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than fifteen days. But turn to the twentysecond chapter of the Acts, and you will find a reference to this visit to Jerusalem, which plainly indicates that Paul's continuance in that city had been of short duration : " And it came to pass, that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me." Here we have the general terms of one text so explained by a distant text in the same book, as to bring an indeterminate expression into a close conformity with a specification delivered in another book: a species of consistency not, I think, usually found in fabulous relations.

No. IX.

Chap. vi. 11. " Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand."

These words imply that he did not always write with his own hand; which is consonant to what we find intimated in some other of the epistles. The Epistle to the Romans was written by Tertius: "I, Tertius, who wrote

in the Lord." (Chap.

this epistle, salute you xvi. 22.) The First Epistle to the Corinthians, the Epistle to the Colossians, and the Second to the Thessalonians, have all, near the conclusion, this clause, "The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand;" which must be understood, and is universally understood to import, that the rest of the epistle was written by another hand. I do not think it improbable that an impostor, who had remarked this subscription in some other epistle, should invent the same in a forgery; but that is not done here. The author of this epistle does not imitate the manner of giving St. Paul's signature; he only bids the Galatians observe how large a letter he had written to them with his own hand. He does not say this was different from his ordinary usage; that is left to implication. Now to suppose that this was an artifice to procure credit to an imposture, is to suppose that the author of the forgery, because he knew that others of St. Paul's were not written by himself, therefore made the apostle say that this was: which seems an odd turn to give to the circumstance, and to be given for a purpose which would more naturally and more directly have been answered, by subjoining the sa

lutation or signature in the form in which it, is found in other epistles *.

No. X.

An exact conformity appears in the manner in which a certain apostle or eminent Christian, whose name was James, is spoken, of in the epistle and in the history. Both writings refer to a situation of his at Jerusalem, somewhat different from that of the. other apostles; a kind of eminence or presidency in the church there, or at least a more fixed and stationary residence. Chap. ii. 12. "When Peter was at Antioch, before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles.". This text plainly attributes a kind of pre-eminency to James; and, as we hear of him twice in the same epistle dwelling at Jerusalem, chap. i. 19, and ii. 9, we must apply it to the situation which he held in that

* The words πηλίκοις γραμμασιν may probably be meant to describe the character in which he wrote, and not the length of the letter. But this will not alter the truth of our observa-^ tion. I think, however, that, as St. Paul by the mention of his own hand designed to express to the Galatians the great concern which he felt for them, the words, whatever they signify, belong to the whole of the epistle; and not, as Grotius, after St. Jerome, interprets it, to the few verses which follow.

church. In the Acts of the Apostles divers intimations occur, conveying the same idea of James's situation. When Peter was miraculously delivered from prison, and had surprised his friends by his appearance among them, after declaring unto them how the Lord had brought him out of prison, "Go show," says he, "these things unto James, and to the brethren." (Acts, chap. xii. 17.) Here James is manifestly spoken of in terms of distinction. He appears again with like distinction in the twenty-first chapter and the seventeenth and eighteenth verses: "And when we (Paul and his company) were come to Jerusalem, the day following, Paul went in with us unto James, and all the elders were present." In the debate which took place upon the business of the Gentile converts, the council at Jerusalem, this same person seems to have taken the lead. It was he who closed the debate, and proposed the resolution in which the council ultimately concurred: "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God."

in

Upon the whole, that there exists a conformity in the expressions used concerning James, throughout the history, and in the

epistle, is unquestionable. But admitting this conformity, and admitting also the undesignedness of it, what does it prove? It proves that the circumstance itself is founded in truth; that is, that James was a real person, who held a situation of eminence in a real society of Christians at Jerusalem. It confirms also those parts of the narrative which are connected with this circumstance. Suppose, for instance, the truth of the account of Peter's escape from prison was to be tried upon the testimony of a witness who, among other things, made Peter, after his deliverance, say, "Go show these things to

James and to the brethren;" would it not be material, in such a trial, to make out by other independent proofs, or by a comparison of proofs, drawn from independent sources, that there was actually at that time, living at Jerusalem, such a person as James; that this person held such a situation in the society amongst whom these things were transacted, as to render the words which Peter is said to have used concerning him, proper and natural for him to have used? If this would be pertinent in the discussion of oral testimony, it is still more so in appreciating the credit of remote history.