facts themselves. Indeed they are not stated to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, at all; they may rather be said to be assumed. through mighty signs and wonders (v vas This is a distinction upon which we have relied TT,) by the power of the Spirit of a good deal in former parts of this treatise; and, God: so that from Jerusalem, and round about where the writer's information cannot be doubted, unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel it always, in my opinion, adds greatly to the value of Christ," Rom. ch. xv. 18, 19. and credit of the testimony.

If any reader require from the apostle more direct and explicit assertions of the same thing, he will receive full satisfaction in the following quo

tations.

"Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds," (niig xxi Tiguoi xai dura. †) 2 Čor. ch. xii. 12.

These words, signs, wonders, and mighty deeds, "Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a (enμsia, xas Tienтa, dvs,) are the specific fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in appropriate terms throughout the New Testament, stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, employed when public sensible miracles are inin deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I tended to be expressed. This will appear by conforty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with sulting, amongst other places, the texts referred rods, once was I stoned; thrice I suffered ship-to in the note; t and it cannot be known that they wreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; are ever employed to express any thing else. in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness," 2 Cor. ch. xi. 23-28.

Secondly, these words not only denote miracles as opposed to natural effects, but they denote visible, and what may be called external, miracles, as distinguished,

First, from inspiration. If St. Paul had meant to refer only to secret illuminations of his understanding, or secret influences upon his will or affections, he could not, with truth, have represented them as "signs and wonders wrought by him," or "signs and wonders and mighty deeds

Can it be necessary to add more? "I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spec-wrought amongst them." tacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the earth, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day," 1 Cor. ch. iv. 9-13. I subjoin this passage to the former, because it extends to the other apostles of Christianity much of that which St. Paul declared concerning himself.

In the following quotations, the reference to the author's sufferings is accompanied with a specification of time and place, and with an appeal for the truth of what he declares to the knowledge of the persons whom he addresses: "Even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the Gospel of God with much contention," 1 Thess. ch. ii. 2.

"But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra: what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me," 2 Tim. ch. iii. 10, 11.

Secondly, from visions. These would not, by any means, satisfy the force of the terms, "signs, wonders, and mighty deeds;" still less could they be said to be "wrought by him," or "wrought amongst them:" nor are these terms and expressions any where applied to visions. When our author alludes to the supernatural communications which he had received, either by vision or otherwise, he uses expressions suited to the nature of the subject, but very different from the words which we have quoted. He calls them revelations, but never signs, wonders, or mighty deeds. "I will come, says he, "to visions and revelations of the Lord;" and then proceeds to describe a particular instance, and afterwards adds, "lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh."

i. e. "I will speak of nothing but what Christ hath wrought by me;" or, as Grotius interprets it, "Christ hath wrought so great things by me, that I will not dare to say what he hath not wrought."

sions, which, though if they had stood alone, i. c. withTo these may be added the following indirect alluout plainer texts in the same writings, they might have been accounted dubious; yet, when considered in conjunction with the passages already cited, can hardly re

them.

I apprehend that to this point, as far as the tes-ceive any other interpretation than that which we give timony of St. Paul is credited, the evidence from his letters is complete and full. It appears under every form in which it could appear, by occasional allusions and by direct assertions, by general declarations, and by specific examples.

My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God," 1 Cor.

ch. ii. 4-6.

"The Gospel, whereof I was made a minister, accordVII. St. Paul in these letters asserts, in posi-ing to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the tive and unequivocal terms, his performance of effectual working of his power," Ephes, ch. iii. 7. "For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the miracles strictly and properly so called. "He therefore that ministereth to you then me towards the Gentiles," Gal. ch. ii. 8. apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty Spirit, and worketh miracles (Iveyor SuvaMLS) among you, doth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" Gal. chap.

iii. 3.

"For I will not dare to speak of any of those

"For our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance," 1 Thess. ch. i. 5.

↑ Mark xvi. 20. Luke xxiii. 8. John ii. 11, 23; iii. 2; iv. 48, 54; xi. 49. Acts ii. 2; iv. 3; v. 12; vi. 8; vii. 16; xiv. 3; xv, 12. Heb. ii. 4.

Upon the whole, the matter admits of no soft- hands; we have also a history purporting to be ening qualification, or ambiguity whatever. If St. written by one of his fellow-travellers, and appearPaul did not work actual, sensible public miracles, he has knowingly, in these letters, borne his testimony to a falsehood. I need not add, that, in two also of the quotations, he has advanced his assertion in the face of those persons amongst whom he declares the miracles to have been wrought.

Let it be remembered that the Acts of the Apostles described various particular miracles wrought by St. Paul, which in their nature answers to the terms and expressions which we have seen to be used by St. Paul himself.

ing, by a comparison with these letters, certainly to have been written by some person well acquainted with the transactions of his life. From the letters, as well as from the history, we gather not only the account which we have stated of him, but that he was one out of many who acted and suffered in the same manner; and that of those who did so, several had been the companions of Christ's ministry, the ocular witnesses, or pretending to be such, of his miracles, and of his resurrection. We moreover find this same person referring in his letters to his supernatural conversion, the particulars and accompanying circumstances of which are related in the history, and which accompanying circumstances, if all or any Here then we have a man of liberal attain- of them be true, render it impossible to have been ments, and in other points of sound judgment, who a delusion. We also find him positively, and in aphad addicted his life to the service of the Gospel. propriated terms, asserting that he himself worked We see him, in the prosecution of his purpose, miracles, strictly and properly so called, in suptravelling from country to country enduring every port of the mission which he executed; the hisspecies of hardship, encountering every extremity tory, meanwhile, recording various passages of his of danger, assaulted by the populace, punished by ministry, which come up to the extent of this asthe magistrates, scourged, beat, stoned, left for sertion. The question is, whether falsehood was dead; expecting, wherever he came, a renewal of ever attested by evidence like this. Falsehoods, the same treatment, and the same dangers, yet, we know, have found their way into reports, into when driven from one city, preaching in the next; tradition, into books; but is an example to be met spending his whole time in the employment, sa- with, of a man voluntarily undertaking a life of crificing to it his pleasures, his ease, his safety; want and pain, of incessant fatigue, of continual persisting in this course to old age, unaltered by peril; submitting to the loss of his home and counthe experience of perverseness, ingratitude, preju- try, to stripes and stoning, to tedious imprisondice, desertion; unsubdued by anxiety, want, ment, and the constant expectation of a violent labour, persecutions; unwearied by long confine- death, for the sake of carrying about a story of ment, undismayed by the prospect of death. what was false, and of what, if false, he must Such was St. Paul. We have his letters in our have known to be so?