audience. Curiosity is called by an ancient writer, the wontonness of knowledge. These critics came, it is likely, not as inquirers, but as spies. The grave stoics probably expected to hear some new unbroached doctrines which they might overthrow by argument; the lively Epicureans some fresh absurdity in religion, which would afford a new field for diversion; the citizens, perhaps, crowding and listening from the mere motive that they might afterwards have to tell the new thing they should hear. Paul took advantage of their curiosity. As he habitually opened his discourses with great moderation, we are the less surprised at the measured censure, or rather the implied civility of his introduction. The ambiguous term 'superstitious' which he employed, might be either construed into respect for their spirit of religious inquiry, or into disapprobation of its unreasonable excess; at least he intimated that they were so far from not reverencing the acknowledged gods, that they worshipped one which was ' unknown.'

With his usual discriminating mind, he did not reason' with these elegant and learned Polytheists out of the scriptures,' of which they were totally ignorant, as he had done at Antioch and Cesarea, before judges who were trained in the knowledge of them: he addressed his present auditors with an eloquent exposition of natural religion, and of the providential government of God, politely illustrating his observations by citing passages from one of their own authors. Even by this quotation, without having recourse to Scripture, he was able to controvert the Epicurean doctrine, that the Deity had no interference with human concerns; showing them on their own principles, that we are the offspring of

God;' that' in Him we live and move, and have our being;' and it is worth observing, that he could select from a poet, sentiments which should come nearer to the truth than from a philosopher.

The orator, rising with his subject, after briefly touching on the long suffering of God, awfully announced that ignorance would be no longer any plea for idolatry; that if the Divine forbearance had permitted it so long, it was in order to make the wisest not only see, but feel the insufficiency of their own wisdom in what related to the great concerns of religion; but he now commanded all men every where to repent. He concludes by announcing the solemnities of Christ's future judgment, and the resurrection from the dead.

In considering Saint Paul's manner of unfolding to these wits and sages the power and goodness of that Supreme Intelligence who was the object of their 'ignorant worship,' we are at once astonished at his intrepidity and his management; intrepidity, in preferring this bold charge against an audience of the most accomplished scholars in the world,— in charging ignorance upon Athens! blindness on 'the eye of Greece!'-and management in so judiciously conducting his oration, that the audience expressed neither impatience nor displeasure, till he began to unfold the most obnoxious and unpopular of all doctrines,-Jesus raised from the dead.

It is recorded by Saint Luke of this polished and highly intellectual city, that it was wholly given up to idolatry; a confirmation of the remark of Pausanias, that there were more image-worshippers in Athens than in all Greece besides.

We have here a clear proof that the reasonableness of Christianity was no recommendation to its

adoption by those people who, of all others, were acknowledged to have cultivated reason the most highly. What a melancholy and heart-humbling conviction, that wit and learning, in their loftiest elevation, open no natural avenue to religion in the heart of man; that the grossest ignorance leaves it not more inaccessible to Divine truth. Paul never

appears to have made so few proselytes in any place as at Athens; and it is so far from being true, as its disciples assert, that philosophy is never intolerant, that the most bitter persecution ever inflicted on the christians was under the most philosophical of all the Roman Emperors.*

In this celebrated city, in which Plato, near five hundred years before, discoursed so eloquently on the immortality of the soul, Paul first preached the resurrection of the body. Horace Speaks of searching for truth in the groves of Academus, But Saint Paul was the first who ever taught it there.

CHAP. IX.

ON THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE OF SAINT PAUL'S WRITINGS.

ONE of the most distinguished writers of antiquity, says, that one man may believe himself to be as certain of his error as another of his truth.' How many illustrious ancients, under the influence of this conceit, may either have carried truth out of its proper sphere, or brought in some error to fill the

*Marcus Aurelius.

place which the truth, so transferred, had left vacant. The Pagan philosophers held so great a variety of opinions of the supreme good of the nature of man, that one of their most learned writers is said to have reckoned the number to amount to no less than two hundred and eighty-eight.*

Christianity ought to be accounted a singular blessing, were it only that it has simplified this conjectural arithmetic, and reduced the hundreds to a unit. Saint Paul's brief, but comprehensive definition, 'repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,' forming one grand central point, in which, if all the vain aims and unsatisfied desires of the anxious philosophers do not meet, this succinct character of Christianity abundantly supplies what their aims and desires failed to accomplish; for they erred, not knowing the Scriptures:' those Scriptures which proclaim the wants of man when they declare his depravity, and the power of God, in providing its only remedy.'

Saint Paul labours sedulously to convince his converts of the apostacy of the human race. He knew this to be the only method of rendering the Scriptures either useful or intelligible; no other book having explicitly proclaimed or circumstantially unfolded this prime truth. He furnishes his followers with this key, that they might both unlock the otherwise hidden treasures of the Bible, and open the secret recesses of their own hearts. He knew that, without this strict inquisition into what was passing within, without this experimental knowledge of their own lapsed state, the best books may be read with little profit, and even prayer be offered up with little effect.

* Varro.

He directs them to follow up this self-inspection, because without it they could not determine on the quality, even of their best actions. Examine yourselves; prove your ownselves,' is his frequent exhortation. He knew, that if we did not impede the entrance of Divine light into our own hearts, it would show us many an unsuspected corruption; that it would not only disclose existing evils, but ́awaken the remembrance of former ones, of which perhaps the consequences still remain, though time and negligence have effaced the act itself from the memory. Whatever be the structure they intend to erect, the apostles always dig deep for a foundation before they begin to build. 'On Jesus Christ, and him crucified,' as on a broad basis, Saint Paul builds all doctrine, and grounds all practice; and firm indeed should that foundation be, which has to sustain such a weight. He points to him as the sole author of justifying faith. From this doctrine he derives all sanctity, all duty, and all consolation. After having proved it to be productive of that most solid of all supports, peace with God; this peace he promises, not only through the benignity of God, but through the grace of Christ, showing, by an induction of particulars, the process of this love of God in its moral effects,-how afflictions promote 'patience,' how patience fortifies the mind by ' experience,' and how experience generates 'hope;'-reverting always in the end to the point from which he sets out; to that love of God, which is kindled in the heart by the operation of the Holy Spirit.

He makes all true holiness to hinge on this fundamental doctrine of redemption by the Son of God, never separating his offices from his person, nor his example from his propitiation; never teaching that