great bleffings, or in praying for them; and that touching was the fame thing with laying on of hands: which may be likewise seen by our Saviour's touching the lepers, and the blind man's eyes t. And as our Saviour fometimes only touched the fick, fo at other times. he laid his hands on them "; where the fame thing is obfervable as I have remarked on Mar. vii. 32, 33; only with this difference, that Mar, viii. 22. they defire Chrift to "touch "the blind, and Chrift lays his hands on "him;" whereas in Mar. vii. 32, 33, being defired to "put his hands," he "touches him." So he alfo did Luke xiii, 13. And it was fo ufual a thing to lay hands in order to heal, that our Saviour foretells, that "thofe that "believe in his name, fhall lay their hands on "the fick, and that the fick fhall recover "." And accordingly Ananias lays his hands on Paul, that he might receive his fight. And Paul praying, and laying his hands on Publius's father, healed him. The apoftles laid their hands on the feven deacons, when they had prayed, though they were chofen and appointed by the multitude. Farther; that laying on of hands was used in conferring the Holy Ghost, is plain from many places of fcripture 2. • Luke v. 12, 13. * Aas-ix, 13. 17 Matt. xx. 32-34: w Ibid. xvi. 18. y Ibid. xxviii. 8. * See the Firft and Second Effav. a The. 1 The fum of all this is, that "the laying on of "hands" will not by any means neceffarily denote ordination, fince it denotes fo many other things. And that "fending forth" does not fignify ordination, is plain from the following paffages. The apoftles, when they heard that the. Samaritans had received the word of God, «fent unto them Peter and John b." When the brethren knew that the Grecians went about to flay Saul, they brought him down "to Cefarea, and fent him forth to Tarfus." When tidings came to the church which was at Jerufalem, of the great converfion of the Grecians at Antioch, they "fent forth Bar"nabas," who was a prophet, that he should go as far as Antioch & Some have thought that the laying of hands on Barnabas and Saul was to give them the Holy Ghoft; but that cannot be, because they are faid to have." been full of the Holy "Ghost" long before. And if we will allow the fcripture to explain itself, this " feparating, fafting, praying, "laying on of hands, and fending forth, was neither ordination, nor conferring the Holy Ghoft on them; but only a recommending them by the church to the grace of God. For we read, that "when Paul and Barnabas c Ibid. ix. 30. Acts viii. 14. d Ibid. xi. 22. Ibid. ix. 17. xi. 24. "had "had fulfilled the work for which they had 66 been fent forth, they returned to Antioch, "from whence they had been recommended "to the grace of God f;" which with St. Luke, therefore, is an expreffion equivalent to feparating them by fafting, praying, laying "on their hands, and fending them forth." And this was a custom repeated by the church on a like folemn occafion. For, when Paul fet out for Antioch with Silas, on his fecond peregrination, they were" recommended by "the brethren unto the grace of God h;" the very fame expreffion which we just now obferved St. Luke used, to denote the praying, fafting, and laying on of hands, and fending Barnabas and Saul; and no doubt describes here the fame actions on Paul and Silas, as it does on Barnabas and Saul. I cannot but think that St. Paul's story, as it has been here reprefented, lies in a natural and undisturbed order; worthy and becoming the wisdom of Providence, in directing the remarkable steps of this great apostle, who must be allowed to have been freer from human imperfections, more highly favoured of God, and more ferviceable to the recovering mankind to his faith and fear, and their own true happiness and falvation, than any man f Acts xiv. 26. h Ibid. xv. 40. * Ver. 2, 3. Ibid. xiii. 2, 3. i Ibid. xiii: 3. that that ever lived in any age of the world. And I cannot but think, on the other hand, that, without this clue, St. Paul's history is extremely perplext and intricate: for, if it be fuppofed that he was made an apostle at his first converfion, he was made an apostle without seeing the person of Chrift, without receiving any apoftolical commiffion, or the revelation of any doctrine from him; much less of the gospel that he was to preach to the idolatrous Gentiles; or without being fent to those Gentiles, of whom alone he was the apostle; without preaching to them till at least ten years after he was their apoftle; and without testifying, or exercifing any of the powers peculiar to an apoftle, in all that time. He muft on this hypothefis likewise be suppofed to have seen the other apoftles at Jerufalem, without communicating to any of them his character, the doctrine he preached, or the fuccefs he met with; nay, and without being owned by them as fuch; or fo much as received the first time by them even as a difciple, till they were certified by Barnabas that he was one, though that was three years after his converfion. It must likewife on this fuppofition have been about ten years after his being an apostle, before he was ever styled an apostle; and that during all that time he was only styled a prophet and a teacher, and before he was called Paul, the name he used on on his being the apoftle of the Gentiles: and we must alfo fuppofe him, though an apostle, to have been placed after Barnabas (who was no apostle at that time), and three others who never were apoftles), by St. Luke the great friend and companion of St. Paul; and to have been fought out by Barnabas, and in fome measure advised and directed by him, where to go, and what to do, in the dif charge of his apoftolical office. Each of thefe fuppofitions is load enough to fink the hypothefis of Paul's being an apostle at his first converfion, much more all of them put together; and most of them are in a great meafure as much against the fuppofition of his being made an apoftle at the first time of his being at Jerufalem after his converfion. Befides, if he was an apostle before the fecond time of his being at Jerufalem, what can be the meaning of Chrift's fending him at that time to the Gentiles, to whom, upon this fuppofition, he was fent before? What was the work to which the Spirit, in the mouth of the prophets of the church of Antioch, faid he had called him, and to which he was then folemnly to be feparated; and to which Mark, who went with them as far as Perga in Pamphylia, would not go? When was Barnabas declared to be an apoftle of the Gentiles, if not at this time? And if he was at this time, how could Paul, who was called · jointly with him, be called at any other? How came |