in religion. Some said, What will this babbler say? Other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods; because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.

Such also is the reception, which the preaching of the Gospel at all times encounters from those, who continue to be the faithful representatives of the Epicureans and Stoics; the profligate unbeliever, who will not, because he dares not, believe it to be true; and the conceited rationalist, who relies upon his own wisdom and virtue, rather than upon the grace of God; and chooses to rest in his own perfection, rather than be complete in him which is the head of all principality and power.

Such were the men, spoiled, by philosophy and vain deceit, of those moral qualities which were required to fit them for the reception of divine truth, who took Paul, and brought him into Areopagus; not before the court of that name, but to the public place where it was accustomed to hold its sittings; a place of great resort for the gravest citizens and magistrates, as well as the orators and philosophers of Athens. Here they desired him to give an account of this new doctrine of which he spake, and of the

* Col. ii. 10.

strange things which he brought to their ears, in the presence of those who were best able to detect what was erroneous, and authorized to punish what was unlawful. Their object, however, was not to call the Apostle to account before a judicial tribunal, but, in the first instance, only to gratify their curiosity; for, adds the historian, as a reason of their proceeding, all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear something new.

St. Paul, thus called upon to declare the principles of true religion, before an assembly of men who held the most discordant opinions, so framed his discourse, that every member of it touches upon, and refutes some erroneous notion of his hearers. He commences with a rebuke, couched in very gentle terms, which the philosophical part of his audience could not deny, because they pleaded guilty to the charge in their own discourses and disquisitions: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD.

This

* τὰ σεβάσματα ὑμῶν, “ your devotions.” your devotions." Rec. version,

"the gods that ye worship." Margin.

fact is urged by St. Paul, as an extreme instance of their superstitiousness. Not content with dedicating a shrine, or an altar, or an image, to every god whose name was recorded in their Pantheon, for fear of offending by omission any of the myriads of their fabulous deities; they erected this altar to the Unknown God, or rather, as the inscription may be more correctly rendered, to an unknown God; not any deity or demigod in particular, but to any one who might happen to be omitted by name in the bead-roll of their superstition. Of this peculiarity St. Paul very skilfully took advantage, both to shelter himself from the imputation of being a setter forth of strange gods, and to awaken the curiosity and the pride of his hearers, by professing to relieve them from the absurdity of worshipping a god, of whom they did not even know the proper designation. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship; that is, worship without knowing who is the real object of your adoration, I declare, or make known unto you. In addition to the many objects of your idolatry, whose titles and attributes ye profess to know, you appear to entertain an opinion, that there is some other deity, of whom you have no positive knowledge, who is yet entitled to your devotion and respect;

There is

and so far your opinion is right. indeed a God, to whom your homage is due; and him I now declare unto you. It is no other than the supreme creator and governor of the universe, God who made the world, and all things therein. This proposition contradicted the opinions of two kinds of philosophers;* those who maintained that the world was not the creation of a supreme intelligence, but the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms; and those, who asserted that all things were eternally, and therefore independently existing.

The Apostle then proceeds to show, that the popular form of religion was as far removed from just and worthy notions of the Deity, as the scepticism of the philosophers. Seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, he dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing; seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. This assertion was directed against that mean and debasing notion of idol-worship, that the gods required habitation and sacrifice; a notion, against which it was necessary to caution even the people of God, by the voice of inspiration: If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for * The Epicureans and Peripatetics.

the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.* Even when a majestic temple was dedicated to the God of Israel by his own appointment, his spiritual and incomprehensible nature was declared to the worshippers in the very prayer of dedication: Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have builded.+

The Apostle proceeds: And he hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. This assertion seems to be directed against the followers of Epicurus and Aristotle ; the former of whom pretended that man, like the world which he inhabits, was originally produced by an accidental combination of matter; the latter supposed the human race to have existed from eternity. But it was not without its bearing upon a favourite tradition of the Athenian people, who prided themselves upon being sprung from the actual soil of the country in which they dwelt.

St. Paul then declares, that God created man a reasonable and accountable being, endued with +1 Kings viii. 27.

* Ps. 1. 12.