accusations of his enemies, he repelled with the just indignation of conscious innocence. But the real cause of their hatred, and the true front of his offending, he confessed and gloried in: But this I confess to thee; that after the way which they call heresy, (or sect) so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets. In this ingenuous and simple confession, St. Paul displays his usual judgment and sagacity. His accuser had employed an invidious term; the sect of the Nazarenes. What that sect was, Felix in all likelihood did not know: but he would conclude, from the manner in which the phrase was employed, that it was a seditious and dangerous party. St. Paul, therefore, while he confessed that he was one of those whom they called Nazarenes, denied that he belonged to a sect, in their sense of the word, as a subverter of the national religion; but acknowledged that he was, in that character, a strict worshipper of the God of his and their fathers; (a line of conduct essential, in the eyes of a Roman, to the perfection of a good citizen) believing all things written in the law and the prophets. And, he adds, I have hope towards God, which they themselves also allow (not indeed Ananias and his Sadducean

party, but the Jewish nation in general), that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. And herein do I exercise myself, or make it the chief object of my care and diligence, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men. It is my study and endeavour, not to transgress or neglect any of those religious observances towards God, which are prescribed to me as a Jew by his ritual law; nor any of those duties towards men, which the moral law requires. This, I think, is the meaning of St. Paul's expression; as in the beginning of the twentythird chapter, where he says, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God, until this day, I conceive the meaning to be, I have lived in all respects as a true and sincere subject of God under the law of Moses.

When Felix had heard St. Paul's defence of himself, having more perfect knowledge of that way, he deferred them, till Lysias the chief captain should come. The simplest and the most probable interpretation of these words is undoubtedly this; that Felix, having a clearer notion of the true nature of Christianity, from the account just given him by St. Paul, and perceiving that it had been grossly misrepresented,

deferred giving judgment, as the Jews desired. And he permitted Paul to enjoy as much liberty as was consistent with his safe keeping, commanding the centurion, to whom he was given in charge, that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister, or to come unto him.

Although by this show of lenity, the Roman Governor might hope to obtain from Paul some of the money which he had brought to Jerusalem ;* yet it appears, that some impression had been made upon him by the pleading of the Apostle; for after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, whom he had probably about that time seduced from her legitimate husband; he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. He sent for him, as it should seem, more to gratify his own curiosity, or perhaps that of Drusilla, than from any sincere desire to ascertain the real claims of the Gospel upon the belief and obedience of mankind. But the Gospel asserted and enforced those eternal principles of truth and justice, which God had made known to all mankind by conscience, his interpreter; and it enforced them with that sanction, which conscience required and longed for, but which

* Acts xxiv. 17, 26.

reason could never supply, the certainty of a future retribution. And therefore, as Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. The plainest rules of justice, or righteousness, he had violated, as well by his oppressive and rapacious misgovernment, as by depriving the king of the Emesenes of his wife. Of his disregard of temperance his appearance with Drusilla was a sufficient proof. No wonder then, if the word of God, driven home to his conscience by the eloquence of an inspired teacher, with all its unqualified denunciations of wrath against the workers of ungodliness, was found sharper than any two-edged sword, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.* He trembled; but that was all. He trembled, with the involuntary shudder of conscious guilt; with the fear, which inspires a horror of the consequences of sin, but works not a detestation of its nature. Apprehensive that the Apostle would press his arguments still more irresistibly, and force him upon the fearful alternative of utterly forsaking, or everlastingly perishing in his sin, he stopped him short with an adjournment of the trial, in which he was sensible that conscience was about to give

* Heb. iv. 12.

judgment against him: Go thy way for this time: when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. The convenient season came; but such seasons, when suffered once to pass away from us unimproved, rarely indeed return to any good purpose. The trembling of the consciencestricken Felix was but as the ruffling of the surface, when a stone falls into the mantling pool. The waters are divided, and their stillness is disturbed for a moment; but there is no continued nor salubrious agitation.

The trembling heart, and the thoughtful head, were soon otherwise occupied, one with intemperate desires, the other with the schemes of avarice; for he hoped that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him; wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him. As Agrippa, when Paul appealed to Moses and the prophets, and to the knowledge which his hearer had of the events that had happened to the fulfilment of their prophecies in the person of Jesus Christ, exclaimed, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian; so, when the Apostle reasoned with Felix of those duties, which his conscience acknowledged, but his practice had so grossly violated; and declared the certainty of that