in that city he continued as the resident head of the church for several years. No opportunity arises in the course of the Acts afterwards, in which Titus could be supposed to bear a part: and we take our leave of him here, till another occasion introduce him on a new scene of high interest, as the companion of Paul from Rome to Crete, and as invested by Paul with episcopal authority over the churches in that island.

s. 4. That benevolent contribution of the Gentiles, which St. Paul ultimately carried up, for the relief of the poorer Christians at Jerusalem, would not only answer its own immediate object; but, inasmuch as it showed the blessed influence of the gospel spirit in the new converts, must have been eminently efficacious also in abating Jewish prejudices, and in conciliating Jewish hearts towards their Gentile brethren.

The progress of this contribution itself of Christian liberality may be traced with much interest by the aid of the Hora Paulinæ, pp. 12, 13. 19. 54., in 1. C. xvi. 1...4. 2 C. viii. 1...4., ix. 1, 2. ROM. XV. 25, 6.

A. xxiv. 17.

The persons sent down from Philippi to Corinth on that business of charity, 2 C. viii. 16...24., were three; of whom Titus was the principal. Who were the other two? Perhaps to be found among the seven afterwards companions of Paul, enumerated in A. xx. 4. It is an easier task to point out who they were not.

LUKE is fairly considered to have staid behind at Philippi, when Paul went over those parts, A. xx. 2. His "praise in the gospel," as the writer of that gospel so named, was yet to come: and those words, 2 C. viii. 18., more likely designate some such character as that of GAIUS of Derbe. Vide Rom. xvi. 23. and his name in the Index.

BARNABAS, whom Chrysostom, and after him Calvin, assume as likely to have been one of the parties, had been now for some time in a state of separation from Paul, ever since they parted, A. xv. 39.

And as to SILAS, who has also been conjectured, it is highly probable, vide Index in his name, that he had very naturally remained in Jerusalem, A. xviii. 22., at the close of the apostle's second great progress. No other account can be given of him as connected with this period of apostolic history.

s. 5. The apostle's retrospect and survey of his labours and sufferings.

2 COR. vi. 4...10.

4. In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,

5. In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings;

6. By pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,

7. By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,

8. By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;

9. As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;

10. As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

2 COR. xi. 21...28.

21. I speak as concerning reproach, as though we

had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.

22. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham ? So am I.

23. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. 24. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes

save one.

25. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

26. 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;

27. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

28. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

The splendid enumeration of particulars, unparalleled as from their nature they must ever be, in both these passages, must be ranked as the very highest examples of the sublime and the pathetic. And since the apostle wrote thus to the Corinthians from Philippi, just on the eve of carrying the gospel for the first time into the north-west side of Greece, in thus recording the summary of his past career, he may seem to have marked, intentionally so, a memorable era in the whole of his apostolical life.

From the brevity with which Luke has narrated some parts of St. Paul's history, and from the silence in which unquestionably other parts are passed over, though many of the particular events here recounted in the epistle can be extracted from the Acts, all of them certainly cannot. But then the perfect consistency of the articles inserted in the one with every thing found in the correspondent parts of the other, has been admirably pointed out by Dr. Paley, H. P. 68, 69...with ingenious indication also to show where, in vacant spaces of the narrative, various accidents and disasters may well be supposed to have happened, or rather in the troubled course of such affairs could hardly fail to take place.

For similar elucidation of the same topic, the reader may be referred to some valuable remarks in Mr. Greswell's Dissertations upon the Harmony of the Gospels, 1837. vol. ii. p. 63. in the Note.

s. 6. Original argument against the early date of the epistle 1 TIMOTHY.

We have already stated, (at the beginning of s. 2.) that according to St. Paul's calculation in the first instance, Timothy, after visiting the Macedonian churches, might have visited the church of Corinth, and that, too, even in time, perhaps, to arrive at Ephesus before Paul's departure, as originally designed, from that city. In writing to the Corinthians accordingly, 1 C. iv. 17., he speaks of having sent Timotheus unto them; though he afterwards expresses himself, xvi. 10., more in the language of doubt and contingency, Ἐὰν δὲ ἔλθῃ Τιμόθεος, "Now in case of Timothy's coming," &c.

Here then a word of remark may find its place, in decisive reply to those commentators, who maintain, H. P. 166., that the First Epistle to Timothy was written to him, and when left behind, 1 T. i. 3., at Ephesus, about this very time. Of course, to maintain that hypothesis, it must be assumed, that Timothy from Corinth had actually reached Ephesus, before Paul left that city, although his departure was abrupt and evidently premature.

Be it so then, that Timothy, on returning from his journey to the north, had travelled very quickly to Corinth, and after fulfilling there the apostle's commission, 1 C. iv. 17., to "bring them into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ," had been so well "conducted forth," xvi. 11., as to reach Ephesus before Paul left that place. What is the consequence that immediately results from such concession? Why, that St. Paul must at that rate have received from Timothy (in ever so short an interview) the very latest information of the now happy state of things in the church of Corinth; and being released therefore from all immediate solicitude about the spiritual state of the Corinthian brethren, he could not possibly have felt any anxiety or impatience whatsoever to hear the report of what must have been of an earlier date, from the mouth of Titus, concerning them.

The supposed arrival, therefore, of Timothy at Ephesus before Paul departed from thence, thus stands utterly irreconcileable with the recorded fact, that Paul, when he reached Troas, was labouring under affectionate disquietude as to meeting Titus there: which painful feeling was unabated, till Titus after all came to him at Philippi, and poured into his heart the consolatory intelligence that all at Corinth was well.

While therefore those other considerations which Dr.

M