a

of the leffer Afia. During this expedition, we find, that in almost every place to which they came, their perfons were infulted, and their lives endangered. After being expelled from Antioch in Pifidia, they repaired to Iconium. At Iconium an attempt was made to ftone them. At Lyftra, whither they

fled from Iconium, one of them actually was ftoned, and drawn out of the city for dead. Thefe two men, though not themselves original apoftles, were acting in connexion and conjunction with the original apoftles; for, after the completion of their journey, being fent upon a particular commiffion to Jerufalem, they there related to the apoftles d and elders the events and fuccefs of their miniftry, and were in return recommended by them to the churches, 66 as men who had hazarded their lives in the caufe."

The treatment which they had experienced in their firft progrefs did not deter them from preparing for a fecond. Upon a difpute, however, arifing between them, but not connected with the common fubject of their labours, they acted as wife and fincere men would act; they did not retire in disgust from the fervice in which they were engaged, but, each devoting his endeavours to the advancement of the religion, they parted from one another, and fet forwards upon feparate routs. *The history goes along with one of them; and the fecond enterprise to him was attended with the fame dangers and perfecutions as both had met with in the firft. The apostle's travels hitherto had been confined to Afia. He now croffes, for the first time, the Egean Sea, and carries with him, amongst others, the perfon whofe accounts fupply the information we are ftating. The first place in Greece at which he appears to have stopped was Philippi in Macedonia. Here himself and one of his companions were cruelly whipped, caft into prifon, and kept there under the most rigorous cuftody, being thruft, whilft yet finarting with their wounds, into the inner dungeon, and their feet made faft in the stocks. Notwithstanding this unequivocal fpecimen of the ufage they had to look for in that country, they went forward in the execution of their errand. After paffing through Amphipolis and Appolonia, they came to Theffalonica; in which city the house in which they lodged was affailed by a party of their enemies, in order to bring them out to the popu

a Acts xiii. 2.
d Acts xv. 12-26.

b Acts xiii. 50.

e Acts xvi. II.

c Acts xiv. 5.
f V. 23, 24, 33.

lace. And when, fortunately for their prefervation, they were not found at home, the mafter of the houfe was dragged before the magiftrate for admitting them within his doors.a Their reception at the next city was fomething better; but neither here had they continued long before their turbulent adversaries, the Jews, excited against them fuch commotions amongst the inhabitants, as obliged the apoftle to make his escape by a private journey to Athens. The extremity of the progrefs was Corinth. His abode in this city, for fome time, feems to have been without molestation. At length, however, the Jews found means to ftir up an infurrection against him, and to bring him before the tribunal of the Roman prefident. It was to the contempt which that magiftrate entertained for the Jews and their controverfies, of which he accounted Christianity to be onc, that our apoftle owed his deliverance.d

This indefatigable teacher, after leaving Corinth, returned by Ephefus into Syria; and again vifited Jerufalem, and the society of Chriftians in that city, which, as hath been repeatedly obferved, ftill continued the centre of the mission. It fuited not, however, with the activity of his zeal to remain long at Jerufalem. We find him going from thence to Antioch, and, after fome ftay there, traverfing once more the northern provinces of Afia Minor. This progress ended at Ephefus; in which city the apostle continued in the daily exercise of his ministry two years, and until his fuccefs, at length, excited the apprehenfions of those who were interested in the support of the national worship. Their clamour produced a tumult, in which he had nearly loft his life. Undifmayed, however, by the dangers to which he faw himself expofed, he was driven from Ephefus only to renew his labours in Greece. After paffing over Macedonia, he thence proceeded to his former ftation at Corinth. When he had formed his design of returning by a direct course from Corinth into Syria, he was compelled by a confpiracy of the Jews, who were prepared to intercept him on his way, to trace back his fteps through Macedonia to Philippi, and from thence to take fhipping into Afia. Along the coaft of Afia he pursued his voyage with all the expedition he could command, in order to reach Jerufalem against the feast of Pentecost. His reception

a Ads xvii. I—5. Acts xviii. 15.

b V. 13.

f V. 23.

h V. 29, 31.

c V. 22.
i Acts xix. I.

c Acts xviii. 12.

g Acts xix. 1, 9, 10. k Acts xix. 16.

at Jerufalem was of a piece with the ufage he had experienced from the Jews in other places. He had been only a few days in that city when the populace, inftigated by fome of his old opponents in Afia who attended this feaft, feized him in the temple, forced him out of it, and were ready immediately to have deftroyed him, had not the fudden prefence of the Rcman guard refcued him out of their hands. The officer, however, who had thus feafonably interpofed, acted from his care of the public peace, with the prefervation of which he was. charged, and not from any favour to the apoftle, or indeed any difpofition to exercise either juftice or humanity towards him; for he had no fooner fecured his perfon in the fortress, than he was proceeding to examine him by torture,b

From this time to the conclufion of the hiftory the apostle remains in public cuftody of the Roman government. After efcaping affaffination by a fortunate difcovery of the plot, and delivering himself from the influence of his enemies by an appeal to the audience of the emperor, he was fent, but not until he had fuffered two years' imprisonment, to Rome, He reached Italy after a tedious voyage, and after encountering in his paffage the perils of a defperate fhipwreck. But although still a prifoner, and his fate ftill depending, neither the various and long continued fufferings which he had undergone, nor the danger of his prefent fituation, deterred him from perfisting in preaching the religion; for the hiftorian clofes the account by telling us, that, for two years, he received all that came unto him in his own hired house, where he was permitted to dwell with a foldier that guarded him, "preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jefus Chrift with all confidence."

Now the hiftorian, from whom we have drawn this account, in the part of his narrative which relates to St. Paul, is fupported by the strongest corroborating teftimony that a history can receive. We are in poffeffion of letters written by St. Paul himself upon the fubject of his ministry, and either written during the period which the hiftory comprifes, or, if written afterwards, reciting and referring to the tranfactions of that period. Thefe letters, without borrowing from the history,

b Acts xxii. 12, 24. c. Acts xxv. 9.11.

a Acts xxi. 27-33.
• Acts xxiv. 27.

e Acts xvii

с

or the hiftory from them, unintentionally confirm the account which the hiftory delivers in a great variety of particulars. What belongs to our prefent purpofe is the defcription exhibited of the apoftle's fufferings: And the reprefentation given in the hiftory, of the dangers and diftreffes which he underwent, not only agrees, in general, with the language which he himself ufes, whenever he speaks of his life or miniftry, but is also, in many inftances, attefted by a specific correfpondency of time, place, and order of events. If the hiftorian relates that at Philippi the apoftle "was beaten with many stripes, caft into prifon, and there treated with rigour and indignity,”a we find him, in a letter to a neighbouring church, reminding his converts, that "after he had fuffered before, and was fhamefully entreated at Philippi, he was bold, nevertheless, to speak unto them (to whofe city he next came) the gofpel of God." If the hiftory relate, that, at Theffalonica, the houfe in which the apoftle was lodged, when he first came to that place, was affaulted by the populace, and the master of it dragged before the magiftrate for admitting fuch a guest within his doors, the apostle, in his letters to the Chriftians of Theffalonica, calls to their remembrance, "how they had received the gospel in much affliction." If the hiftory deliver an account of an infurrection at Ephefus, which had nearly coft the apoftle his life, we have the apostle himfelf, in a letter written a fhort time after his departure from that city, defcribing his despair, and returning thanks for his deliverance. If the hiftory inform us, that the apoftle was expelled from Antioch in Pifidia, attempted to be ftoned at Iconium, and actually stoned at Lyftra, there is preferved a letter from him to a favourite convert, whom, as the fame hiftory tells us, he first met with in these parts; in which letter he appeals to that difciple's knowledge" of the perfecutions which befel him at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lyftra." If the hiftory make the apoftle, in his fpeech to the Ephefian elders, remind them, as one proof of the difinterestedness of his views, that, to their knowledge, he had fupplied his own and the neceffities of his companions by perfonal labour, we find the fame apostle, in a letter written during his refidence at Ephefus, afferting of

a Acts xvi. 24.

di Theff. i. 6.

bi Theff. ii. 2.
c Acts xvii. 57.
e Acts xix. 2 Cor. i. 8, 9.

g Acts xx. 34.

f Acts xiii. 50.-xix. 5, 19. 2 Tim, iii, 10, 11.

himself, "that even to that hour he laboured, working with his own hands." a

These coincidences, together with many relative to other parts of the apostle's history, and all drawn from independent fources, not only confirm the truth of the account, in the particular points as to which they are observed, but add much to the credit of the narrative in all its parts; and fupport the author's profeffion of being a contemporary of the person whose history he writes, and, throughout a material portion of his narrative, a companion.

What the epiftles of the apoftles declare of the fuffering state of Christianity, the writings which remain of their companions, and immediate followers, exprefsly confirm.

b

Clement, who is honourably mentioned by St. Paul in his epiftle to the Philippians, hath left us his atteftation to this point in the following words: "Let us take (fays he) the examples of our own age. Through zeal and envy the most faithful and righteous pillars of the church have been perfecuted even to the most grievous deaths. Let us fet before our eyes the holy apoftles. Peter, by unjuft envy, underwent, not one or two, but many fufferings; till at last, being martyred, he went to the place of glory that was due unto him. For the fame caufe did Paul, in like manner, receive the reward of his patience. Seven times he was in bonds; he was whipped, was ftoned; he preached both in the east and in the west; leaving behind him the glorious report of his faith and fo having taught the whole world righteousness, and for that end travelled even unto the utmost bounds of the weft, he at last suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors, and departed out of the world, and went unto his holy place, being become a most eminent pattern of patience unto all ages. To thefe holy apostles were joined a very great number of others, who having through envy undergone, in like manner, many pains and torments, have left a glorious example to us. For this, not only men, but women, have been perfecuted; and having fuffered very grievous and cruel punishments, have finished the course of their faith with firmnefs." 79 C

:

Hermas, faluted by St. Paul in his epiftle to the Romans, in a piece very little connected with historical recitals, thus fpeaks: "Such as have believed and fuffered death for the name of

< Clem. ad Cor. c. v. vi. A. B. Wake' tranf.