the rulers letters, authorising him to persecute the partizans of this new opinion, wherever they should be found.

He sets out, attended by several horsemen, breathing out threatenings and slaughter; and, before he arrives at Damascus, becomes himself a minister of the gospel! He enters upon his sacred office, and begins with attesting the facts which the witnesses attest, in that very town wherein he was going to vent his rage against the infant society.

Moral as well as natural order hath its laws; men do not throw off their character on a sudden and without cause; they cannot on a sudden, and without cause, divest themselves of their deep-rooted, their favourite, and, in their own eyes, their bestgrounded prejudices; still less the prejudices of birth and education; and least of all those of religion.

Some extraordinary and unexpected event must therefore have occurred on the journey, some more than common motive must have

been employed to convert this man, from being a most furious persecutor, to the most zealous disciple of him whom he persecuted. For I must suppose some cause, and indeed some very great cause, to have effected so sudden, so unexampled a change. I learn from himself, and from his historian, what this cause is. A great light from heaven shone around him, the brightness of which deprived him of his sight. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice from heaven. He immediately becomes an object of the fury of that sect which he had deserted; he is dragged into prisons, carried before the tribunals of his own nation, and of others, and he every where attests, with equal fortitude and constancy, the facts attested by the first witnesses. With a very singular pleasure I follow him, when led before a foreign tribunal, where happily a king of his own nation is present; there I hear him give a very circumstantial account of his conversion. He does not attempt to conceal his former rage against the new sect; he even paints it in the strongest colours*:

*Acts xxvi. 10, 11.

M

And when they were put to death, (he says) I gave my voice against them, and I pu nished them oft in every synagogue, and com pelled them to blaspheme; and, being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. He then proceeds to the extraordinary circumstances which attended his conversion; gives an account of what followed; and concludes by saying, addressing himself to the judge; For the king knoweth of these things, of which I speak freely; for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner*. This new witness, therefore, as well as the first, entertains no apprehensions of being contradicted concerning the facts; for he talks of things which were not done in a corner; and I am not in the least surprized when I read that his speech staggers the king: Almost thou persuadest me. The prince, therefore, does not view him in the light of an impostor. This witness had delivered the same things in the midst of the capital, when speaking before a crowded assembly of the people; and was interrupted

*Acts xxvi. 26.

only when he came to combat an ancient and favourite prejudice of that haughty nation*. I find, in the same historian, other very circumstantial proceedings, of which this new disciple is the object, and which are carried on at the request of his countrymen, who had solemnly sworn and conspired to destroy him. I carefully analyze these proceedings, and the farther I pursue my analysis, the more I perceive the probability increase, in support of the facts attested by the witnesses. I moreover meet, in the same historian, with other speeches of this witness, which to me appear master-pieces of reason and eloquence: if this word eloquence, so much prostituted, can be applied to speeches of this nature. I dare not add, that there are some replete with wit; this word would be still more inapplicable to so great a character and such great things. Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious; for as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

Acts xxii. 21. The prejudice on the vocation of the Gentiles. † Acts xvii. 22, 23,

Some of his speeches are so pathetic, so affecting, that I cannot resist the emotions they raise in me.-Bonds and afflictions abide me; but none of these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus. And now behold, I know that ye all shall see my face no more.-I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel; yea, ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.*

I am astonished when I observe the num. ber, the nature, the greatness, and the duration, of the labours and trials of this extraordinary personage; and, if the importance of the views, the dignity of the motives, and the obstacles to be surmounted, are the measures of glory, I cannot but consider

Acts xx. 23, 24, 25, 33, 34, 35.