trate the divine economy in opening the gospel gradually, and preparing the Jews, by temporal mercies, for others of a yet more important nature. The Apostle, in consequence of this, had a very excellent opportunity of showing his acquaintance with their Scriptures, which it is well known they esteemed as the highest part of literature and object of science. The expression, Ye that fear God,' is ambiguous, and would best suit those that had, by embracing the Jewish religion, entered into covenant with the true God, yet so as not to exclude any others in whom a filial reverence for the Divine Being (arising from the light of nature) was a governing principle. After a brief sketch of the history of the Jewish Church down to the testimony borne by John to the character of Jesus Christ, throughout which the most important events have the valuable addition of dates, the Apostle again divides his hearers into those who are of the family of Abraham, and all others who truly fear God and serve him, of whatever family or nation they may have been descended, and 'to you both,' meaning doubtless both Jew and Gentile, is the word of this salvation sent. The remainder of the discourse contains the relation of our Lord's death, and that great pillar of a Christian's faith, and upon which all his hopes for consolation here and for future happiness rest, the fact of his resurrection. This is proved by the evidence of eye-witnesses, and by the fulfilment of prophecy-and the latter by an argument only to be found in this address. The Jews, tenacious as they were of their Scriptures, would readily admit the correctness of the quotation from the Psalm, Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption;' and the sepulchre of David, which had been opened and found to contain only dust, was irresistible evidence that he had seen corruption. But God's solemn assertion was, that his Holy One should not see corruption;' and Paul's conclusion was unanswerable, that it applied only to him, of whom God says, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.' Having

established this great fact, the Apostle then announces the glad tidings of the gospel, the doctrines of forgiveness of sins, and justification by faith: Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.' He concludes with a most solemn entreaty that they would receive his message, as its rejection would be attended with most fatal consequences to their souls.

"This was the substance of Paul's plain and serious address to the Jews in their synagogue, to which they replied nothing at present. But while the Jews were going out of the synagogue, the Gentiles, who out of curiosity were many of them assembled there on the fame of the arrival of such celebrated men, earnestly desired that these words might be spoken to them again the following Sabbath, when they promised to attend themselves, and to bring as many of their friends as they could. When the synagogue was broken up, many of the Jews, and of the devout proselytes, who, though not of the stock of Israel, had embraced the Jewish religion, followed Paul and Barnabas, professing their belief of the doctrine they taught; who gave them farther exhortation to confirm them in the faith, and speaking to them with great earnestness, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God, which they had received, and to retain that gospel which they had now embraced. And on the following Sabbath almost the whole city was gathered together to hear the word of God, in consequence of the report which the Gentiles had spread abroad of what had been delivered before, which awakened in many others an earnest desire of attending at the repetition of their extraordinary message which the Apostles had engaged themselves to make. But the Jews, who continued strongly prejudiced against the message which had been delivered to them, seeing the Gentiles

assembled in such multitudes, were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming' these divine. teachers as impostors and seducers.

“Then Paul and Barnabas, perceiving that no good impression could be made upon them, with great freedom of speech, and with a fervent zeal tempered by wisdom, and animated by unfeigned charity, said, It was necessary, according to the instructions of our divine Master, that the word of God should first be spoken to you Jews; for, undeserving as you are of such a favour, he has directed us that, wherever we come, we should open our ministry with an address to you, inviting you to faith and repentance, that you may, in the first place, partake of the benefits of his kingdom. But since you thus disdainfully thrust it away from you, and by that very action do in effect adjudge and condemn yourselves as unworthy of that eternal life and glory which, through the riches of his grace, he has so freely offered to you, behold, we turn ourselves to the Gentiles, and declare to them that they are also invited into the church of the Messiah, and shall, upon their believing in him, be admitted to all the privileges of his people as readily as if they had been descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or had been trained up in the worship of the true God, and were by circumcision entered most expressly into covenant with him. To them we will carry the saving name of the Messiah, and we doubt not but they will thankfully accept that gospel which you so ungratefully despise and reject.

"And when the Gentiles heard these things, that the way now was open for their admission into covenant with God, and that they were welcomed to the benefits of the Messiah's kingdom, they rejoiced greatly at the happy tidings, and glorified the word of the Lord, and many embraced the gospel. These new converts joined their most zealous and affectionate labours with those of Paul and Barnabas to propagate it, and the

word of the Lord was borne on, as with a mighty torrent, throughout all that region, which by this means was watered as with a river of salvation. But the Jews, provoked beyond all patience at such a conduct and at such success, stirred up some devout women of considerable rank, who having been proselyted to their religion, were peculiarly zealous for it, and also applied themselves to the magistrates of the city, representing these new preachers as exciters of sedition and innovators of religion, who might occasion danger to the state; and thus they raised a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their territories with violence and infaniy. But the disciples who were left there were filled with great joy that so blessed a message had reached their hearts; and as Paul and Barnabas had laid their hands upon them, they were furnished with an abundant communication of the gifts as well as graces of the Holy Spirit, whereby they were not only confirmed in the faith which they had newly embraced, but were also rendered capable of carrying on the interests of Christianity in that place, when the first planters of their church could no longer continue to cultivate and water it.'

"Such is the substance of that most important and interesting chapter of the 13th of the Acts of the Apostles. The Apostles, as they left the city, shook off the dust of their feet, in obedience to the command of the Lord, in token of the certain ruin which should befall such despisers of his gospel: Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. Perhaps among the devout and honourable women' were not only Jewish proselytes, but some of the principal votaries of the various deities whose temples existed at Antioch. By the inscriptions which we found, Jupiter, Bacchus, and Arcæus, are proved to have had temples; and the

as honourable. The province contributed towards the expenses of the public games, but the Asiarch unavoidably expended large sums to make the solemnities more imposing, as well as to render himself conspicuous in his temporary office accordingly, the most opulent persons were chosen to fill it. Strabo says, that in his time the Asiarchs were elected principally from the citizens of Tralles, then the most wealthy in Asia; by the Roman laws a father of a family having five children alive was excused from this office. The Asiarchate was an annual dignity, but the same individual might be elected several times. It has always been contended that the Asiarchate was filled by one person only, unlike the archons, prætors, &c., but this seems contradicted by the inscription found between Smyrna and Sedikeuy, which has the name of Tunon, AZIAPΧΟΥ ΝΕΩΤΡΟΥ.”

ASIA, SEVEN CHURCHES OF, celebrated in the Apocalypse, in the Apostolic times, and in ecclesiastical history, were, as they are classified by St John, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Of these great seats of Apostolic labour, now almost extinct, with the exception of Smyrna, it has been well observed, that "each spot trodden by an Apostle must be regarded by Christians with some of those feelings of solemn and serious delight which they cannot describe, and which none but themselves can understand. At the place where a martyr died, or where his corpse was interred, the most languid believer may be expected to form new resolutions of devotedness to his Divine Master, and consecrate himself to new fidelity in following those who, through the faith of suffering, and the patience of martyrdom, inherited the promises. And cold indeed must be the heart of that man who is capable of the least approximation to insensibility, whilst visiting the memorable places where the Saviour of sinners was born or educated, where he taught, acted, and, above all, suffered. Who

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would willingly possess the eye that refused to weep on Mount Calvary, or claim the heart which could not glow where our Redeemer ascended from earth to heaven?" Such feelings may be appropriately cherished in reflecting on the renowned "Seven Churches of Asia." We find the divine threatening literally inflicted: the "candlestick is removed out of his place," partly by the persecutions under Decius, Gallus, and Valerian, and more completely afterwards by the Saracens and Turks, who have changed those once famous cities into desolate villages, with the exception of Smyrna.

The first published account of the "Seven Churches of Asia,” in modern times, was written by Thomas Smith, D.D. a learned English writer and divine of the seventeenth century, who was chaplain at Constantinople, and who died in London, 1710. His work, originally published in Latin in 1672 at Oxford, is entitled, "Remarks upon the Manners, Religion, and Government of the Turks, together with a Survey of the Seven Churches of Asia, as they now lie in Ruins," a translation of which was published in London in 1678. To this voluminous writer we are indebted for the discovery of Thyatira at Akhissar, and Laodicea at Eski-hassar. In 1678 the Seven Churches were visited by Sir Paul Rycaut, then English consul at Smyrna, and Dr John Luke, chaplain to the Fac. tory; and an account of this visit was published in a work written by the former. The Rev. Edward Chishull, a very learned divine and antiquary, who was some time chaplain to the English Factory at Smyrna, and afterwards rector of South Church, Essex, visited Ephesus, Sardis, and Thyatira, in 1699, but his observations were never printed. Dr Pococke, archdeacon of Dublin, afterwards bishop of Meath, surveyed three of the Churches in 1740, his observations on which are inserted in his large work in two, and sometimes in three, folio volumes, entitled, "A Description of the East, and some other Countries." In 1740, Dr

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Samuel Chandler, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, an eminent scholar, antiquary, and divine of the Church of England, visited Smyrna, Ephesus, Sardis, Laodicea, and Philadelphia, omitting Pergamos and Thyatira on account of the plague raging in those places. The details of this visit are given in Dr Chandler's work, published in 1775, entitled, "Travels in Asia Minor, or an Account of a Tour made at the expense of the Society of Dilittanti," who specially deputed Dr Chandler for the purpose. Dr Dallaway, chaplain of the British embassy at Constantinople, visited Smyrna, Ephesus, and Pergamos, the other four lying out of his route, an account of which he gives in his work, "Constantinople, Ancient and Modern," published in 1797. In 1817, an account of a journey to the whole of the Seven Churches was published in the "Missionary Register," by the Rev. H. Lindsay, chaplain at Constantinople. The Rev. F. V. J. Arundell, British chaplain at Smyrna, and the Rev. John Hartley, of the Church Missionary Society, explored the scenes of the Apocalyptic Churches in 1826, and the former more recently in 1833. Of the foreign travellers who have visited these Churches, the principal are Tournefort, Van Egmont, and Choiseue Gouffier, but their survey was only limited to Ephesus, Smyrna, Sardis, and Thyatira. The observations of Dr Smith, the father of the Apocalyptic travellers, as to the motives which induced him to undertake his expedition, are worthy of notice. "The curious surveys," he says, every where extant of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem, places so famous for the birth, education, and suffering of our blessed Saviour (which are owing to the industry, and learning, and curiosity of devout pilgrims, who, from the first ages of Christianity to this present time, not without the design of Providence, as I verily believe, have visited Mount Calvary and the holy Sepulchre), suffer us not to be unacquainted with their situation and state; every one of us who has the least gust for antiquity, or his

tory, or travel, or insight into books, catching at such relations. But a sadder fate seemed to hang over the Seven Churches of Asia, founded by the Apostles, and to which the Eternal Son of God vouchsafed to send these Epistles recorded in the Book of the Revelation of St John, which, by the unpardonable carelessness of the Greeks (unless that horrid stupidity into which their slavery has cast them may plead some excuse herein), have lain so long neglected; they giving us no account of their ruins, and the Western Christians either not caring or not daring to visit them."

The Seven Churches, to which the epistolary part of the Apocalypse is specially addressed by St John, were situated within the compass of Ionia and Æolis in the Proconsular province properly called Asia, which at that time is said to have contained five hundred cities. Of those cities, Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamos long contested for the pre-eminence. Ephesus was situated in the ancient Ionia, near the mouth of the river Cayster, now called Kitchik Minder, which, rising in Lydia, flows through the Asian Marsh, and falls into the Ægean Sea. Smyrna, a celebrated city and seaport town of Ionia, is about forty miles in a northern direction from Ephesus, and on that account it is probably addressed second in order. Pergamos, formerly the seat of the Attalian kings, and the ancient metropolis of Mysia, lies about sixty-four miles north of Smyrna. Thyatira is situated about forty miles southeast of Pergamos. Sardis, thirty miles south from Thyatira, was once the capital of Croesus and the rich Lydian kings. Philadelphia is about twenty-eight miles distant from Sardis to the south-east, and still a place of some commercial importance under its modern Turkish name of Alah Shehr. Laodicea lay sixty miles south-east of Philadelphia, on the way to return to Ephesus. And thus it appears, on inspecting the map, that the Seven Churches, as Bishop Newton well remarks, "lie in a circular form, so that the natural progress was from Ephesus to