the weight of their affliction might crush their religion in its infancy, he fent Timothy to them, to establish and comfort them. From him on his return he learnt the ftrength of their faith and love, and their affectionate remembrance of the Apostle, whose benevolent effufions of joy and gratitude on the occafion exceed all encomium. The influence of the Holy Spirit in enlightening, comforting, and invigorating this people, feemed in a good measure to fupply the want of pastoral inftruction, in which from their circumftances they were probably defective. Yet they felt the love of God in the strongest manner, and exercised it on all around+.

Fornication indeed was a fin fo commonly practifed among the Gentiles, without the leaft fufpicion of its evil, that Paul thought proper to warn them against it exprefsly and diftinctly.

In his fecond epiftle he congratulates them on their great proficiency in faith and love; and while he comforts them with the prospect of the fecond coming of Chrift, he takes occafion to correct a mistake, into which they had fallen from what he had mentioned in his former epiftle, of imagining that the laft day was at hand. Men who had fuddenly paffed from the groffeft igrorance into the full blaze of gofpel-day, might eafily make a mistake, especially fince their affections were now fo ftrongly captivated with heavenly objects, and they found fo little in a world of perfecution to cheer their minds. There appears only one fault in this people, which he thought neceffary to rebuke. He intimated fomethings of it in the former epiftle, in the latter was more exprefs. It was the want of industry in

I Theff. iii. 9, 10. † iv. 9, 10. † iv. 3—9. § 3 Thess, iv, II, 12. 2 Theff. iii, 11.

in their callings, with which he charged fome of them; for this was not a general evil. How they might fall into it, is eafy to conceive. Perfons all alive for God and his Chrift, and knowing little of the deceitfulness of the heart, and the crafts of Satan, might find it irkfome to attend to the concerns of this life. It was a fault indeed, and very dangerous, if perfifted in; but as it was foon corrected, in all probability, and in part occafioned by the strength of heavenly affections, one cannot be very fevere in cenfuring them.

It may be worth while for those, who feel themselves much irritated against fimilar evils at tendant on the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit in our days, to confider whether they do not exercise more candour toward the Theffalonians, and refpect them as real chriftians, while they scorn those who walk in their steps as enthufiafts.

This church bears the strongest fignatures of godliness, the effect of no common out-pouring of the Spirit; adorning the gofpel with faith, hope, and charity, yet fhewing by their faults and ignorance the importance of much paftoral inftruction, in which their circumftances fuffered them not to abound, and which under God would. have foon cured the former, and removed the latter, and exposed only to fuch blemishes, as are most apt to attend great attainments in the divine life made with vast rapidity.

It appears, that St. Paul vifited this people a confiderable time after, and gave them much exhortation; but we have no particular farther account of them*.

SEC

* In the first epiftle he "charges them by the Lord," that it be "read to all the holy brethren." As this feems to have been his

SECTION X.

PAUL

BEREA AND ATHENS.

AUL was conducted to Berea, a city of Macedonia, from Theffalonica. Here also was a Jewish fynagogue, and here the preaching of the Crofs was candidly received by Jews for the first time. A very fingular character is given of the Jews of this place, a liberality of mind, which difpofed them to liften with attention, and to fearch the fcriptures of the Old Teftament with daily affiduity. The grace of God feems to have prepared these perfons for the gospel, and Paul had the pleasure to find a number of the stamp of Cornelius, who were groping their way to happiness, and were ready to hail the light as foon as it should dawn upon them. Many Jews here believed, and not a few Gentiles also of both sexes; thofe of the female fex were perfons of quality. The rage of the Theffalonian Jews foon however difturbed this pleafing fcene, and stirred up a perfecution, which obliged the chriftians to use some art in faving the Apostle's life. His conductors at firft took the road toward the fea, which might lead the perfecutors to fuppofe he had quitted the continent. They then brought him fafe to Athens *, once the first city of Greece

in

first epiltle, and indeed the newest part of the whole New Teltament, the folemnity of the adjuration (px) has a peculiar propriety, as Dr. Lardner obferves. The Theffalonians were no doubt difpofed to receive it as matter of apoftolical infpiration, and the importance of bringing every chriftian to be well acquainted with the word of God is fairly inferred.

* Acts xvii.

in all views, and ftill renowned for taste and science, the school in which the greatest Romans ftudied philofophy. Here, while he waited for the arrival of Silas and Timothy, he beheld the monuments of the city with other eyes than those of a scholar and a gentleman. No place in the

world could more have entertained a curious and philofophical fpirit than this. Temples, altars, tatues, hiftorical memorials, living philofophers of various fects, books of those who were deceased, a confluence of polite and humanized perfons of various countries, enjoying the luxury of learned leifure, these things must at once have obtruded themselves on his notice; and no man in any age, by ftrength of understanding, warmth of temper, and juftness of tafte, feems to have been more capable of entering into the spirit of these scenes than Saul of Tarfus. But Divine Grace had given his faculties a very different direction, and the chriftian in him predominated extremely above the philofopher and the critic. He faw here, that even the excefs of learning brought men no nearer to God. No place on earth was more given to idolatry. He could not therefore find pleasure in the claffical luxuries prefented before him: He faw his Maker dif graced, and fouls perifhing in fin. Pity and indignation fwallowed up all other emotions; and ministers of Chrift, by their own sensations in fimilar fcenes, may try how far they are poffeffed of the mind of Paul, which in this cafe certainly was the mind of Chrift. If affections be lively, fome exertions will follow. He laid open the reasons of chriftianity to Jews in their fynagogue, to Gentile worshippers who attended the fynagogue, and daily to any perfons whom he met with in the forum. There were two fects

very

very oppofite to one another among the pagan philofophers, the epicureans and the ftoics. The former placed the chief good in pleasure, the latter in virtue, correfpondent to the two chief fects among the Jews, the Sadducees and the Pharifees, and indeed to the two forts among mankind in all ages who yet are in a state of nature, men of a licentious and diffipated turn, and felf-righteous perfons, who fubftitute their own reafon and virtue in the room of Divine Grace and Influence. As thefe will in any age unite against the real friends of Jefus Chrift, fo it was here. The Apostle appeared a mere babbler in their eyes. Jefus and the refurrection, which he preached, were ideas from which their minds. were fo abhorrent, that they took them for a new god and goddess.

It belonged to the court of Areopagus to take cognizance of things of this nature. This court had unjustly condemned the famous Socrates, as if he had depreciated the established religion, though he had given as ftrong proofs of his polythentic attachments, as he had of philofophical pride. It ought not however to be denied, that in a lower fenfe he fuffered for righteoufnefs' fake. His honeft rebukes of vice and improbity exposed him to death; fo unfafe is even the leaft approximation to goodnefs in a world like this. That St. Paul efcaped condemnation here, feems owing to circumftances. The court under the tolerating maxims of its Roman fuperiors, seems now to have had only the privilege of examining tenets as a fynod, without the penal power of magistracy*.

It

In this however I am not very pofitive: A greater degree of fceptical indifference might, in the progrefs of refinement, have prevailed at Athens in the days of St. Paul, and the court might itfelf be as little difpofed to perfecute, as the Roman powers.