that observance to the exclusion of piety and virtue as the means of acceptance with God: Nay, he went further, and insisted that every individual after receiving the Gospel should occupy the same post, sustain the same character, which he filled before his conversion. The object of this wise injunction is obvious: it was to prevent the Gospel from being vilified as the cause of introducing disputes and changes in society, which it would be more to the interest of the new religion and its reforming influence to avoid. I am not ascribing measures to the Apostle Paul which he did not himself inculcate. His own language is express and distinct on the subject: "Let every one so walk as the Lord has called him, and this I appoint in all the churches. Hath any man been called who is circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Hath any been called in uncircumcision? let him not become circumcised: circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God-that is every thing." 1 Cor. vii. 17, 18. Paul himself illustrates this theory by his conduct towards Timothy and Titus. The former, being of Jewish extraction, he caused to be circumcised; the latter being a Greek, he refused to be circumcised, though at Jerusalem and in the face of the Judaizing zealots.

The wise distinction which the Apostle thus made and steadily pursued, caused great embarrassment to his enemies; and nothing was left to them but to spread a report among the populace, that he preached against Moses, and that, so far from imposing his law on the Gentiles, he sought the abolition of it among his countrymen. This is the very report of which James ap prized the Apostle Paul; and which he advised him to contradict by submitting to a vow which might show that, so far from seeking to set aside the law of Moses in others, he preserved it in himself. Nothing is more manifest than that this advice, given on the part of

James and the elders, was given in the spirit of perfect sincerity. They received him on his arrival with gladness, or, as the word (aσμɛvws) implies, with cordiality : when they heard the success of his preaching among the Gentiles, they praised God, and they entertained an affectionate wish to deliver him from his false accusers. Paul felt the propriety of the advice, and as the charge was altogether unfounded, he hesitated not a moment to comply with it.

Gamaliel says that the proposed vow was a solemn oath had it been so, Paul could have taken it most conscientiously; because what he was called upon tó swear, was perfectly true. But what, according to his accuser, was the object of this oath? It was that Paul did not preach to the Gentiles a gospel, which by moral obedience gave them exemption from ritual observances. Paul then took this oath; and Gamaliel examines the Acts and his Epistles, and from these proves him guilty of the most aggravated perjury, see chap. xi. sect. 1, 2. In truth, it was universally known that the Apostle taught the Gentiles a gospel which superseded the necessity of circumcision: this, I say, was a fact of such notoriety, that to deny it was impossible; and if he had the effrontery to attempt its denial, he would have added folly to falsehood, in no instance ever equalled, excepting by the author of " Not Paul but Jesus."

A vow as made by the Pagans, was a very different thing from that which was made by the disciples of Moses. In a heathen sense, a vow meant a solemn promise of some offering to one of the gods, in case he should bestow a favour that was asked of him. Thus Cicero tells us in his first book De Divinatione, that "A. Navius, having lost one of his sows, made a vow, that if he found her he would offer the largest grape on his vine to Bacchus; accordingly, having found her, he stood in the midst of his vine, with his face to the meridian, and divided the vine with his staff into four parts,

and found a grape of a prodigious size." The person who made the vow and fulfilled it, after receiving the wished-for favour, was released from any further obligation; but if he failed to fulfill it, the god was usually angry, and was said euxwλns eieμpeola. Iliad. a. 65.-or in Latin damnare voto,-to visit him with some merited evil for his neglect. Virg. Ecl. 5. 80. But a promise of this sort was unworthy the God of Israel. A Jew therefore, if well informed, meant by a vow a very different thing; as it was an engagement to separate from the people and devote himself to God, or to purify himself after some moral or ritual uncleanness. This was usually done after recovery from illness or some remarkable deliverance, or after touching a dead body. A vow therefore in this latter case was a mere ceremony; and the narrative itself holds it out as a purification. "Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them, entered into the temple to signify the accomplishment of the day of PURIFICATION, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them." Acts xxii. 26. What the occasion of the vow was is not said; nor is it of any importance to know, it being a Jewish ceremony, which might have no connection whatever with the doctrine taught by Paul among the Gentiles. The vow was not fulfilled till the offering was made, that is, till the fees were paid to the priest. Those fees were very heavy, and to enable poor persons to make a vow as Paul did on this occasion, was a popular act.

As the vow was performed not only on himself, but on four others, Paul proved the falsehood of the charge, that he preached to the Jews against the law of Moses; but the performance of it did not save him from the violence of his enemies: and this violence evinced, not indeed the imprudence or inutility of the measure, but their determination to kill him, if they could, under colour of justice, yet if stripped of this colour, at any rate kill him.

Observe the extraordinary features of firmness and flexibility exhibited on this occasion in the conduct of the Apostle Paul. His friends with tears entreated him not to go to Jerusalem; but he remains deaf as a rock to their cries and entreaties, because he was ready not only to be bound, but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. When he arrived in Jerusalem, the same friends proposed to him the performance of a ceremony, calculated to silence his enemies, and to conciliate his weaker brethren. The ceremony was in itself quite indifferent, and if left to his own choice, he would doubtless have avoided it; but as the performance of it was perfectly consistent with truth and integrity, and as it came recommended by men whom he loved and honoured, he hesitated not a moment to comply, thus finely illustrating his own declaration : "And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews 6; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law." 1 Cor. ix. 20.

CHAPTER IV.

The Gospel of Luke alluded to and copied by Paul-Jesus shows himself after his resurrection to above five hundred witnesses in Galilee-The charge brought against the Apostle, that he taught the end of the world to be at hand, refuted.

AFTER what has been seen of the seven days' course of perjury, proofs of simple falsehood will be apt to appear superfluous. To make certainty more sure, two pre-eminent ones shall however be brought to view. They may have their use, were it only as examples of

:

the palpableness of those falsehoods which for so many hundreds of years, and through so many generations of commentators, are, under favourable circumstances, capable of remaining undetected! The extravagance of the addition made by the audacious stranger to the number of the resurrection-witnesses, as given by themselves, the predicted end of the world in the prophet's own lifetime, and the creation of Antichrist for the purpose of putting off that catastrophe, may even be not altogether unamusing, by the picture they will give of that mixture of rashness and craftiness which constitutes not the least remarkable of the ingredients in the composition of this extraordinary character.-First as to the resurrectionwitnesses sufficient to the present purpose will be the observation, that nothing can be more palpably or irreconcileably inconsistent with every one of them than the ample and round number thus added by the effrontery of this uninformed stranger to the most ample that can be deduced from any of the accounts thus stated, as given by the only description of persons whose situation would give to their testimony the character of the best evidence. Behold now the account of the number and of the persons in Paul's own words. It is in the fifteenth chapter of the first of his two letters to his Corinthians:- Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand. By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory the doctrine which I preached unto you; otherwise you have believed in vain. For I have delivered unto you, as the chief thing, WHAT I ALSO RECEIVED that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he rose the third day according to the Scriptures; and that he was seen by Peter, then by the twelve; after that he was seen by five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James; then by all the apo