NOTES ON ALL THE BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE, FOR THE USE OF THE Pulpit and Private Families. Si juxta apostolum Paulum Christus Dei virtus est, Deique sapientia, et qui nescit Scripturas nescit Dei virtutem ejusque sapientiam, ignoratio Scripturarum ignoratio Christi est. Jerome in Esaiam. NOTES ON THE EPISTLES. INTRODUCTION. HAVING gone over the historical books of the New Testament, I proceed to the consideration of the Epistles, which are a very useful part of the Canon of Scripture, though certainly of much less consequence than the others. The certain knowledge that Jesus Christ was commissioned by God to preach the great doctrine of a resurrection to a future life, that he confirmed this doctrine by the bestattested miracles, and that, in the farther confirmation and exemplification of it, he himself submitted to die, and actually rose from the dead, which we learn from the four Gospels, is all that is essential to Christianity; as the knowledge of this is all that is of much importance as a motive to a good life. However, we are much confirmed in our belief of the history of Christ, by the farther account of the first promulgation of the gospel by the apostles, and the miracles which they wrought in confirmation of it, which we have in the Acts of the Apostles, which, therefore, is of the next importance to us as Christians. These books having all the marks of authenticity that any books whatever have, and much stronger of the same kind; having been all published while the transactions they record were all recent, having never been contradicted by friends or enemies, having been often quoted and referred to by friends and enemies, from the earliest times, and also having been copied and translated into various languages in a very early period, they have all the authority that histories can have. But besides this direct testimony, there is an additional evidence of a more indirect and subtile kind, but, if duly considered, highly satisfactory, which these epistles are calculated to give us. Being as unquestionably genuine as the historical books, we are enabled by them to perceive how the chief actors in those transactions thought and felt in their peculiar circumstances; and we can compare those feelings with the feelings of human nature as we now observe it; and therefore, by considering them in connexion with the historical facts, we are the better judges of the probability of the whole story. Thus, if we could entertain any doubts of the truth of the Roman history in the time of Cicero, the publication of his own letters, and those of his friends, corresponding with the history of their times, as found in other writers, would be an abundant confirmation of it. Evidence of this kind, therefore, from the letters and private papers of persons principally concerned in any transaction, is always sought after, and collected with care by those who are curious in history. Besides, it is more easy to distinguish genuine letters than genuine history, as they generally contain allusions to more particular circumstances, with respect to persons, times and places, of which the apostolical epistles, especially those of Paul, are full; so that no person can read them, and have any doubt of their being really his, or written in the circumstances in which he represents himself. Also, the most important of them being written to whole churches, they were carefully preserved, till so many copies were taken, that their authenticity was placed beyond all doubt. No unbeliever, I am confident, has read these letters with due attention, as becomes historians and philosophers. If any person can read them attentively, and afterwards think either that there was no such person as Paul, that these letters were not written by him, or that the facts he refers to as known to his correspondents were not known to them, (and these facts suppose and imply the truth of Christianity,) or that those persons could be deceived with respect to them, he may as well believe there were never such places as Ephesus, Corinth, or Rome, where the Christians to whom he wrote lived. In short, he must either not be made as other men are, or be so prejudiced as to be out of the reach of all reasoning and argument. It must also be observed, that the greater part of these Epistles were written long before the publication of any of the gospels, so that, in fact, they are the oldest records of Christianity, and to give a clearer idea of the circumstances in which each of them was written, and the general object of them, I shall treat them in the order of time in which |