On the other hand, if Paul was deceived by others, or by the warmth of his own imagination, he must have been a weak and fantastic dreamer. Yet he had the ability, the prudence, the resolution, to preach with success the extraordinary doctrine of Christ crucified over half the habitable world; he had the address to conciliate the other apostles to an admission of his claim to equality; in every public scene he could conduct himself with the coolest self-command, and most intrepid courage; finally, he could obtain for his writings an equal authority with the Gospels which recorded the teaching of their Master, or those of the elder apostles; writings not less distinguished for the consecutive vigour of their arguments, and the depth of their views, than for the exquisite beauty with which they enforce and explain that truth, that humility, that meekness, holiness, and charity, of which the life and the teaching of Christ are the great example.

If then neither hypocrite nor fanatic, Paul must have been, what he announces himself, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the

will of God; one to whom, as Peter declares among the assembled apostles, God, which knoweth the hearts, bare witness, giving him the Holy Ghost, as he did unto us° by whom the signs of an apostle were wrought in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds P; who asserts, 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.

May that Gospel which Paul preached so convince our understandings and purify our hearts, that we being followers of Paul, as Paul of Christ, may attain that everlasting life which is revealed through Christ Jesus.

o Acts xv. 8.

4 Galat. i. 11, 12.

p 2 Cor. xii. 12. also Rom. xv. 19. 1 Cor. xi. 1.

LECTURE V.

1 COR. xii. 10, 11.

To another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spi

rit, dividing to every man severally as he will. IN order to accomplish the vast system of proselytism, thus early announced and deliberately proclaimed by the apostles of Christ, it was necessary that some mode of communication should exist, easy, perspicuous, and familiar between the teachers and their converts. A superficial acquaintance with some common medium of intercourse, and an imperfect and indistinct power of imparting their ideas, such for instance as would be sufficient for barter or less intricate commercial concerns, would have been inadequate to their purpose. For to teacha new faith, to communicate new moral and. religious notions, to persuade, to convince, to exhort, to explain, a complete idiomati

cal intimacy with the language of those whom they addressed, and a free and unembarrassed elocution would be indispensable. This difficulty must have occurred to the apostles at the very outset of their undertaking. An early writer on the evidence of Christianity thus expresses their consciousness of this impediment. "Was not "again his language (that of Christ) plainly "divine, when he distinctly said to those "his very humble disciples, Go and teach "all nations. And how is this possible? (the

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disciples would naturally say, replying "something after this manner to their Mas"ter,) How, for instance, are we to preach "to the Romans? how shall we converse "with the Egyptians? of what language "shall we make use to the Greeks, men "who have been brought up in the Syrian tongue alone? how shall we address Per"sians, and Armenians, and Chaldeans, and Scythians, and Indians, and any other of “the barbarous nations?" This testimony

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2Ὅρα εἰ μὴ ὡς ἀληθῶς Θεοῦ πάλιν προήκατο φωνὴν, αὐτολεξεὶ φήσας τοῖς εὐτελεστάτοις ἐκείνοις αὐτοῦ μαθηταῖς, Πορευθέν τες μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. καὶ πῶς εἶπον ἂν οἱ μαθηταὶ

of Eusebius is not merely valuable, as declaring the traditionary opinion of the Church, with regard to the miracle of the gift of tongues, but is of further importance from his situation as bishop of Cæsarea, where he would necessarily be acquainted with the extent and prevalence of the Syrian language. For there appears no reason why the Syrian should have encroached upon the Greek, during the three first centuries of Christianity, the reverse might rather have been expected.

τῷ διδασκάλῳ, πάντως που ἀποκρινάμενοι, Τοῦθ ̓ ἡμῖν ἔσται δυνα τόν; πῶς γὰρ Ῥωμαίοις, φέρε, κηρύξομεν ; πῶς δὲ Αἰγυπτίοις διαλεχθησόμεθα; ποίᾳ δὲ χρησόμεθα λέξει πρὸς Ἕλληνας, ἄνδρες τῇ Σύρων ἐντραφέντες μόνῃ φωνῇ; Πέρσας δὲ καὶ ̓Αρμενίους, καὶ Χαλδαίους, καὶ Σκύθας, καὶ Ἰνδοὺς καὶ εἴτινα βαρβάρων γέν οιτο ἔθνη—Euseb. Dem. Evang. lib. III. p. 136. edit. Col. 1688. Compare likewise Dem. Evang. lib. III. p.

112.

Chrysostom says the same: Καὶ πῶς τούτους, φησὶν, ἅπαν τας ἐπεσπάσαντο οἱ ἀπόστολοι; ὁ μίαν γλώττην ἔχων, τὴν Ἰου δαϊκὴν, πῶς τὸν Σκύθην, καὶ τὸν Ἰνδὸν, καὶ Σαυρομάτην, καὶ τὸν Θράκα ἔπεισε;-Oratio quod Christus sit Deus, vol. VI. p. 628. ed. Say.

And again more explicitly : Οὐδὲ γὰρ ὁμόφωνοι τοῖς πειθο μένοις ἦσαν, ἀλλὰ ξένην τινὰ καὶ παρηλλαγμένην παρὰ πάσας τὰς γλώττας κεκτημένοι φωνὴν, τὴν Ἑβραίδα λέγω.Ibid. p.

635.