assumed. Would the apostle repeatedly re- deride true zeal, and to render ridiculous fer us, as the only deliverer from sin, to an the gifts which had been indecently abused. ideal person! Would he mock us by a bare On the contrary, he observes how impro. statement of such a power, and an unmean- perly these gifts and supernatural powers ing promise of such a deliverance, without had been used by some on whom they were directing us how it is to be obtained? The conferred; who, he laments, were more fervent habitual prayer of faith is the mean anxious to eclipse each other in these showy suggested. It is rational to suppose that distinctions, than to convert them to the purspiritual aid must be attained by a spiritual poses of practical use and excellence; adact. God is a spirit. Spirit and truth are the requisites expected in his worshippers.Though this doctrine is insisted on not less than twelve times in this chapter only, there is not one tenet of Christianity, in the adoption of which, the generality are more reluctant. It is unreasonable for us to say, we disbe lieve the possibility of the operation of the Holy Spirit, because we do not understand when, or in what manner it acts, while we remain in such complete ignorance how our own spirits act within ourselves. It is proof sufficient, that we see its result, that we perceive the effect of this mysterious operation, in the actual change of the human heart.Our sense of our internal weakness, must convince us, that it is not effected by any power of our own. The humble cannot but feel this truth. the ingenuous cannot but acknowledge it. Let us be assured, that Infinite Wisdom, which knows how we are constituted, and what are our wants, knows how his own spirit assists those who earnestly implore its aid. Saint Pau! powerfully inculcates that new and spiritual worship which was so conde scendingly and beautifully taught by the Divine Teacher, at the well of Sychar, when he declared that the splendours of the Temple worship, hitherto performed exclusively in one distinguished place, should be abolished, and the cumbrous ceremonies and fatiguing forms of the Jewish ritual set aside, to make way for a purer mode of adoration; when the contrite heart was to supersede the costly sacrifice, and God should be worshipped in a way more suited to his spiritual nature.* Yet, even here, the wise moderation of Paul is visible He did not manifest his dislike of one extreme point by flying to the antipodes of opposition: when ostentatious rites were pronounced to be no longer necessary, he did not adopt, like some other reformers, the contrary excess of irregularity and confusion. While the internal principle was the grand concern, the outward appendage must be decorus. To keep the exterior'decent' and orderly,' was emblematical of the purity and regularity within! 6 While Paul's severe reproof of the confusion and irregularities, which disgraced the Church of Corinth, proves him to be a decided enemy to the distempers of spiritual vanity and enthusiasm; he does not, like a worldly reprover, seize the occasion given by their imprudence to treat with levity the power of religion itself; he does not lay hold on the error he condemns for a pretence to * Gospel of St. John, chap. iv. vises, tha: spiritual gifts' may be directed to their true end; that he may excel to the edifying of the Church;' gently reminds the offenders, that they themselves were nothing more than vehicles and organs of the operation of the Spirit. While he insinuates that, were these miraculous powers their sole distinction, it might be doubtful by what specific mark to recognize in them the genuine Christian: be removes the difficulty, by showing them there was a more excellent way, by which they might most indisputably make out their title. This way,' which is now as it was then, the discriminating characteristic of the true believer, is Charity; all the properties of which he describes, not for their instructions only, but for ours also. If the apostle has here, on the one hand, furnished no example or apology for enthu siasm and eccentricity; if the solidity of his piety, and the sobriety of his mind, are uniformly opposed to the unprofitable fervours of fanaticism, both in doctrine and conduct, yet on the other hand his life and writings are quite as little favourable to a more formidable, because a less suspected and more common evil,—we mean indifference. Coldness and inefficiency, indeed, are, in the estimation of some persons, reputable, or at least safe qualities, and often ob tain the honourable name of Prudence; but to Saint Paul it was not enough that nothing wrong was done; he considered it reproach sufficient that nothing was done. He sometimes intrenches himself in the honest severity which his integrity compels him to exercise against the opposers of vital Christianity, by adducing some pointed censure against them from men of their own party or country. For instance, when be condemns, in his letter to their new bishop, Titus, the luxurious, avaricious, and slothful Cretans, he corroborates the truth of his testimony by the authority of one of their own poets, or prophets. These slow sensualists, these indulgers of appetite, these masters of ceremonies, he not only stigmatizes himself, but adds to his pagan quotation, This witness is true.' And it may be adduced as a striking instance of his discriminating mode of church government, that this wise ecclesiastical ruler, who had before exhorted Timothy, the bishop of another Church, to be gentle unto all men, meekly instructing those who oppose themselves,' now directs Titus to rebuke sharply' these temporising teachers, and unholy livers. He saw that a grave and sedate indolence, investing itself with the respectable attribute of moderation, eats out the very heart's core of piety. He knew that these somnolent characters communicate the repose which they enjoy; that they excite no alarm, be- vent some conciliatory preamble: he lis- In regard to Saint Paul's ecclesiastical a view to lower the general usefulness of his polity, we are aware that some persons, with Epistles, object, that in many instances, especially in the second to the Corinthians, the apostle has limited his instructions to usages which relate only to the peculiar concerns of a particular church or individual person, and that they might have been spared in a work meant for general edification. It is a truth, verified in every age of the church, that the doctrines which Paul preached, stood in direct opposition to the natural dispositions of man; they militated against his corrupt affections; they tended But these are not, as some insist, mere loto subdue what had been hitherto invincible, -the stubborn human will; to plant self-cal controversies, obsolete disputes, with denial where self-love had before overrun which we have no concern. Societies, as the ground. To convince of sin, to point to well as the individuals of whom they are the Saviour, to perfect holiness, yet to ex-composed, are much the same in all periods; clude boasting, are the apostle's invariable and though the contentions of the churches objects. These topics he urges by every which he addressed might differ something in power of argument, by every charm of per- matter, and much in form and ceremony, suasion; by every injunction to the preach from those of modern date; yet the spirit of er, by every motive to the hearer; but these division, of animosity, of error, of opposiinjunctions, neither argument, persuasion, tion, with which all churches are more or nor motive, can ever render engaging less infected, will have such a common reMan loves to have his corruptions soothed; semblance in all ages, as may make us subit is the object of the apostle to combat mit to take a hint or a caution even from tothem: man would have his errors indulged; it is the object of the religion which Paul pics which may seem foreign to our conpreached, to eradicate them. cerns; and it adds to the value of Saint Paul's expostulations, that they may be made Of the dislike excited against the loyal in some degree applicable to other cases.ambassadors of the Gospel, by those who His directions are minute, as well as general, live in opposition to its doctrines, our com- so as scarcely to leave any of the incidents of mon experience furnishes us with no unapt life, or the exigencies of society, totally unprovided for. emblem. When we have a piece of unwelcome news to report, we prepare the hearer by a soothing introduction; we break his fall by some softening circumstance; we in*Titus, ch. 2. There are, it is obvious, certain things which refer to particular usages of the general church at its first institution, which no longer exist. There are frequent referen ces to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, How would any other writer than the and other circumstances, which though they have now ceased, are of great importance, as connected with its history, and assisting in its first formation; and the writer who had neglected to have recorded them would have been blameable, and the Epistles which had not alluded to them, would have been imper fect. Apostle have interwoven a full statement of his trials with his instructions, and how would he have indulged an egotism, not only so natural and so pardonable, but which has been so acceptable in those good men who have given us histories of their own life and times. That intermixture, however, which excites so lively an interest, and is so proper in Clarendon and Baxter, would have been nisplaced here. It would have served to gratify curiosity, but might not seem to comport with the grave plan of instruction adopted by the apostle; whilst it comes with admirable grace from Saint Luke, his companion in travel. While the apostle made ample provisions, such as the existing case required, or rather permitted, he did not absolutely legislate, as to external things, for any church; wisely leaving Christianity at liberty to incorporate herself with the laws of any country into which she might be introduced; and while the doctrines of the new religion were pre- Saint Paul's manner of writing will be cise, distinct, and definite, its ecclesiastical found in every way worthy of the greatness character was of that generalized nature of his subject. His powerful and diversified which would allow it to mix with any form character of mind seems to have combined of national government This was a likely the separate excellencies of all the other saineans both to promote its extension, and to cred authors-the loftiness of Isaiah, the deprevent it from imbibing a political temper,votion of David, the pathos of Jeremiah, the or a spirit of interference with the secular vehemence of Ezekiel, the didactic gravity concerns of any country. of Moses, the elevated morality and practical The wonder is, that the work is so little good sense, though somewhat highly colourlocal, that it savours so little of Antioch ored, of Saint James; the sublime conceptions Jerusalem, of Philippi or Corinth; but that and deep views of Saint John, the noble enalmost all is of such general application: ergies and burning zeal of Saint Peter. To relative circumstances did indeed operate, all these, he added his own strong argumenbut they always operated subordinately.—tative powers, depth of thought and intensiThe Epistle to the Ephesians is not marked ty of feeling. In every single department he with one local peculiarity. There is not a was eminently gifted; so that what Livy single deduction to be made from the univer- said of Cato might with far greater truth have sal applicableness of this elegant and pow-been asserted of Paul,-that you would think erful epitome of the Gospel. him born for the single thing in which he was engaged. Saint Paul belongs not particularly to the period in which he lived, but is equally the We have observed in an early chapter, property of each successive race of beings. that in the Evangelists the naked majesty of Time does not diminish their interest in him. truth refused to owe any thing to the artifiHe is as fresh to every century as to his own; ces of composition. In Paul's Epistles a due, and the truths he preaches will be as inti- though less strict degree of simplicity is obmately connected with that age which shall served; differing in style from the other as precede the dissolution of the world, as that the comment from the text, a letter from a in which he wrote. The sympathies of the history; taking the same ground as to docreal believer will always be equally awaken- trine, devotion, and duty, yet branching out ed by doctrines which will equally apply to into a wider range, breaking the subject intheir consciences, by principles which will to more parts, and giving results instead of always have a reference to their practice, by facts. promises which will always carry consola- Though more at liberty, Paul makes a sotion to their hearts. By the Christians of all ber use of his privilege; though never ambicountries Paul will be considered as a cos-tious of ornament, his style is as much varimopolite, and by those of all ages as a con-ed as his subject, and always adapted to it. temporary. Even when he addresses indi- He is by turns vehement and tender, and viduals, his point of view is mankind. He sometimes both at once; impassioned, and looked to the world as his scene, and to collective man as the actor. CHAP. X. The Style and Genius of Saint Paul. THOUGH Saint Paul frequently alludes to the variety of his sufferings, yet he never dwells upon them. He does not take advantage of the liberty so allowable in friendly letters, that of endeavouring to excite compassion by those minute details of distress, of which, but for their relation in the Acts of the Apostles, we should have been mainly ignorant. didactic; now pursuing his point with a logical exactness, now disdaining the rules, of which he was a master; often making his noble neglect more impressive than the most correct arrangement, his irregularity more touching than the most lucid order. He is often abrupt, and sometimes obscure: his reasoning, though generally clear, is, as the best critics allow, sometimes involved, perhaps owing to the suddenness of his transitions, the rapidity of his ideas, the sensibility of his soul. But complicated as his meaning may occasionally appear, all his complications are capable of being analysed into principles; so that from his most intricate trains of reasoning, the most unlearned reader may select an unconnected maxim of wisdom, a position of piety, an aphorism of virtue, easy from its brevity, intelligible from its clear ness, and valuable from its weight. discursive flights he never fails to bring home some added strength to the truth with which he begins; and when he is longest on the wing, or loftiest in his ascent, he comes back to his subject enriched with additional matter, and animated with redoubled vigour. This is particularly exemplified in the third chapter of the Ephesians, of which the whole is one entire parenthesis, eminently abounding in effusions of humility, holiness, and love, and in the rich display of the Redeemer's grace. An apparent, though not unpleasing, disconnection in his sentences is sometimes found to arise from the absence of the conjunctive parts of speech. He is so affluent in ideas, the images which crowd in upon him are so thick-set; that he could not stop their course while he might tie them together. This absence of the connecting links, which in a meaner writer might have induc- In the prosecution of any discourse, though ed a want of perspicuity, adds energy and there may appear little method, he has fre force to the expression of so spirited and quently, besides the topic immediately in clear-sighted a writer as our apostle In the hand, some point to bring forward, not disixth chapter of the second of Corinthians, rectly, but in an incidental, yet most impressthere are six consecutive verses without one ive manner. At the moment when he seems conjunction. Such a particle would have to wander from the direct line of his pursuit, enfeebled the spirit, without clearing the the object which he still has had in his own sense The variety which these verses, all view, unexpectedly starts up before that of making up but one period, exhibit, the mass his hearer. In the recapitulation of the events of thought, the diversity of object, the impet- of his life before Festus and Agrippa, when uosity of march, make it impossible to read nothing of doctrine appears to be on his them without catching something of the fer- mind; he suddenly breaks out, Why should vour with which they are written. They it be thought a thing incredible with you, seem to set the pulse in motion with a cor- that God should raise the dead?' He then responding quickness; and without amplifi- resumes his narrative as rapidly as he had cation seem to expand the mind of the read-flown off from it; but returns to his doctrine er into all the immensity of space and time. at the close, with the additional circumstance, Nothing is diffused into weakness. If his that Christ was the first that should rise conciseness may be thought, in a very few from the dead;'--as if, having before put the instances, to take something from his clear- question in the abstract, he had been since ness, it is more than made up in force. Con- paving the way for the establishment of the densed as his thoughts are, the inexhaustible fact. instructions that may be deduced from them, prove at what expansion they are susceptible. His compression has an energy, his imagery a spirit, his diction an impetuosity, which art would in vain labour to mend. His straight-forward sense makes his way to the heart more surely than theirs, who go out of their road for ornament. He never interrupts the race to pick up the golden bait. Our apostle, when he has not leisure for reflection himself, almost by imperceptible methods invites his reader to reflect. When he appears only to skim a subject, he will suggest ample food for long-dwelling meditation. Every sentence is pregnant with thought, is abundant in instruction. Witness the many thousands of sermons which have sprung from these comparatively few, but most prolific seeds. Thus, if he does not visibly pursue the march of eloquence by the critic's path. he never fails to attain its noblest ends. He is full without diffuseness, copious without redundance. His elo quence is not a smooth and flowing oil, which lubricates the surface, but a sharp instrument which makes a deep incision. It penetrates to the dissection of the inmost soul, to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.' The numerous and long digressions often found, and sometimes complained of, in this great writer, never make him lose sight of the point from which he sets out, and the mark to which he is tending. From his most Saint Paul is happy in a mode of brief allusion, and in the art of awakening recollertion by hints. It is observable often, how little time he wastes in narrative, and how much matter he presses into a few words; Ye, brethren, have suffered the like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are con trary to all men,-forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved; to fill up their sins always-for the wrath is come upon them to the utmost.' What a quantity of history does this sketch present! What a picture of their character, their crimes, and their punishment! Nor does this brevity often trench on his explicitness. In the fifth chapter of the first Thessalonians, from the fourteenth to the twentieth verse, there are no fewer than seventeen fundamental, moral, and religious monitions, comprising almost all the duties of a Christian life in the space of a few lines, The selection of his words is as apt, as his enumeration of duties is just. He beseeches his converts to know them that are over them, and very highly to esteem them in love for their works' sake:' while to the performance of every personal, social, and religious duty, he exhorts them The correctness of his judgment appears still more visibly in the aptness and propriety of all his allusions, metaphors, and figures. In his epistle to the Hebrews, be illustrates and enforces the new doctrine by reasonings drawn from a reference to the rites, ceremo- in the foremost rank. When the renowned nies, and economy of the now obsolete dis- Athenian so wielded the fierce democracy,' pensation; sending them back to the records as to animate with one common sentiment of their early Scriptures. Again, he does the whole assembly against Philip; when not talk of the Isthmian games to the Ro- his great rival stirred up the Roman senate mans, nor to the Greeks of Adoption. The against their oppressors, and by the power of latter term he judiciously uses to the Ro- his eloquence made Catiline contemptible, mans, to whom it was familiar, and explains, and Anthony detestable; they had every by the use of it, the doctrines of the grace of God in their redemption, their adoption as his children, and their inheritance with the saints in light;' on the other hand, the illustration borrowed from the rigorous abstinence which was practised by the competitors in the Grecian games; to fit them for athletic exercises, would convey to the most illiterate inhabitant of Achaia, a lively idea of the subjugation of appetite required in the Christian combatant. The close of this last mentioned analogy by the apostle, opens a large field for instruction, by a brief but beautiful comparison, between the value and duration of the fading garland worn by the victorious Greek, with the incorruptible crown of the Christian conqueror. thing in their favour. Their character was established: each held a distinguished office in the state. They stood on the vantageground of the highest rank and reputation. When they spoke, admiration stood waiting to applaud. Their characters commanded attention. Their subject ensured approbation. Each, too, had the advantage of addressing his own friends, his own countrymen - men of the same religious and political habits with themselves. Before they started, they had already pre-occupied half the road to success and glory. persecuted, unprotected, unsupported-desNow turn to Paul !-A stranger, poor, pised before-hand, whether he were considBut whether it be a metaphor, or illustra- fenceless, degraded even to chains-yet did ered as a Jew or a Christian; solitary, detion, or allusion, he seldom fails to draw from he make the prejudiced king vacillate in his it some practical inference for his own hu- opinion, the unjust judge tremble on his miliation. In the present case he winds up seat. the subject with a salutary fear, in which all none of his success to an appeal to the corThe Apostle of the Gentiles owed who are engaged in the religious instruction rupt passions of his audience. Demosthenes of others are deeply interested. So far is he and Cicero, it must be confessed, by their from self-confidence or self satisfaction, be- arguments and their eloquence, but not a cause he lives in the constant habit of impro- little also by their railing and invective, kinving others, that he adduces the very prac-dled strong emotions in the minds of their tice of this duty as a ground of caution to himself. He appropriates to himself a general possibility, lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.' respective audiences. Now these vituperations, it must be remembered, were applied to other persons, not to the hearers,-and men find a wonderful facility in admiring Another metaphor, to which for its pecul- the case of Saint Paul, the very persons adsatire not directed at themselves. But in iarity we cannot help making a distinct re-dressed were at once the accused and the ference, occurs in the twelfth chapter of the judges. The auditors were to apply the first of Corinthians. The figure with which searching truths to their own hearts; to he there instructs the Church of Corinth in look inward on the mortifying spectacle of the nature, use, and variety of spiritual gifts, their own errors and vices: so that the aposwhilst it bears a strong resemblance to the tle had the feelings of the hearers completecelebrated apologue with which Meneniusly against him, whilst the Pagan orator had Agrippa appeased the tumult of the Roman those of his audience already on his side. populace in the infancy of the Consular government, is still much superior to it. Saint Paul reproves their dissentions in a long chain of argument, where he illustrates the wisdom of the Holy Spirit in his distribution of gifts, by a similitude taken from the component parts of the human body; which, though distinct and various, make up by union one harmonious whole. He explains their incorpoHe has no hesitation in his religious discusConviction was the soul of his eloquence. ration into Christ by the interest which the sions. Whenever he summoned the attribody has in the several members, each of butes of his mind to council, decision alwhich by its specific office contributes to the ways presided. His doctrines had a fixed general good. He proves the excellence of system. There was nothing conjectural in the dispensation to consist in that very vari- his scheme. His mind was never erratic for ety which had produced the contention; and want of a centre. Jesus Christ, the same shows that, had the same powers been given yesterday, to-day, and for ever,'—with whom to all, the union would have been broken as is no variableness, neither shadow of turneach portion would have been useless in a state of detachment from the rest, which now contributed to the general organization of the human frame. As an orator, Paul unquestionably stands plified the rule of Quinctilian. · ing,' is the sun of his system, and round this |
