In

the fword of perfecution; to arm them with fortitude and perfeverance, in encountering and fuftaining fuch dangers; to root out of their hearts hatred and revenge; and to plant in their ftead forgiveness and pity, and kindness towards their enemies, and to enforce patience and tranquillity, fubmiffion and circumfpection, in the midst of fuch alarms. letters written in fuch a fituation, and for fuch a purpose, is it wonderful that we do not find words nicely felected, periods harmoniously rounded, and the connection of every part regularly laid down at the commencement of each letter, and ftrictly adhered to in its progrefs? Surely to expect this were moft unreasonable; and therefore to impute the want of it to the violence and incoherence of fanaticism, is most uncandid and unjust,

A due confideration of the feelings which the perfecuted state of the apoftle, and the whole Chrif tian church, would naturally excite, will not only account for the general want of polished compofition, and ftrict order, in the epiftles, but fully explain many of those paffages which feem moft warm and extravagant. Hence we perceive the strict propriety and truth of thofe paffages which affert, in the strongest manner, the immediate fupport of God in the ministry of the apostle, as well as of those which defcribe, with exultation, the triumph of Christianity over the oppofition it fuftained, and exprefs the fulleft conviction that no oppofition

would

would finally prevail against it. Such feelings and fuch conviction were the immediate and neceffary consequence of the apostles' having himself sustained perfecution, and escaped death, by miraculous interference; of his finding that those events which feemed to threaten immediate deftruction to the church of Chrift, were by an over-ruling Providence fo directed, as to contribute to its extension and establishment. Hence St. Paul, alluding to his escape from the tumult at Ephefus, fays, we would "not, brethren, have you ignorant of the trouble "which came to us in Afia; that we were preffed "out of measure, above strength, in fo much that we despaired even of life; but we had the fen

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tence of death in ourselves, that we should not "truft in ourselves, but in God, which raised the "dead; who delivered us from fo great a death, "and doth deliver-in whom we trust that he will

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yet deliver us." Hence alfo, contrafting the natural weakness of the apostles with the strength which they derived from God, he defcribes them all as

unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and "behold we live; as chaftened, and not killed; as "forrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet "making many rich; as having nothing, yet pof

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feffing all things:" and in another paffage," as "troubled on every fide, yet not diftreffed; perplexed, but not in defpair; perfecuted, but not

"forfaken; caft down, but not deftroyed; always "bearing about, fays he, in the body the dying of "the Lord Jefus, that the life alfo of Jefus might be "made manifest in our body; for we which live are

ઃઃ

always delivered unto death for Jefus's fake, that "the life alfo of Jefus might be made manifest in our "mortal flesh"-and hence the apostle's full confidence in a final reward-" our light affliction, which "is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we "look not at the things which are feen, but at the "things which are not feen; for the things which "are feen are temporal, but the things which are 66 not seen are eternal."

The fame experience which convinced the apoftle of the divine interference, in fupport of the preachers of Christianity, under the feverest perfecutions, and infpired him with fuch triumphant confidence, of obtaining present success and final reward, led him also to dwell with complacency on the weakness of the mere human agents, and the infufficiency of the merely natural means, which God employed as the inftruments in this great work; hence he speaks of wisdom and learning as incompetent to difcover religious truth, and overcome what he terms the foolishness of preaching; not that he in any degree meant to condemn the fober use of reason, in examining the evidence of Christianity, for this he frequently recommends-nor yet that he undervalued

the

the affiftance of industry and learning, in enforcing gofpel truths; for the whole tenor of his inftructions to its ministers is the very reverse of this "; but that he knew that the original discovery of the Christian scheme was not made out by human ingenuity, but by divine revelation; and that the first teachers who fpread it, were qualified for the task, not by natural attainments, but by immediate affiftance from the Spirit of God. To render this proof of the heavenly original of the gofpel clear and undeniable, divine wisdom had selected most of the apostles from men endowed with only moderate talents, and moderate learning. St. Paul himself, though far fuperior to the rest in both, was yet fully conscious he owed his own original converfion, and his fuccefs in converting others, as compleatly to fupernatural interference, as any one of his brethren; hence he difclaims fo ftrongly the contrary fuppofition, and declares to the "Corinthians, that he came among them, not with the " enticing words of man's wisdom, but with the "demonstration of the Spirit, and of power, that "their faith fhould ftand, not in the wisdom of 66 men, but in the power of God."

r

Hence he states fo frequently that the Jewish doctors, by their vain traditions, and the Grecian philo

P Phil. i. 9. Coloff. iv. 5, 6. iii. 14 to 17. Titus ii. 7, 8.

1 Cor. ii. 1 to 5.

Vid. 1 Tim. iv. 13. 2. Tim

Vid. Rom. i. ii. and iii. chap.

sophers

fophers by their arrogant fpeculations, had equally corrupted religious truth, and proved themselves utterly unable to instruct and reform mankind; a work which remained to be executed by the humble followers of Christ, whom these pretenders to wisdom rejected with difdain, and oppofed with virulence. With this clue, fupplied by the plain facts of the gofpel hiftory, we are enabled to interpret with clearnefs, and to reconcile to truth and common sense, all those paffages which fanatics have interpreted, or rather perverted, as if they entirely interdicted the use of reason, and renounced the aid of learning in religion. The apostle means totally the reverse of this; it was the vain and false traditions, gloffes and corruptions of the Jewish doctors; the wild fpeculations, the childish difputes, the falfe and proud philofophy of the Grecian fophifts, and the Afiatic gnostics which he exposed and condemned;-it was the infufficiency of unaffisted reason, and the presumptuous folly of rejecting divine inftruction, which he perpetually laboured to expofe; for this purpose it is, that he warns Timothy and Titus against thofe fables and endless genealogies, which ministered only disputes; against "those profane and vain babblings and oppofitions of science, falfely fo called, which caused many to err from the faith."-Such only is the import of all paffages, fimilar to the following, which is, perhaps, the fulleft on this fubject.

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S I Tim. i. 4.

Titus iii. 9.

t

Tim. the two laft verfes; vid. alfo,

"Chrift