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tor to be found? The piety, the truth, the benevolence of the thought ought to protect it from this imputation. For, though we fhould allow that one of the great mafters of the ancient tragedy could have given to his scene a fentiment as virtuous and as elevated as this is, and, at the same time as appropriate, and as well fuited to the particular fituation of the perfon who delivers it; yet whoever is converfant in these enquiries will acknowledge, that to do this in a fictitious production is beyond the reach of the understandings which have been employed upon any fabrications that have come down to us under Christian

names.

CHAP.

CHAP. XII.

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY.

IT

No. I.

T was the uniform tradition of the primitive church, that St. Paul visited Rome twice, and twice there fuffered imprisonment; and that he was put to death at Rome at the conclufion of his fecond imprisonment. This opinion concerning St. Paul's two journeys to Rome, is confirmed by a great variety of hints and allufions in the epiftle before us, compared with what fell from the apostle's pen in other letters purporting to have been written from Rome. That our present epiftle was written whilst St. Paul was a prisoner, is diftin&ly intimated by the eighth verfe of the first chapter: "Be not thou therefore afhamed of the

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testimony of our Lord, nor of me his pri"foner." And whilft he was a prifoner at Rome, by the fixteenth and seventeenth Z 2

verfes

verfes of the fame chapter:

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"The Lord

give mercy unto the house of Onefipho

rus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not "afhamed of my chain : but when he was "in Rome he fought me out very dili

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gently, and found me." Since it appears from the former quotation that St. Paul wrote this epiftle in confinement, it will hardly admit of doubt that the word chain, in the latter quotation, refers to that confinement; the chain by which he was then bound, the custody in which he was then kept. And if the word chain defignate the author's confinement at the time of writing the epistle, the next words determine it to have been written from Rome: "He was "not ashamed of my chain; but when he "was in Rome he fought me out very dili

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gently." Now that it was not written during the apoftle's firft imprisonment at Rome, or during the fame imprisonment in which the epiitles to the Ephefians, the Coloffians, the Philippians, and Philemon, were written, may be gathered, with confiderable evidence, froin a comparison of thefe feveral epiftles with the prefent.

I. In the former epiftles the author confidently looked forward to his liberation from confinement, and his fpeedy departure from Rome. He tells the Philippians (ch. ii, ver. 24,) I truft in the Lord that I alfo "myself shall come fhortly." Philemon he bids to prepare for him a lodging; "for "I trust,” says he, "that through your prayers, I fhall be given unto you" (ver. 22.) In the epiftle before us he holds a language extremely different: "I

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am now ready to be offered, and the time "of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my

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"course; I have kept the faith: hence"forth there is laid up for me a crown "of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, fhall give me at that day" (ch. iv. ver 6-8).

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II. When the former epiftles were written from Rome, Timothy was with St. Paul; and is joined with him in writing to the, Coloffians, the Philippians, and to Philemon. The prefent epiftle implies that he was abfent.

III. In the former epiftles Demas was

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with St. Paul at Rome: "Luke, the be-
“loved physician, and Demas, greet you.'
In the epistle now before us; "Demas hath
"forfaken him, having loved this present
"world, and is gone to Theffalonica."
IV, In the former epiftle, Mark was
with St. Paul, and joins in faluting the
Coloffians. In the prefent epiftle, Timothy
is ordered to bring him with him, for he
is profitable to me for the ministry" (ch.
iv. ver. 11.)

The cafe of Timothy and of Mark might be very well accounted for, by fuppofing the present epistle to have been written before the others; fo that Timothy, who is here exhorted "to come fhortly unto him," (ch. iv. ver. 9.) might have arrived, and that Mark, “whom he was to bring with him," (ch. iv. ver. 11.) might have alfo reached Rome in fufficient time to have been with St. Paul when the four epiftles were written but then fuch a fuppofition is inconfiftent with what is faid of Demas, by which the pofteriority of this to the other epiftles is strongly indicated: for in the other epiftles Demas was with St. Paul, in

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