ESSAY II.

ON THE DIFFICULTIES AND THE VALUE OF THE WRITINGS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL GENERALLY.

§ 1. THERE appears to be a very remarkable analogy between the treatment to which Paul was himself exposed during his personal ministry on earth, and that which his works have met with since. In both he stands distinguished in many points among the preachers of the Gospel; and it is possible that this distinction may in some way be connected with the peculiar manner in which he became one of that number.

The same Apostle, who had been originally so bitter a persecutor of the Christians, was exposed, after his conversion, to a greater variety of afflictions in the gospel-cause than any of the

others. He not only had to endure a greater amount of persecution than any of the rest from unbelievers, but was also peculiarly harassed by vexatious opposition, and mortifications of every kind from his Christian brethren. He was not only "in labours more abundant," he not only endured a double portion of imprisonments, scourgings, stoning, perils of every kind from the enemies of the Gospel, being specially hated by the Jews on account of his being the Apostle of the Gentiles, the overthrower of the proud distinctions of Israel" after the flesh;" but he was also troubled by the perversity of his own converts; especially such of them as were corrupted by false teachers, who endeavoured to bring them into subjection to the Mosaic law, and laboured to undervalue his claims as a true Apostle, and to rival him in the estimation of his own churches.

It is not unlikely that his Lord designed thus to place him foremost in the fight, thus to assign to him, both the most hazardous, and also the most harassing and distressing offices in the Christian ministry,-on account of his having once been a blasphemer and persecutor.

Not as a punishment, or again that he might atone and make compensation for his former sin (which no man can do); but that he might have an opportunity of completely retracing his steps, and of feeling that he did so;-that he might display a zeal, and firmness, and patience, and perseverance, above all the rest, in the cause which he had once oppressed;-that by having his own injurious treatment of Christians continually brought to his mind by what he himself endured, he might the more deeply and deliberately humble himself before God for it;that he might find room to exercise, in his dealings with unbelievers, all that full knowledge of the perverse prejudices of the human mind, with which his own memory would furnish him, by reflecting on his own case;-and finally, that both he and the other Apostles might feel that he was placed fully on a level with them, notwithstanding his former opposition to the cause; by enduring and accomplishing in it more than all the rest, by suffering more than he had ever inflicted, by forwarding the cause of Truth more than he had ever hindered it, and by bearing with him this pledge that God had fully

pardoned him the pledge of his being counted worthy not only to suffer in his Master's cause, but to suffer more than any other, and with greater effect. He who had been accessary to the stoning of Stephen, himself, alone of the Apostles, as far as we know, suffered stoning; he who had been so zealous in behalf of the law of Moses, was destined to encounter not only unbelieving Jews, but those Christians also who laboured to corrupt Christianity by mixing the law of Moses with it; he who had been, as he expresses it, "exceedingly mad against the disciples, and persecuted them even unto strange cities," was himself driven from city to city by enemies whose fury knew no bounds, both of his own countrymen, and of the senseless rabble of idolaters, who assailed him like "wild beasts, at Ephesus." He who had misinterpreted the ancient prophecies respecting the Messiah, and despised his disciples, had to endure not only the contradiction and derision of unbelievers, but also the wilfulness and perversity of "false brethren," who misrepresented and distorted the doctrines he himself taught, and of arrogant rivals who strove to bring him into

disrepute with those who had learnt the faith from him.a

In all these struggles he was "more than conqueror, through Christ that strengthened" him. Trusting that his Master would enable him to go through the work to which he had been appointed, and would turn even the malice and perversity of men to "the furtherance of the Gospel," he "rejoiced that Christ was preached," even when it was "through envy and strife," by those "who thought to add affliction" to the

a

"Here then we have a man of liberal attainments, and in other points of sound judgment, who had addicted his life to the service of the gospel. We see him, in the prosecution of his purpose, travelling from country to country, enduring every species of hardship, encountering every extremity of danger, assaulted by the populace, punished by the magistrates, scourged, beat, stoned, left for dead; expecting, wherever he came, a renewal of the same treatment, and the same dangers, yet, when driven from one city, preaching in the next; spending his whole time in the employment, sacrificing to it his pleasures, his ease, his safety persisting in this course to old age, unaltered by the experience of perverseness, ingratitude, prejudice, desertion; unsubdued by anxiety, want, labour, persecutions; unwearied by long confinement, undismayed by the prospect of death. Such was St. Paul. We have his letters in our hands; we have also a history purporting to be written by one of his fellow-travellers, and appearing, by a comparison