expectations, since he is singled out, six years later, for the malignity and success of his opposition.

This agreement between the two epistles and the history, though it results only from a minute comparison, on adopting in each case the more probable opinion, can never, perhaps, from the brevity of the passages, be considered certain and demonstrative. Yet when we find that the excommunication of Alexander is thrown back, by the address at Miletus, to the time just before the tumult, and that some Alexander, well known in the church, was then prominent as the chosen mouthpiece of the Jews; when we remember that it was Demetrius the silversmith who raised the disturbance, by getting together the workmen of similar trades, and hence that Alexander the coppersmith was more likely than other Jews to gain a hearing; when we remember, too, that it was Jews from Asia or Ephesus who caused the apostle's first imprisonment, and their malice which also led to his apprehension a second time, and thus procured his death, there seerns to be a chain of circumstantial evidence, to prove the identity, which may well satisfy a thoughtful mind. And this being once allowed, it is certain that no coincidence can be more evidently beyond the suspicion of an artificial origin. The correspondence must have resulted from reality, and from that alone.

No. VII.

2 Tim, iv. 19. "Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus."

His

These are here the only parties to whom St. Paul sends his greeting. To learn the reasons of this special notice we must consult the first part of the letter, and the previous history. Onesiphorus had shown special kindness to St. Paul during his former stay at Ephesus, and more lately at Rome. household, therefore, who were still at Ephesus, had a claim to his peculiar love. Aquila and Priscilla had not only lived and wrought with him, both at Corinth and Ephesus, but even had laid down their own necks to save him from danger. They were at Ephesus when he wrote the first time to Corinth ; at Rorie, about a year later, when he addressed a letter to that church; and now, after six years, they are implied to be at Ephesus again. This exclusive mention of Onesiphorus, whose kindness is recorded here only, and of Aquila and

Priscilla, whose intimacy with the apostle appears in the history, and in two earlier letters, is a feature of reality not easy for any counterfeit to produce.

No. VIII.

2 Tim. iv. 20, 21. "Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter."

The coincidence with regard to Erastus, a citizen of Corinth, has been noted in the Hora. Two points, however, require elucidation; how far these statements are in harmony with the route of St. Paul, and their real drift, as a message to Timothy.

It has been shown that the two former letters were probably written at or near Corinth, where the apostle must have stayed a short time, after visiting Macedonia, and before the circuit of Epirus. Since Erastus was a citizen of Corinth, it is likely that he would stay there, after attending the apostle so far on his circuit. Also, if St. Paul travelled from Macedonia to Troas, where he left the cloak with Carpus, he would be likely to proceed to Miletus, as he had done before, when he parted from the Ephesian elders. If he was arrested there, before Timothy had returned from the interior district, the knowledge that Erastus had stayed at Corinth, and that Trophimus had been left sick at Miletus, would probably reach him first by this letter. All these indications of the route fully agree.

But why does the apostle mention these persons? It has been supposed that they were meant for an instruction to Timothy to call on them in his way, and bring them with him. This is possible, but hardly probable. The presence of Luke, Mark, and Timothy, would be enough for his purpose. The object seems rather to explain how it happened that Luke alone was with him, and to show the pressing need that Mark and Timothy should come to him. With this view he first reminds him how many of his former helpers were absent, one of them through cowardice, and the others by commissions given them on the previous circuit. He next relieves his anxiety about his own charge, by telling him that Tychicus, the fittest substitute, had been sent away to supply his absence, who was probably the bearer of this letter. Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus." Presently he remembers that there were two others

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of his helpers whose absence he had not explained, Erastus and Trophimus. Having thus shown how widely his companions were scattered, only Luke being now with him, he renews his entreaty once more, with all the urgency of love. "Do thy diligence to come before winter.”

All this bespeaks reality in a manner which can be mistaken by no thoughtful and serious mind.

BOOK II.

THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.

Introduction.

THE argument, unfolded in the Horæ Paulinæ, not only proves the authenticity of St. Paul's letters, but supplies most powerful evidence to confirm the truth and accuracy of the narrative in the book of Acts. This proof, however, is partial and incomplete, since those parts of the history with which the letters are contemporary form hardly one-fifth of the whole. It is true that many statements of the historian, in the rest of the work, are also confirmed by the same letters; but still the assertions respecting earlier occurrences which these contain are different in their own nature from the facts which they substantiate at the very time of their being written. Hence it is desirable to extend the argument to the whole narrative, and to exhibit those internal coincidences, which prove it to be authentic history. Since the instances to be given are independent of each other, a rigorous classification is superfluous. Those will, in general, be placed first in order which are derived from the history alone; next, those which require a comparison with the letters; and lastly, those which suppose the letters to have been already proved authentic, before they can supply a valid argument.

No. I.

First of all, the book of Acts is consistent with itself, in the local origin which it ascribes to the new religion of Christ, and in its allusion to the prejudice it had to encounter on this very account. The statements, in each case, are plainly incidental, natural, and almost necessary in their own context, but all agree thoroughly with each other.

The first occurs in the words of the angels, at the Ascension. "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts i. 11.)

The second in the language of the Jews on the day of Pentecost.

Acts ii. 6-8. "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilæans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?"

Two others occur in the discourses of Peter to Cornelius, and of Paul at Antioch.

Acts x. 36, 37. "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) that word I say ye know, which was published throughout all Judæa, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power."

Acts xiii. 30, 31. "But God raised him from the dead: and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people."

In these four passages, the same fact appears under various forms, that the preaching of Christ began from Galilee, and that the apostles were all Galilæans, and had come up together with Jesus before his death, from Galilee to Jerusalem. The title used so repeatedly, Jesus of Nazareth, is in harmony with these statements. If the founder of the new doctrine had his home at Nazareth, it was a natural consequence that his first disciples should be Galilæans.

But if these statements are thought to be too plain, and the fact itself too certain, to constitute any argument, there is a further coincidence, entirely free from this suspicion. If the new doctrine arose in Galilee, its founder lived at Nazareth, and all his first disciples were Galilæans, it is very natural that this should arouse the prejudices of the Jews, especially those who lived at Jerusalem, and regarded the holy city as the natural centre of their religious system, and the great fountain of ecclesiastical authority. It is equally natural that the

dislike and hatred of the gospel, aggravated by this local prejudice, should display itself in some nickname of reproach applied to these teachers from despised Galilee.

Now this fact, so natural and inevitable under the real circumstances, is incidentally disclosed to us, not in the narrative itself, which might be open to suspicion, but in the very place where it would be likely to appear, the discourse of a public accuser. Let us examine the words of Tertullus, pleading against St. Paul before the Roman governor.

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Acts xxiv. 4, 5. 'Notwithstanding, that I be not further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words. For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes."

Nothing can be more natural and consistent than these statements; that, since the founder of the gospel lived at Nazareth, his first disciples should be from Galilee; that the odium of the new doctrine should be increased among the Jews of Judæa, and their rulers at Jerusalem, by its obscure and provincial origin; that their dislike and contempt should give currency to an opprobrious nickname; and finally, that a professional accuser should make use of this nickname, in seeking to crush a hated teacher of the new faith, and to render his cause odious to the Roman governor. Yet how truthful, and evidently undesigned, is the way in which it is introduced by the historian, who never hints the existence of such a nickname, when speaking in his own person. The sting of this reproach is clearly essential, in a faithful report of the orator's address to Felix; while the fact, that this was the nickname in popular use against the disciples, is an undesigned confirmation of the whole history.

No. II.

Acts iv. 36, 37. "And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles'

feet."

There is an observable, though secret harmony, as professor Blunt has remarked, in all the notices of the history of Barnabas. We are here told that he was a native of Cyprus ;