bring the Gentiles into the new covenant by baptizing Cornelius and his household; and henceforth he was distinguished by the zeal, courage and patience, with which he employed and finally sacrificed his life in the service of the Gospel. It is observable that on all occasions he laid great stress on arguments from prophecy, both that which was ancient and that which his own ears had heard. He superintended the composition of Mark's Gospel, in which the prophecies of John and Jesus are detailed; and in both his Epistles,-in the second at considerable length,-he explicitly refers to the most important predictions of Jesus, testifying that some had been already fulfilled, and delaring that the accomplishment of the last and greatest was at hand.

If the value of such testimony as this could be surpassed, it could only be by that of John. The truth of each is alike unquestionable; but the evidence of John is more ample, from the circumstance of his being "the beloved disciple," the confidential friend of Jesus, and therefore the best informed of all things concerning him; and also from his life having been prolonged to witness the total and final accomplishment of the Messiah's prophecies. It was no doubt because his knowledge of Jesus and the Gospel was admitted to be eminently full and accurate, that he was requested to prepare his history (in the prospect of a general dispersion of the Disciples), for the sake of supplying the deficiencies of those narratives which were already published. His history, being written for this purpose, contains little which is related by the other Evangelists; but all that it contains is corroborative of their narratives. With respect to the prophecies especially-he amply testifies in his Gospel to their purport, and to their actual delivery; and, by his later experience and latest writings, to their accomplishment.

The three writers who were not among the original twelve disciples of Jesus, are Mark, Luke, and Paul.

Mark was the nephew of Barnabas and the companion of Paul, from whom he had the opportunity of learning the Go

spel in its purity, and being informed respecting the communications from Jesus himself with which the Apostle of the Gentiles was often honoured. Nor was his information less complete respecting the circumstances of the life of Jesus. He was the intimate friend of Peter, under whose inspection he wrote his Gospel; so that this history may be considered as the joint testimony of him who heard the prophecies of Christ delivered, and of him who saw the greater part of them fulfilled.

Luke is said to have been a physician at Antioch, and to have been included in the number of the seventy disciples. His writings prove him to have been a man of education, and one thoroughly informed respecting the events he undertook to relate. His history of the Acts of the Apostles includes a mass of evidence to the fact of the Messiahship of Jesus, which it would require a volume to unfold, by comparing it with itself, with the other evangelical writings, and with the histories of heathen writers. He was the companion of Paul in much of his journeying, and therefore well qualified to relate whatever we know of the life and acts of this extraordinary man.

In directing your attention to the Apostle Paul, it is difficult to decide whether to present him as an evidence of the entire scheme we have been contemplating, or as a remarkable witness to the truth of the Gospel history. We can only touch on the principal points of his singular story. Paul seems to have been created for the purpose of consolidating the system of revelation, of presenting in his own person an epitome of its designs and evidences, of becoming a mediator between your nation and the rest of the world, and, finally, of occupying the space which divided the personal friends of the Messiah from strangers and enemies; between those who had witnessed his living signs and wonders, and those who could only believe them by their report. Paul knew not Jesus during his mission; but was nevertheless fully instructed by him. Paul was among his enemies at the time of his death, and one of the scoffers at his resurrection; yet the most exalted advocate of the hopes of the Gospel. No one was more wedded to the

first covenant than Paul; yet above all others he prized the second. No one was ever a more blameless servant of the Law; yet none was so thankful to exchange it for the Gospel. Being famed for his reverential adherence to Moses, he yet gloried in his allegiance to Jesus. Having been proud, to the most exalted degree, of the honours and privileges of your nation, he spent his life in hastening the extinction of those honours and the abolition of those privileges. Versed in the intricacies of the national theology, and in all the other studies of the most learned of his time, he used these stores only as a preparation for that high but simple knowledge to which he applied himself with the meekness of a disciple and the ardour and power of a matured mind. With the stubborn faith of an ancient Hebrew, with the proud complacency of a son of Abraham, with the learning of a Pharisee, and the accomplishments of polished heathens, he seemed little fitted to adopt or diffuse Christianity; yet this was the man who laid open his understanding and his affections to truth and love, who used his endowments for self-denying purposes, and thought it an honour to be the servant of the despised Gentile disciples of a despised faith. There is but one way of explaining all this. Paul understood Judaism well; so that when he also understood Christianity, the whole scheme was complete before him, and he became peculiarly qualified for making it clear to others, whether Israelites or Gentiles. He understood the previous circumstances and the present relative position of both parties, and was therefore fitted to bring them together, and to include them under the possession of common blessings. While he no longer prided himself on his acquisitions, he was far from despising them, or relinquishing the advantages they gave. With him, knowledge was power; and he felt this, and acted upon it with far more meekness than in his days of comparative ignorance. His enlarged views, his consistent convictions, his bright well-defined hopes, inspired him with an intellectual and spiritual vigour, as influential over the souls of others as animating to his own: and by his conspicuous position, its

operation was equally powerful on the two parties whom he sought to unite. When the wall of partition was already trembling to its fall, he stood last on the battlements; and while the eyes of the hosts without, and of the remnant of Israel within, were fixed upon him with equal intentness, he interpreted the signal from above, that their estrangement should cease, and that they should live like brothers, side by side. For his own account of the views which this eminence presented to him, and for his own expressions of the rapture which their recognition caused to him, you are referred to the eleventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans; or rather to the whole preceding part of the Epistle, of which the eleventh chapter is a summary. The history of Paul is well known to you; that he was brought up a blameless servant of the Law, belonged to the straightest sect of the Pharisees, and was well instructed in all sound and ornamental learning; that he was one of the fiercest foes of the new faith, urging on the persecution, and actually assisting at the martyrdom of its professors; that while travelling in pursuit of such objects as these, he was arrested by the miraculous presence of Jesus himself, and informed of the destination appointed for him; that after being relieved from a temporary blindness, he professed the new faith in the customary form; retired into Arabia for some time, in order to be instructed and exercised in the religion of the Gospel, in preparation for teaching it to the Gentiles; that being largely endowed with the gifts of the Spirit as well as with eminent natural qualifications, his mission was attended with extraordinary success; that he conveyed the glad-tidings from shore to shore, publishing them among many nations, and preparing for their further spread in more distant lands; and at length, after years of outward peril and sufferings, which could not shake his inward peace, was beheaded at Rome at the time of the persecution by Nero; being privileged as to the mode of his death, from being a Roman citizen, over Peter, who was crucified about the same time.

The testimony of this extraordinary man is of two kinds,

that of his life, as related by Luke; and that of his opinions, as given at large and in various forms by himself. The first would have been sufficient of itself for the purposes we have now in view, as Paul was converted in consequence of the fulfilment of some prophecies, and spent his life in unconsciously aiding the accomplishment of others. But we have also his own declarations of the completion of many predictions, and of firm faith in others which he knew to have been delivered, but which were not verified till after his death. He testified to the promises of Jesus respecting his own death and resurrection, the descent of the Spirit, and the bringing in of the Gentiles; and he also wrote of that period, yet future, when all distinctions should be done away. These declarations were made, not systematically, or collected in one written form of testimony, but interspersed through familiar letters, to the number of thirteen, addressed to the assemblies of Christians he had visited, or to private friends. The principal doctrine of the Gospel,-that of a future life of retribution, as taught by the death and resurrection of Jesus,-is largely exhibited in that portion (among others) of his writings which is famed for its eloquence among those who regard not its truth,—the fifteenth chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthian church. The principal historical fact connected with the operation of the new system-the bringing in of the Gentiles-is the prominent subject of all his epistles; while the spirituality and the exalted moral scheme of the Gospel are resplendently exhibited in every act of his life and every page of his writings.

To these eight testimonies some add a ninth, in the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Whether this epistle was written by Paul, or not, matters little :-it is the work of a contemporary, and of one fully informed respecting the scheme of revelation, and therefore qualified to address you, be he whom he may. To you, the excellence of the author's qualifications is all that is important; and to Christians it is equally satisfactory, whether the written records of their faith are the work of eight writers or of nine.