nence, by contending that although the Gentiles were indeed admiflible into the Chriftian covenant, the law of Mofes muft be alfo accepted and punctually obeyed by them as an indifpenfable condition of their Salvation. In almost every place where a church was fettled by Saint Paul, he was followed, as foon as his abfence furnished the opportunity, by teachers of this defcription: men who, partly from an ardent defire to establish their favourite tenet, partly from interefted views, and an ambitious eagerness for distinction, vilified and traduced the character of the apoftle, representing him as unacquainted with the effentials of Chriftianity, the ignorant teacher of an imperfect Gospel. When St. Paul, by virtue of his divine cominiffion, proclaimed the total abolition of the ceremonial law, as to Jews as well as Gentiles; and loudly called on his converts of the latter clafs to ftand faft in the liberty with which Chrift had made them free; the indignation of the Judaizing teachers encreafed to inveterate hatred against

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against him; and displayed itself in every poffible shape (y).

The first of the Epiftles according to the feries in which they are difposed in our Bibles; a feries regulated by attention to the supposed rank of the churches or individuals addreffed rather than to accuracy of chronological arrangement, is that of St. Paul to the Romans. To the city of Rome Christianity had been conveyed not by any

(y) From the Acts of the Apoftles and the writings of St. Paul it may be collected that the doctrine of the admiffibility of the Gentiles to an equal participation with the Jews of the privileges of the Gospel covenant was one of the circumstance, which most powerfully exafperated the unconverted Jews against Christianity and against St. Paul. Thus, when in making his defence at Jerufalem before the people (Acts, xxi.) he recounted the miraculous manner of his converfion to faith in Chrift, the Jews liftened to him with calmness. But when he added that the Lord faid unto him, " Depart; for I will fend thee far "hence unto the Gentiles;" at that word they instantly broke forth into uproar, caft off their clothes, threw duft into the air, cried out "Away with fuch a fellow from

the earth: for it is not fit that he should live" and, had it not been for the intervention of the Roman officer and his band of foldiers, would have torn the apostle to pieces.

of

man of apoftolical authority; but probably by converts drawn by their own private concerns from diftant countries to the capital of the empire. But, however introduced, it had made a rapid and efficacious progrefs. Of the celebrity of the Roman church St. Paul speaks in this Epiftle (x), which he wrote from Corinth, and as appears from a comparison of different circumstances, A. D. 58, to confirm the Roman converts in the true faith; and particularly to guard them against the errors of Judaizing instructors, and to place the Gentile disciple on a level in every particular with his Jewish brethren. St. Paul demonftrates at great length, that the Jews and the Gentiles were equally in want of a Redeemer: alike expofed to the wrath of God; the latter by their grievous fins against their natural confcience; the former by their violation of the Mofaic covenant, and by the very nature of that covenant itself; which, promifing juftification only to finless obedience, was inefficacious to fave tranfgreffors, and re

ferred by its types to the perfect atonement of Chrift. At the fame time he completely vindicates the wisdom and the goodness of the Supreme Being against objections which might be occafioned by this account of the imperfection of the Mofaic law: and proves that from the days of Abraham the falvation of the Gentiles through faith in Christ was predetermined and foretold. He teftifies very warm affection for his unbelieving countrymen the Jews; and predicts their final converfion and reftoration. He interweaves among his doctrinal inftructions many practical leffons of piety, and morality; inculcates the duty of confcientious obedience to lawful magistrates; and earnestly exhorts all the members of the church, Jews and Gentiles, to unity and brotherly love.

St. Paul's first Epiftle to the Corinthians, great numbers of whom he had converted during a residence of eighteen months in their city, appears from internal marks to have been written from Ephefus, A. D. 56,

about

about three years after he had left Corinth. The apoftle vindicates his own character against the calumnies of Judaizing teachers; and, after praifing the Corinthians on fome accounts, feverely reproves them for various inftances of miscondu&t. He then proceeds to answer certain questions respecting marriage, the use of meats offered to idols, and other points concerning which the Corinthian church had confulted him by letter: cenfures the grofs irreverence manifefted in their mode of celebrating the Lord's fupper: explains the diversity of fpiritual gifts beftowed by the Holy Ghoft: exhorts to unity and charity: and delivers a moft impreffive leffon on the resurrection of the dead, a truth which by fome was allegorized or denied.

About a year afterwards St. Paul, then in Macedonia, having received from Titus, the bearer of the preceding epiftle, an account of the refpe&ful attention with which the injunctions contained in it had been obeyed at Corinth, and of the warm attach

ment