No. III.

Chap. iii. 2, 3. "A bishop must be blameless, the "husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given to wine,

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no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a "brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own "house."

"No striker:" That is the article which I single out from the collection as evincing the antiquity at least, if not the genuineness, of the epistle, because it is an article which no man would have made the subject of caution who lived in an advanced æra of the church. It agreed with the infancy of the society, and with no other state of After the government of the church had acquired the dignified form which it soon and naturally assumed, this

it.

every good work: but the younger widows refuse." (vv. 9, 10, 11.) And, in another place, [v. 16.] "If any man or woman that "believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the "church be charged, that it may relieve them that are widows in"deed." And to the same effect, or rather more to our present purpose, the apostle writes in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: [iii. 10..12.] "Even when we were with you, this we "commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he "eat," i. e. at the public expense; "for we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but "are busy-bodies: now them that are such, we command and ex"hort, by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, "and eat their own bread." Could a designing or dissolute poor take advantage of bounty regulated with so much caution? or could the mind which dictated these sober and prudent directions be influenced in his recommendations of public charity by any other than the properest motives of beneficence ?

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[The calumny here noticed may probably be that of Is. Orobio, referred to by Dr. Benson in a valuable note, vol. i. p. 102, and to be found in Limborch's Amica Collatio cum erudito Judæo. Goudæ, 1687, p. 134, and the answer to it in p. 162.

Whoever has access to that volume, will do well to read what is subjoined to its principal contents, Urielis Acosta Exemplar Humana Vita, pp. 350, 351, for the account there given of the indignities which Acosta suffered in the Jewish synagogue at Amsterdam, and especially of the forty stripes save one literally inflicted on him.]

injunction could have no place. Would a person who lived under a hierarchy, such as the Christian hierarchy became when it had settled into a regular establishment, have thought it necessary to prescribe concerning the qualification of a bishop, "that he should be no striker?" And this injunction would be equally aliene from the imagination of the writer, whether he wrote in his own character, or personated that of an apostle.

Chap. v. 23.

No. IV.

"Drink no longer water, but use a "little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often in"firmities."

Imagine an impostor sitting down to forge an epistle in the name of St. Paul. Is it credible that it should come into his head to give such a direction as this; so remote from every thing of doctrine or discipline, every thing of public concern to the religion or the church, or to any sect, order, or party in it, and from every purpose with which such an epistle could be written? It seems to me that nothing but reality, that is, the real valetudinary situation of a real person, could have suggested a thought of so domestic a nature.

But if the peculiarity of the advice be observable, the place in which it stands is more so. The context is this :

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Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of "other men's sins; keep thyself pure ; - drink no longer "water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, "and thine often infirmities: some men's sins are open before hand, going before to judgment; and "some men they follow after." The direction to Timothy about his diet stands between two sentences, as wide from the subject as possible. The train of thought seems to be broken to let it in. Now when does this happen? It happens when a man writes as he remembers; when he puts down an article that occurs the moment it occurs, lest he should afterwards forget it. Of this the passage before us bears strongly the appearance.

In actual letters, in the negligence of a real correspondence, examples of this kind frequently take place; seldom, I believe, in any other production. For the moment a man regards what he writes as a composition, which the author of a forgery would, of all others, be the first to do, notions of order, in the arrangement and succession of his thoughts, present themselves to his judgment, and guide

his pen.

[Perhaps the secret link of associated thought may be discovered here. St. Paul, chap. iii. 3. 8, had prescribed one necessary qualification of a bishop, as of a deacon, that he be "not given to much "wine." When, therefore, at chap. v. 22, in reference to the same solemn task of ordaining, he had said to Timothy, "Lay "hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's "sins; keep thyself pure ;" the idea of excluding persons "given " to wine," evidently strong in his mind, (Titus, i. 7.) and just then tacitly recurring, suggested also the peculiarity of Timothy's own delicate health, for which a moderate use of wine was rather to be recommended than forbidden.

In performing that high office, "keep thyself pure ;" and yet, with all strictness towards others, in thine own case be not so severe. "Drink no longer water; but use a little wine for thy "stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities."]

No. V.

Chap. i. 15, 16. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into "the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. How"beit, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first "Jesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering, for a "pattern to them which should hereafter believe in him "to life everlasting.'

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What was the mercy which St. Paul here commemorates, and what was the crime of which he accuses himself, is apparent from the verses immediately preceding : "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, "for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the "ministry, who was before a blasphemer, and a perse"cutor and injurious; but I obtained mercy, because I "did it ignorantly in unbelief." (i. 12, 13.) The whole

quotation plainly refers to St. Paul's original enmity to the Christian name, the interposition of providence in his conversion, and his subsequent designation to the ministry of the gospel; and by this reference affirms indeed the substance of the apostle's history delivered in the Acts. But what in the passage strikes my mind most powerfully, is the observation that is raised out of the fact: "For "this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering, for a pattern to "them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." It is a just and solemn reflection, springing from the circumstances of the author's conversion, or rather from the impression which that great event had left upon his memory. It will be said, perhaps, that an impostor, acquainted with St. Paul's history, may have put such a sentiment into his mouth; or, what is the same thing, into a letter drawn up in his name. But where,

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we may ask, is such an impostor to be found? The piety, the truth, the benevolence of the thought ought to protect it from this imputation. For, though we should allow that one of the great masters of the ancient tragedy could have given to his scene a sentiment as virtuous and as elevated as this is, and, at the same time, as appropriate, and as well suited to the particular situation of the person who delivers it; yet whoever is conversant in these enquiries will acknowledge, that to do this in a fictitious production is beyond the reach of the understandings which have been employed upon any fabrications that have come down to us under Christian names.

CHAP. XII.

THE SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY.

No. I.

It was the uniform tradition of the primitive church, that St. Paul visited Rome twice, and twice there suffered imprisonment; and that he was put to death at Rome at the conclusion of his second imprisonment. This opinion concerning St. Paul's two journeys to Rome, is confirmed by a great variety of hints and allusions in the epistle before us, compared with what fell from the apostle's pen in other letters purporting to have been written from Rome. That our present epistle was written whilst St. Paul was a prisoner, is distinctly intimated by the eighth verse of the first chapter: "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the "testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner:" and whilst he was a prisoner at Rome, by the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the same chapter : "The Lord give

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mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft re"freshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain: but "when he was in Rome he sought me out very dili"gently, and found me." Since it appears from the former quotation that St. Paul wrote this epistle in confinement, it will hardly admit of doubt that the word chain, in the latter quotation, refers to that confinement; the chain by which he was then bound, the custody in which he was then kept. And if the word chain designate the author's confinement at the time of writing the epistle, the next words determine it to have been written from Rome: "He was not ashamed of my chain; but when "he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently." Now that it was not written during the apostle's first imprisonment at Rome, or during the same imprisonment in which the epistles to the Ephesians, the Colossians,