of the several events, and of the order in which they took place, corresponds exactly with the history. St Paul, after his first visit into Greece, returned from Corinth into Syria by the way of Ephesus; and, dropping his companions Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus, he proceeded forwards to Jerusalem: from Jerusalem he descended to Antioch; and thence made a progress through some of the upper or northern provinces of the Lesser Asia, Acts xviii. 19, 23.: during which progress, and consequently in the interval between St Paul's first and second visit to Corinth, and consequently also before the writing of this epistle, which was at Ephesus two years at least after the apostle's return from his progress, we hear of Apollos, and we hear of him at Corinth. Whilst St Paul was engaged, as hath been said, in Phrygia and Galatia, Apollos came down to Ephesus; and being, in St Paul's absence, instructed by Aquila and Priscilla, and having obtained letters of recommendation from the church at Ephesus, he passed over to Achaia; and when he was there, we read that he helped them much which had believed through grace, for he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly.' Acts xviii. 27, 28. To have brought Apollos into Achaia, of which Corinth was the capital city, as well as the principal Christian church; and to have shown that he preached the gospel in that country, would have been sufficient for our purpose. But the history happens also to mention Corinth by name, as the place in which Apollos, after his arrival in Achaia, fixed his residence; for, proceeding with the account of St Paul's travels, it tells us, that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coasts, came down to Ephesus, xix. 1. What is said therefore of Apollos, in the epistle, coincides exactly, and especially in the point of chronology, with what is delivered concerning him in the history. The only question now is, whether the allusions were made with a regard to this coincidence. Now, the occasions and purposes for which the name of Apollos is introduced in the Acts and in the Epistles, are so independent and so remote, that it is impossible to discover the smallest reference from one to the other. Apollos is mentioned in the Acts, in immediate connexion with the history of Aquila and Priscilla, and for the very singular circumstance of his 'knowing only the baptism of John.' In the epistle, where none of these circumstances are taken notice of, his name first occurs, for the purpose of reproving the contentious spirit of the Corinthians;

and it occurs only in conjunction with that of some others: 'Every one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and 1 of Cephas, and I of Christ.' The second passage in which Apollos appears, 'I have planted, Apollos watered,' fixes, as we have observed, the order of time amongst three distinct events; but it fixes this, I will venture to pronounce, without the writer perceiving that he was doing any such thing. The sentence fixes this order in exact conformity with the history; but it is itself introduced solely for the sake of the reflection which follows: Neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.'

No. VI.

Chap. iv. 11, 12. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and labour, working with our own hands.'

We are expressly told, in the history, that at Corinth St Paul laboured with his own hands: 'He found Aquila and Priscilla; and, because he was of the same craft, he abode with them, and wrought; for by their occupation they were tentmakers.' But, in the text before us, he is made to say, that 'he laboured even unto the present hour,' that is, to the time of writing the epistle at Ephesus. Now, in the narration of St Paul's transaction at Ephesus, delivered in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, nothing is said of his working with his own hands; but in the twentieth chapter we read, that upon his return from Greece, he sent for the elders of the church of Ephesus, to meet him at Miletus; and in the discourse which he there addressed to them, amidst some other reflections which he calls to their remembrance, we find the following: 'I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel; yea, you yourselves also know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.' The reader will not forget to remark, that though St Paul be now at Miletus, it is to the elders of the church of Ephesus he is speaking, when he says, 'Ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my necessities;' and that the whole discourse relates to his conduct, during his last preceding residence at Ephesus. That manual labour, therefore, which he had exercised at Corinth, he continued at Ephesus; and not only so, but continued

it during that particular residence at Ephesus, near the conclusion of which this epistle was written; so that he might, with the strictest truth, say, at the time of writing the epistle, 'Even unto this present hour we labour, working with our own hands.' The correspondency is sufficient then, as to the undesignedness of it. It is manifest to my judgment, that if the history, in this article, had been taken from the epistle, this circumstance, if it appeared at all, would have appeared in its place, that is, in the direct account of St Paul's transactions at Ephesus. The correspondency would not have been affected, as it is, by a kind of reflected stroke, that is, by the reference in a subsequent speech, to what in the narrative was omitted. Nor is it likely, on the other hand, that a circumstance which is not extant in the history of St Paul at Ephesus, should have been made the subject of a factitious allusion, in an epistle purporting to be written by him from that place: not to mention that the allusion itself, especially as to time, is too oblique and general to answer any purpose of forgery whatever.

No. VII.

Chap. ix. 20. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law.'

We have the disposition here described, exemplified in two instances which the history records; one, Acts xvi. 3: Him (Timothy) would Paul have to go forth with him, and took and circumcised him, because of the Jews in those quarters; for they knew all that his father was a Greek. This was before the writing of the epistle. The other, Acts xxi. 23, 26, and after the writing of the epistle: 'Do this that we say to thee; we have four men which have a vow on them: them take, and purify thyself with them, that they may shave their heads; and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself with them, entered into the temple.' Nor does this concurrence between the character and the instances look like the result of contrivance. St Paul, in the epistle, describes, or is made to describe, his own accommodating conduct towards Jews and

towards Gentiles, towards the weak and over-scrupulous, towards men indeed of every variety of character; to 'them that are without law as without law, being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without law; to the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all things to all men, that I might gain some.' This is the sequel of the text which stands at the head of the present number. Taking therefore the whole passage together, the apostle's condescension to the Jews is mentioned only as a part of his general disposition towards all. It is not probable that this character should have been made up from the instances in the Acts, which relate solely to his dealings with the Jews. It is not probable that a sophist should take his hint from those instances, and then extend it so much beyond them: and it is still more incredible that the two instances in the Acts, circumstantially related and interwoven with the history, should have been fabricated in order to suit the character which St Paul gives of himself in the epistle.

No. VIII.

Chap. i. 14—17. 'I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say that I baptized in my own name; and I baptized also the household of Stephanas besides, I know not whether I baptized any other; for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.'

It may be expected, that those whom the apostles baptized with his own hands, were converts distinguished from the rest by some circumstance, either of eminence, or of connexion with him. Accordingly, of the three names here mentioned, Crispus, we find, from Acts xviii. 8, was a 'chief ruler of the Jewish synagogue at Corinth, who believed in the Lord, with all his house.' Gaius, it appears from Romans xvi. 23, was St Paul's host at Corinth, and the host, he tells us, 'of the whole church.' The household of Stephanas, we read in the sixteenth chapter of this epistle, 'were the first fruits of Achaia.' Here therefore is the propriety we expected: and it is a proof of reality not to be contemned; for their names appearing in the several places in which they occur, with a mark of distinction belonging to each, could hardly be the effect of

chance, without any truth to direct it: and, on the other hand, to suppose that they were picked out from these passages, and brought together in the text before us, in order to display a conformity of names, is both improbable in itself, and is rendered more so by the purpose for which they are introduced. They come in to assist St Paul's exculpation of himself, against the possible charge of having assumed the character of the founder of a separate religion, and with no other visible, or, as I think, imaginable design.

No. IX.

*

Chap. xvi. 10, 11. Now, if Timotheus come, let no man despise him.'—Why despise him? This charge is not given

* Chap. i. 1. 'Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth. The only account we have of any person who bore the name of Sosthenes, is found in the eighteenth chapter of the Acts. When the Jews at Corinth had brought Paul before Gallio, and Gallio had dismissed their complaint as unworthy of his interference, and had driven them from the judgment seat, 'then all the Greeks,' says the historian, 'took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat.' The Sosthenes here spoken of was a Corinthian; and if he was a Christian, and with St Paul when he wrote this epistle, was likely enough to be joined with him in the salutation of the Corinthian church. But here occurs a difficulty. If Sosthenes was a Christian at the time of this uproar, why should the Greeks beat him! The assault upon the Christians was made by the Jews. It was the Jews who had brought Paul before the magistrate. If it had been the Jews also who had beaten Sosthenes, 1 should not have doubted but that he had been a favourer of St Paul, and the same person who is joined with him in the epistle. Let us see therefore whether there be not some errour in our present text. The Alexandrian manuscript gives avres alone, without & Exanves, and is followed in this reading by the Coptic version, by the Arabic version, published by Erpenius, by the Vulgate, and by Bede's Latin version. Three Greek manuscripts again, as well as Chrysostom, give & Ioudao, in the place & Exλnves. A great plurality of manuscripts authorize the reading which is retained in our copies. In this variety it appears to me extremely probable that the historian originally wrote Taves alone, and that of 'Exλnves, and in Ioudou have been respectively added as explanatory of what the word avres was supposed to mean. The sentence, without the addition of either name, would run very perspicuously thus, 'Ka απήλασεν αυτους απο του βήματος επιλαβόμενοι δε παντες Σωσθένην τον αρχισυνάγωγον, ετυπτον εμπροσθεν του βηματος ̇ and he drove them away from the judgment seat; and they all, viz. the crowd of Jews whom the Judge had bid begone, 'took Sosthenes, and beat him before the judgment seat.' It is certain that, as the whole body of the people were Greeks, the application of all to them is unusual and hard. If I was describing an insurrection at Paris, I might say all the Jews, all the Protestants, or all the English, acted so and so; but I should scarcely say all the French, when the whole mass of the community were of that description. As what is here offered is founded upon a various reading, and that in opposition to the greater part of the manuscripts that are extant, I have not given it a place in the text.