No. IV.

Chap. ii. 22. "Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart."

"Flee also youthful lusts." The suitableness of this precept to the age of the person to whom it is addressed, is gathered from 1 Tim. iv. 12.: "Let no man despise thy youth." Nor do I deem the less of this coincidence, because the propriety resides in a single epithet; or because this one precept is joined with, and followed by, a train of others, not more applicable to Timothy than to any ordinary convert. It is in these transient and cursory allusions that the argument is best founded. When a writer dwells and rests upon a point in which some coincidence is discerned, it may be doubted whether he himself had not fabrieated the conformity, and was endeavouring to display and set it off. But when the reference is contained in a single word, unobserved perhaps by most readers, the writer passing on to other subjects, as unconscious that he had hit upon a correspondency, or unsolicitons whether it were remarked or not, we may be pretty well assured that no fraud was exercised, no imposition intended.

No. V.

Chap. iii. 10, 11. "But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured; but out of them all the Lord delivered me."

The Antioch here mentioned was not Antioch the capital of Syria, where Paul and Barnabas resided "a long time;" but Antioch in Pisidia, to which place Paul and Barnabas came in their first apostolic progress, and where Paul delivered a memorable discourse, which is preserved in the thirteenth chapter of the Acts. At this Antioch the history relates, that the "Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised per

secution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came into Iconium .... And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed; but the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evilaffected against the brethren. Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the multitude of the city was divided; and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles. And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles and also of the Jews, with their rulers, to use them despitefully and to stone them, they were aware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about, and there they preached the gospel. ... And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city; and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe: and when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and to Antioch." This account comprises the period to which the allusion in the epistle is to be referred. We have so far

therefore a conformity between the history and the epistle, that St. Paul is asserted in the history to have suffered persecutions in the three cities, his persecutions at which are appealed to in the epistle; and not only so, but have suffered these persecutions both in immediate succession, and in the order in which the cities are mentioned in the epistle. The conformity also extends to another circumstance. In the apostolic history Lystra and Derbe are commonly mentioned together; in the quotation from the epistle Lystra is mentioned, and not Derbe. And the distinction will appear on this occasion to be accurate; for St. Paul

is here enumerating his persecutions: and although he underwent grievous persecutions in each of the three cities through which he passed to Derbe, at Derbe itself he met with none: "The next day he departed," says the historian, " to Derbe; and when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra." The epistle, therefore, in the names of the cities, in the or der in which they are enumerated, and in the place at which the enumeration stops, corresponds exactly with the history.

But a second question remains, namely, how these persecutions were "known" to Timothy, or why the apostle should recall these in particular to his remem- . brance, rather than many other persecutions with which his ministry had been attended. When some time, probably three years afterward (vide Pearson's Annales Paulinas), "St. Paul made a second journey through the same country, " in order to go again and visit the brethren in every city where he had preached the word of the Lord," we read, Acts xvi. 1. that "when he came to Derbe and Lystra, behold a certain disciple was there named Timotheus." One or other, therefore, of these cities was the place of Timothy's abode. We read moreover that he was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium; so that he must have been well acquainted with these places. Also again, when Paul cane to Derbe and Lystra, Timothy was already a disciple: "Behold, a certain disciple was there named Timotheus." He must therefore have been converted before. But since it is expressly stated in the epistle, that Timothy was converted by St. Paul himself, that he was "his own son in the faith;" it follows that he must have been converted by him upon his former journey into those parts; which was the very time when the apostle underwent the persecutions referred to in the epistle. Upon the whole, then, persecutions at the several cities named in the epistle are expressly recorded in the Acts: and Timothy's knowledge of this part of St Paul's history, which knowledge is appealed to in the epistle, is fairly deduced from the place of his abode, and the time of

his conversion. It may farther be observed, that it is probable from this account, that St. Paul was in the . midst of those persecutions when Timothy became known to him, No wonder then that the apostle, though in a letter written long afterward, should remind his favoured convert of those scenes of affliction and distress under which they first met.

Although this coincidence, as to the names of the cities, be more specific and direct than many which we have pointed out; yet I apprehend there is no just reason for thinking it to be artificial: for had the writer of the epistle sought a coincidence with the history upon his head, and searched the Acts of the Apostles for the purpose, I conceive he would have sent us at once to Philippi and Thessalonica, where Paul suffered persecution, and where, from what is stated, it may easily be gathered that Timothy accompanied him, rather than have appealed to persecutions as known to Timothy, in the account of which persecutions Timothy's presence is not mentioned; it not being till after one entire chapter, and in the history of a journey three years future to this, that Timothy's name occurs in the Acts of the Apostles for the first time.

CHAP. XIII. .

THE EPISTLE TO TITUS.

No. I.

A VERY characteristic circumstance in this epistle, is the quotation from Erimenides, i. 12.: "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."

Κρήτες αεί ψευσται, κακα θηρία, γαστέρες αρχαι.

I call this quotation characteristic, because no writer `in the New Testament, except St. Paul, appealed to heathen testimony; and because St. Paul repeatedly did

SO.

In his celebrated speech at Athens, preserved in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts, he tells his audi ence, that "in God we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

του γαρ και γένος εσμεν.

The reader will perceive much similarity of manner in these two passages. The reference in the speech is to a heathen poet; it is the same in the epistle. In the speech the apostle urges his hearers with the authority of a poet of their own; in the epistle he avails himself of the same advantage. Yet there is a variation which shews that the hint of inserting a quotation in the epistle was not, as it may be suspected, borrowed from seeing the like practice attributed to St. Paul in the history; and it is this, that in the epistle the author cited is called a prophet," one of themselves, even a prophet of their own." Whatever might be the reason for calling Epimenides a prophet: whether the names of poet and prophet were occasionally convertible; whether Epimenides in particular had obtained that title, as Grotius seems to have proved; or whether the appellation was given to him, in this instance, as having delivered a description of the Cretan character, which a future state of morals among them verified: whatever was the reason (and any of these reasons will account for the variation, supposing St. Paul to have been the author), one point is plain, namely, if the epistle had been forged, and the author had inserted a quotation in it merely from having seen an example of the same kind in a speech ascribed to St. Paul, he would so far have imitated his original, as to have introduced his quotation in the same manner; that is, he would have given to Epimenides the title which he saw there given to Aratus. The other side of the alternative, is, that the history took the hint from the epistle. But that the author of the Acts of the Apostles had not the Epistle to Titus before him, at least that he did not use it as one of the documents or materials of his narrative, is rendered nearly certain by the observation, that the name of Titus does not once occur in his book.