bable that he was confined a year or more before he was put to death. As the Neronian persecution of the Christians raged greatly during this second visit to Rome, Paul knowing the time of his departure to be at hand, wrote his second Epistle to Timothy; from which we learn, that, though the apostle's assistants, terrified with the danger, forsook him and fled, yet he was not altogether destitute of consolation; for the brethren of Rome came to him privately, and ministered to him. (2 Tim. iv. 12. 21.) Concerning the precise manner of Saint Paul's death, we have no certain information; but, according to primitive tradition, he was beheaded on the 29th of June A. D. 66, at Aque Salviæ, three miles from Rome, and interred in the Via Ostensis, at a spot two miles from the city, where Constantine the Great afterwards erected a church to his memory. "But his noblest monument subsists in his immortal writings; which, the more they are studied, and the better they are understood, the more they will be admired to the latest posterity for the most sublime and beantiful, the most pathetic and impressive, the most learned and profound specimens of Christian piety, oratory, and philosophy."

VII. Such were the life and labours of "Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ," which have justly been considered as an irrefragable proof of the truth of the Christian revelation. How indefatigably he exerted himself to make known the glad tidings of salvation, the preceding brief sketch will sufficiently evince. "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, beaten, 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 (through more than thirty years); 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."

But this great luminary of the Christian church did not confine his labours to the preaching of the Gospel. He wrote fourteen Epistles, in which the various doctrines and duties of Christianity are explained, and inculcated with peculiar sublimity and force of language; at the same time that they exhibit the character of their great author in a most amiable and endearing point of view. His faith was a practical principle, influencing all the powers and faculties of the soul; his morality was of the purest and most exalted kind.

1 Dr. Hales's Analysis of Chronology, vol. ii. book ii. pp. 1155-1254. Dr. Lardner, Works, 8vo. vol. vi. pp. 234-301.; 4to. vol. iii. pp. 251-284., whose dates have chiefly been followed. Dr. Benson's History of the First Planting of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 144-290. vol. ii. passim. Dr. Macknight's Life of the Apostle Paul, annexed to the fourth volume (4to.), or the sixth volume (8vo.), of his translation of the Epistles.

2 Paley's Hora Paulinæ, p. 379. See also some valuable remarks on the character of Saint Paul in Dr. Ranken's Institutes of Theology, pp. 391-395.

He "derives all duties from the love of God in Christ as their foundation. All the motives to right action, all the arguments for holiness of life, are drawn from this source; all the lines of duty converge to this centre. If Paul censures, he points to this only spring of hope; if he laments, he turns to this only true source of consolation; if he insists that the grace of God hath appeared, he points to its practical object, teaching us to live soberly, righteously, and godly. When he determines to know nothing but his Saviour, and even him under the degrading circumstances of crucifixion, he includes in that knowledge all the religious and moral benefits of which it is susceptible." Integrity, tenderness of heart, disinterestedness, heavenly-mindedness, profound knowledge of human nature, and delicacy in giving advice or reproof, are the leading characteristics of Saint Paul's writings; in which, while he every where maintains the utmost respect for constituted authorities, he urges and unfolds the various social and relative duties in the most engaging and impressive manner.

VIII. All the writings of Saint Paul bespeak him to have been a man of a most exalted genius, and the strongest abilities. His composition is peculiarly nervous and animated. He possessed a fervid conception, a glowing but chastised fancy, a quick apprehension, and an immensely ample and liberal heart. Inheriting from nature distinguished powers, he carried the culture and improvement of them to the most exalted height to which human learning could push them. He was an excellent scholar, an acute reasoner, a great orator, a most instructive and spirited writer. Longinus, a person of the finest taste, and justest discernment in criticism and polite literature, classes the Apostle Paul among the most celebrated? orators of Greece. His speeches in the Acts of the Apostles are worthy of the Roman senate. They breathe a most generous fire and fervour, are animated with a divine spirit of liberty and truth, abound with instances of as fine address as any the most celebrated orations of Demosthenes or Cicero can boast; and his answers, when at the bar, to the questions proposed to him by the court, have a politeness and a greatness, which nothing in antiquity hardly ever equalled. At the same time, this great preacher adapted his discourses to the capacities of his respective audiences, with an astonishing degree of propriety and ability, as is evident from the difference of his reasoning with the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, with the Gentiles at Lystra, with the polished Athenians, and with Felix the Roman Governor, as also from the handsome apology which he makes for himself before king Agrippa.

1. As the Jews had the Old Testament in their hands, and (it is well known) at this time expected a deliverer, from their study of the

1 Mrs. More's Essay on St. Paul, vol. i. p. 109., to which the reader is referred for an ample and beautiful account of the character and writings of that illustrious apostle. On the subject of his "preaching Christ crucified," the reader will find some instructive remarks in pp. 44-51. of Mr. Wilks's able vindication of missionary exertions, entitled "Christian Missions an Enlightened Species of Christian Charity." 8vo. London, 1819.

2 Longinus, p. 260. Pearce, 8vo.

prophetic writings, Paul takes occasion in his discourse to them (Acts xiii. 13-42.) to illustrate the divine economy in opening the Gospel gradually, and preparing the Jews, by temporal mercies, for others of a yet more important nature. This afforded him a very handsome and unaffected opportunity of showing his acquaintance with their Scriptures, which they esteemed the highest part of literature, and object of science. His quotations are singularly apposite, and the whole of his discourse (one would think) must have carried conviction to their minds. The result is well known; though a few embraced the despised Gospel of Christ, the majority rejected the benevolent counsel of God towards them.

2. With the idolatrous Lycaonians at Lystra (who were little better than barbarians, like most of the inland nations of Asia Minor), the great apostle of the Gentiles pursued a different course. (Compare Acts xiv. 6-22.) Such persons are apt to be struck and affected more with signs and wonders, than with arguments; he therefore, at his first preaching among them, very seasonably and fitly confirmed his doctrine, by a signal miracle in healing a man who had been a cripple from his birth. And when Paul and his fellow-labourer Barnabas had with difficulty restrained the people of Lystra from offering sacrifice to them as deities, who (agreeably to the fables believed among the antient heathen), they supposed, had appeared in the likeness of men, their discourse is admirably adapted to the capacity of their auditors. They derive their arguments from no higher source than natural religion, and insist only upon the plain and obvious topics of creation and providence. The works of creation are a demonstration of the being of God, the living God who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all things that are therein. In times past he suffered all nations, all the heathens, to walk in their own ways, without any particular revelation of himself like that which he made to the people of Israel. But yet his general providence afforded ample proofs of his power and goodness: nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. These arguments are as forcible as they are plain and obvious to the meanest capacity; He is the creator and preserver of us and of all things, he is the author and giver of all the good that we enjoy, and he therefore is the only proper and adequate object of our worship. The people were so transported, that with these sayings scarce restrained they them that they had not done sacrifice unto them. But such is the fickleness and uncertainty of the multitude, that him whom they were now for worshipping as a god, soon after, at the instigation of certain Jews, they suffered to be stoned, and drawn out of the city, supposing he had been dead. The apostles, however, had sown some good seed among them; for we read that within a little time they returned again to Lystra, confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting to continue in the faith.

3. Our apostle's conduct and behaviour among the learned and polite Athenians (Acts xvii. 16-34.) we shall find to be somewhat

different from what it was to the rude and illiterate Lycaonians, but both of equal fitness and propriety. He did not open his commis sion at Athens in the same manner as at Lystra, by working a miracle. There were doubtless several cripples at Athens (for it is well known that such cases abounded in that climate); but it does not appear that any of them had the good disposition of the cripple at Lystra, or, faith to be healed. Besides, the Greeks did not so much require a sign (1 Cor. i. 22.) as seek after wisdom. Accordingly we find the apostle disputing not only in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons (Jewish proselytes), but also in the forum or market-place, daily with them that met with him. Here he encountered certain philosophers of the Epicurean and Stoic sects; some of whom treated him as a babbler, while others regarded him as a setter forth of strange gods, and consequently a violator of the laws of Athens, because he preached unto them Jesus and the Resurrection. At length they conducted him to the Areopagus (or Mars' hill,) the seat of the highest court of judicature in that city for matters concerning religion, and also the place of greatest resort: and with that curiosity and thirst of news, for which (it is well known) the Athenians were at that time notorious, they requested him to give them an account of his new doctrine. What a glorious scene was here for the manifestation of the truth before such a promiscuous and numerous assembly of citizens and strangers, of philosophers of all sects, and people of all conditions; and with what exquisite skill and contrivance is every part and member of his discourse so framed and accommodated, as to obviate some principal error and prejudice in some party or other of his hearers! Most of the false notions, both of their vulgar and philosophical religion, are here exposed and refuted. If there was nothing else remaining, yet this sufficiently testifies how great a master he was in the learning of the Greeks. Most of the fundamental truths, both of natural and revealed religion are here opened and explained; and all within the compass of very few verses. From an altar with an inscription to the unknown God, (and that there were altars at Athens with such an inscription, we have the attestation of several antient heathen authors,) he takes occasion to reprove them for their great plurality of gods, and him whom they ignorantly worshipped to declare unto them. It might be contrary to the laws of Athens for any one to recommend and introduce a new or strange god; but he could not well be subject to the penalty of the law only for declaring him whom they already worshipped without knowing him. The opportunity was fair, and he improves it to the greatest advantage. He branches out his discourse into several particulars. --That God made the world and all things therein which proposition, though agreeable enough to the general belief and opinion, was yet directly contrary both to the Epicureans, and to the Peripatetics; the former of whom attributed the formation of the world to the fortuitous con

1 See this character of the Athenians illustrated, in Vol. I. p. 195, supra.

course of atoms without any intervention of the Deity, and the latter maintained that the world was not created at all, and that all things had continued as they now are from all eternity. That seeing he is Lord of heaven and earth, he dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things: which was levelled not so much against the philosophers as against the popular religion of Athens; for the philosophers seldom or never sacrificed, unless in compliance with the custom of their country, and even the Epicureans themselves admitted the self-sufficiency of the Deity: but the people believed very absurdly that there were local gods, that the Deity, notwithstanding his immensity, might be confined within temples, and notwithstanding his all-sufficiency was fed with the fat and fumes of sacrifices, as if he could really stand in need of any sustenance, who giveth to all life and breath and all things. -That he hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation: which was not only opposed to the Epicureans, who derived the beginning of the human race from the mere effects of matter and motion, and to the Peripatetics or Aristotelians, who denied mankind to have any beginning at all, having subsisted in eternal successions; but was moreover opposed to the general pride and conceit of the people of Athens, who boasted themselves to be Aborigines, to be descended from none other stock or race of men, but to be themselves originals and natives of their own country.-That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being which fundamental truth, with the greatest propriety and elegance, he confirms by a quotation from one of their own poets, Aratus, the Cilician, his own countryman, who lived above three hundred years before, and in whose astronomical poem this hemistich is still extant. As certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. An evident proof that he knew how to illustrate divinity with the graces of classical learning, and was no stranger to a taste and politeness worthy of an Attic audience. That forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man's device: which was plainly pointed at the gross idolatry of the lower people, who thought the very idols themselves to be gods, and terminated their worship in them. That the times of this ignorance God winked at or overlooked; as he said before to the people of Lystra, In former times God suffered all nations to walk in their own ways; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: which doctrine of the necessity of repentance must have been very mortifying to the pride and vanity of the philosophers, and especially of the Stoics, whose wise man was equal if not superior to God himself. Because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,