place a society of believers in Christ, collected indifferently from Jews and Gentiles. Soon after the writing of this epistle, St. Paul, agreeably to the intention intimated in the epistle itself, took his journey to Jerusalem. The day after he arrived there, he was introduced to the church. What passed at this interview is thus related, Acts, xxi. 19: "When he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry: and, when they heard it, they glorified the Lord and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law; and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying, that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs." St. Paul disclaimed the charge; but there must have been something to have led to it. Now it is only to suppose that St. Paul openly professed the principles which the epistle contains; that, in the course of his ministry, he had uttered the sentiments which he is here made to write; and the matter is accounted for. Concerning the accusation which public rumour had brought against him to Jerusalem, I will not say that it was just; but I will say, that if he was the author of the epistle before us, and if his

preaching was consistent with his writing, it was extremely natural: for though it be not a necessary, surely it is an easy inference, that if the Gentile convert, who did not observe the law of Moses, held as advantageous a situation in his religious interests as the Jewish convert who did, there could be no strong reason for observing that law at all. The remonstrance therefore of the church of Jerusalem, and the report which occasioned it, were founded in no very violent misconstruction of the apostle's doctrine. His reception at Jerusalem was exactly what I should have expected the author of this epistle to have met with. I am entitled therefore to argue, that a separate narrative of effects experienced by St. Paul, similar to what a person might be expected to experience who held the doctrines advanced in this epistle, forms a proof that he did hold these doctrines; and that the epistle bearing his name, in which such doctrines are laid down, actually proceeded from him.

No. VIII.

This number is supplemental to the former. I propose to point out in it two particulars in the conduct of the argument, perfectly adapted to the historical circumstances under which the epistle was written; which yet are free from all appear

ance of contrivance, and which it would not, I think, have entered into the mind of a sophist to contrive.

mans.

Observe now

1. The Epistle to the Galatians relates to the same general question as the Epistle to the RoSt. Paul had founded the church of Galatia; at Rome he had never been. a difference in his manner of treating of the same subject, corresponding with this difference in his situation. In the Epistle to the Galatians he puts the point in a great measure upon authority: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another Gospel." Gal. i. 6. "I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me, is not after man; for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Ch. i. 11, 12. "I am afraid, lest I have bestowed upon you labour" in vain." iv. 11, 12. "I desire to be present with you now, for I stand in doubt of you." iv. 20. "Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that, if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." v. 2. "This persuasion cometh not of him that called you." v. 8. This is the style in which he accosts the Galatians. In the epistle to the converts of Rome, where his authority was not established, nor his person known, he puts the same points entirely upon argument. The perusal

of the epistle will prove this to the satisfaction of every reader; and, as the observation relates to the whole contents of the epistle, I forbear adducing separate extracts. I repeat therefore, that we have pointed out a distinction in the two epistles, suited to the relation in which the author stood to his different correspondents.

Another adaptation, and somewhat of the same kind, is the following:

2. The Jews, we know, were very numerous at Rome, and probably formed a principal part amongst the new converts; so much so, that the Christians seem to have been known at Rome rather as a denomination of Jews, than as any thing else. In an epistle consequently to the Roman believers, the point to be endeavoured after by St. Paul was to reconcile the Jewish converts to the opinion, that the Gentiles were admitted by God to a parity of religious situation with themselves, and that without their being bound by the law of Moses. The Gentile converts would probably accede to this opinion very readily. In this epistle, therefore, though directed to the Roman church in general, it is in truth a Jew writing to Jews. Accordingly you will take notice, that as often as his argument leads him to say any thing derogatory from the Jewish institution, he constantly follows it by a softening clause. Having

(ii. 28, 29.) pronounced, not much perhaps to the satisfaction of the native Jews, "that he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither that circumcision which is outward in the flesh;" he adds immediately, "What advantage then hath the Jew, or what profit is there in circumcision? Much every way." Having in the third chapter, ver. 28, brought his argument to this formal conclusion, "that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law," he presently subjoins, ver. 31, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! Yea, we establish the law." In the seventh chapter, when in the sixth verse he had advanced the bold assertion, "that now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held," in the very next verse he comes in with this healing question, "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I had not known sin but by the law." Having in the following words insinuated, or rather more than insinuated, the inefficacy of the Jewish law, viii. 3. " for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh;" after a digression indeed, but that sort of a digression which he could never resist, a rapturous contemplation of his Christian hope, and which occupies the latter part of this chapter; we

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