Trusting that his Master would enable him to go through the work to which he had been appointed, and would turn even the malice and perversity of men to "the furtherance of the Gospel," he "rejoiced that Christ was preached," even when it was "through envy and strife," by those "who thought to add affliction" to the Apostle's bonds; he exulted in that very bondage, because it was made the means of introducing him to the notice of some among the Romans to whom he might not otherwise have gained access; (Phil. i. 12--18); and at Philippi, when cruelly scourged and imprisoned untried, by the Roman magistrates, he joyfully trusted that Christ would make even this a means of forwarding his cause; which was done in the consequent conversion of the jailor and his family; the germ, probably, of the exemplary church of the Philippians."

death, for the sake of carrying about a story of what was false, and of what, if false, he must have known to be so?"PALEY'S Hora Paulinæ pp. 338, 339.

The whole narrative of this transaction is particularly affecting from the strong relief in which the incidents are set, by the quiet simplicity of the language: "The magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast

A like fate seems to attend the writings also which this blessed apostle and martyr left behind him. No part of the Scriptures of the New Testament has been so unjustly neglected by some Christians, and so much perverted by others; over and above the especial hatred of them by infidels and by some descriptions of heretics. Still may St. Paul be said to stand, in his works, as he did in person while on earth, in the front of the battle; to bear the chief brunt of assailants from the enemies' side, and to be treacherously stabbed by false friends on his own; degraded and vilified by one

them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely; who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison-doors open, he drew his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"---Acts xvi. 22---30.

class of heretics, perverted and misinterpreted by another, and too often most unduly neglected by those who are regarded as orthodox. And still do his works stand, and will ever stand, as a mighty bulwark of the true Christian faith; he, after having himself "fought the good fight, and finished his course," has left behind him a monument in his works, whereby "he being dead yet speaketh;" a monument which his Master will guard (even till that day when its author shall receive the "crown of glory laid up for him") from being overthrown by the assaults of enemies, and from mouldering into decay through the negligence of friends.

§ 2. In order to avoid being misunderstood as to the sense in which St. Paul's writings have been spoken of as a principal bulwark of gospeltruth, and as to the censure passed on the comparative neglect they sometimes meet with, I must entreat the reader's attention to some considerations, which, though frequently overlooked in practice, are so obvious when once fairly presented to the mind, that I fear it may be thought trifling to dwell on them.

Of all the ambiguities of language that have ever confused men's thoughts, and thence led to pernicious results in practice, (and unspeakable is the mischief which has thus been done,) there are few, perhaps, that has ever produced more evil than the ambiguity of the word "Gospel." The word, as is well known, signifies, according to its etymology (as well as the Greek term of which it is a translation), "good tidings;" and thence is applied especially to the joyful intelligence of salvation for fallen man through Christ. The same term has come to be applied, naturally enough, to each of the histories which give an account of the life of Him, the Author of that salvation; and thence men are frequently led to seek exclusively, or principally, in those histories, for an account of the doctrines of the Christian religion for where should they look, they may say, for "Gospel truth," but in the "Gospels?" And yet it is plain, on a moment's reflection, that whether they are right or wrong in such a practice, this reason for it is no more than a play upon words for no one really supposes that when the Apostles went forth to preach the Gospel, the meaning of that is, that they recited

the histories composed by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which were not written till long after; or even that their preaching was confined to the mere narrative of the things there recorded.

But there is yet another and less obvious ambiguity in the same word: our Lord while on earth was employed, together with his disciples, we are told, in preaching "the Gospel of the Kingdom;" i. e. the good tidings that "the kingdom of heaven (as He himself expressed it,) was at hand;" and good tidings these certainly were, to the Jews and others who looked for the Messiah's promised kingdom, (to whom alone he preached) that this kingdom was just about to be established: and since, therefore, Jesus is spoken of as preaching the Gospel, many are hence led to look to his discourses alone, or principally, as the storehouse of divine truth, to the neglect of the other Sacred Writings. But the Gospel which Jesus himself preached, was not the same thing with the Gospel which he sent forth his Apostles to preach after his resurrection. This may at the first glance appear a paradox; but on a moment's consideration it will seem rather a truism, that the preaching of Jesus and that

E