proceeded to his former ftation at Corinth *, When he had formed his defign of returning by a direct courfe from Corinth into Syria, he was compelled by a conspiracy of the Jews, who were prepared to intercept him on his way, to trace back his steps through Macedonia to Philippi, and from thence to take shipping into Afia. Along the coast of Afia he pursued his voyage with all the expedition he could command, in order to reach Jerufalem against the feaft of Pentecoft †. His reception at Jerufalem was of a piece with the ufage he had experienced from the Jews in other places. He had been only a few days in that city when the populace, inftigated by fome of his old opponents in Afia, who attended this feaft, seized him in the temple, forced him out of it, and were ready immediately to have deftroyed him, had not the fudden presence of the Roman guard rescued him out of their hands. The officer, however, who had thus feasonably interpofed, acted from his * Acts xix. 1. † V. 16. + Acts xxi. 27-33. care care of the public peace, with the prefervation of which he was charged, and not from any favour to the apoftle, or indeed any difpofition to exercise either juftice or humanity towards him; for he had no fooner fecured his person in the fortrefs, than he was proceeding to examine him by torture *. From this time to the conclufion of the hif tory, the apostle remains in public cuftody of the Roman government. After escaping affaffination by a fortunate discovery of the plot, and delivering himself from the influence of his enemies by an appeal to the audience of the emperor t, he was fent, but not until he had fuffered two years imprisonment, to Rome ‡. He reached Italy after a tedious voyage, and after encountering in his paffage the perils of a defperate fhipwreck §. But although ftill a prisoner, and his fate ftill depending, neither the various and long-continued fufferings which he had *Acts xxii. 12. 24.. + Acts xxv. 9. II. G 3 undergone, undergone, nor the danger of his prefent fituation, deterred him from perfifting in preaching the religion; for the hiftorian closes the account by telling us, that, for two years, he received all that came unto him in his own hired house, where he was permitted to dwell with a foldier that guarded him, "preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching thofe things which concern the Lord Jefus Chrift with all confidence.” Now the hiftorian, from whom we have drawn this account, in the part of his narrative which relates to St. Paul, is fupported by the strongest corroborating teftimony that a history can receive. We are in poffeffion of letters written by St. Paul himself upon the subject of his miniftry, and either written during the period which the history comprises, or, if written afterwards, reciting and referring to the transactions of that period. These letters, without borrowing from the history, or the hiftory from them, unintentionally confirm the account which the hiftory delivers in a great variety of particulars. What What belongs to our prefent purpose is the defcription exhibited of the apoftle's fufferings and the representation, given in the history, of the dangers and diftreffes which he underwent, not only agrees, in general, with the language which he himself ufes, whenever he speaks of his life or ministry, but is also, in many inftances, attefted by a specific correfpondency of time, place, and order of events. If the hiftorian puts down in his narrative that at Philippi the apoftle "was beaten with many ftripes, caft into prison, and there treated with rigour and indignity*,' we find him, in a letter † to a neighbouring church, reminding his converts, that, “after he had fuffered before, and was fhamefully intreated at Philippi, he was bold, neverthelefs, to speak unto them (to whofe city he next came) the Gofpel of God." If the hif tory relate, that, at Theffalonica, the house in which the apostle was lodged, when he first came to that place, was affaulted by the populace, and the mafter of it dragged be * Acts xvi. 24. +1 Theff. ii. 2. G 4 + Acts xvii. 57. fore the magiftrate for admitting fuch a guest within his doors, the apoftle, in his letters to the Chriftians of Theffalonica, calls to their remembrance" how they had received the Gospel in much affliction." If the history deliver an account of an infurrection at Ephefus, which had nearly coft the apostle his life, we have the apoftle himself, in a letter written a fhort time after his departure from that city, defcribing his despair, and returning thanks for his deliverance †. If the hiftory inform us, that the apostle was expelled from Antioch in Pifidia, attempted to be ftoned at Iconium, and actually ftoned at Lyftra, there is preserved a letter from him to a favorite convert, whom, as the fame hif tory tells us, he firft met with in these parts; in which letter he appeals to that difciple's knowledge" of the perfecutions which befell him at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lyftra ‡." If the history make the apostle, in his speech to the Ephefian elders, remind them, as one *r Theff. i. 6. + Acts xix. 2 Cor. i. 8, 9. Acts xiii. 50. xix. 5. 19. 2 Tim. iii. 10, 11. proof |