capacity," even if we exclude the labours of the learned Apostle of Tarfus. They were inftructed through the medium of written documents, compofed by men, whofe understandings cannot be reduced to the ftandard of the hypothesis, and the place of whofe birth we cannot correctly affign to the region of Galilee. The neceffity of inspiration cannot vary with the inequalities of human capacity, and inspiration itself can be referred to human capacity only as being fomething, whofe dictates could not originate from the powers of man, but which those powers are adapted to communicate.

We may now adjust the statement of the argument in this manner, according to the hypothefis and according to the fact. One portion of the world was converted by Jews, who are supposed to have been men of " na"tural incapacity;" another portion was converted by a Jew, who poffeffed an intellect of no ordinary measure, improved by the inftruction of learned preceptors, and the learned intercourse of his native city. But whatever fuperiority the fublimity and excellence of doctrines or precepts may have, as vifible effects of infpiration, when contrasted with the incapacity of the teachers, who de

livered them, this criterion is not applicable to the example of St. Paul, nor can we equalize this difference of ability by the evasive affumption, that in the service of Christianity he also might become, like others, a mere paffive channel of inspiration.

We are not at liberty, I conceive, to illuftrate the words of the text by any conjectural explanation respecting the conduct of St. Paul, whether he might apply the whole of the powers which he poffeffed, or whether he restrained his eloquence and fuppreffed his erudition, in his perfonal teaching. We know that when he affirms that "his speech and his preaching

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were not with enticing words of man's wifdom," he could not allude to eloquence; for in this epiftle he has given the first, perhaps, and most perfect fpecimen of its application to fubjects arifing out of the Christian difpenfation. He could not mean to difparage the use of argument by his apostrophe, “where "is the difputer of this world?" when he fhews himself, whenever it is required, to be a great master of the art of reasoning. Men did not know God by means of the wisdom of this world; and St. Paul does not ignorantly cenfure the philofophy of his own, or any other age, in thefe expreffions, but decides upon its

nature and incompetency from a learned acquaintance with its tenets. The doctrine of Chrift crucified, which he opposed to this wifdom, was fufficient to counterbalance any cafual effects of the eloquence with which he might have spoken of its benefits to mankind; for it was ftill regarded as foolishness by the Greeks, the authors and cultivators of this wif dom, the disciples of the Lyceum and the Academy, of Zeno and of Epicurus. He describes his preaching among the Corinthians in his resolution not "to know any thing among them, "fave Jesus Christ, and him crucified;" intimating however that he could have accommodated his manner and teaching to hearers, who might have expected him to adapt his reasonings to rules of captious disputation, and to conform his ftyle to examples of delusive oratory.

It appears then, that the natural abilities of the first teachers of Christianity, whatever they might have been originally, were not changed by the influence of inspiration; so that, on one hand, the lowest measure of understanding was not defigned to present a contrast to inspiration; nor, on the other, was the greatest neceffary to affift or to display its nature or its powers. The preaching of an elo

quent and learned Apostle to the eloquent and learned Gentiles could not furprize or delude them into the reception of Christianity, for eloquence and learning were not novelties to a Grecian auditory, and therefore these qualifications would have availed but little, if these hearers had not difcerned, in the subject of his preaching, fomething, which their own enquiries enabled them to decide was not the invention of an accomplished teacher, nor owed its existence to "the wifdom of man.'

If we examine the four Gospels, we fhall not perhaps find in them either the powers of St. Paul, or the unlettered ignorance of Galileans. We may observe, that although they all proceeded from "the fame fpirit of truth," yet these narratives of nearly the same facts have not been reduced by the controul of inspiration to an uniformity of style and manner, fo as to exclude the appearance of peculiarities of the writers, arifing from difference of difpofition, of habits, of education, in short, of natural abilities.

In the depreciation of the capacities of the first teachers of the Gospel, these teachers are apparently confounded with the Evangelists; and what is alledged respecting one is applied without difcrimination to the other. But is

there any reafon to think that mankind were not then inftructed, as they have been fince, by perfons of various abilities and acquirements, as infpiration neither communicated human learning, where it had not been previously attained, nor did it obliterate what had been formerly ftored in the memory. It neither annihilated that improvement of the fa culties, which refults from their exercise and application, nor reduced the mind to its original rudeness. The gift of tongues is not an exception, as I conceive, to this remark. The knowledge of languages is not itself learning, but the means of communication; not the thing to be communicated, which may, or may not, be learning.

If indeed it should be imagined, that after a lapse of time it might be necessary that the Gospel should be preached by persons of fuperior qualifications, this reasoning cannot be reconciled to the known inequality of abilities among the contemporary teachers. It is not perhaps easy to explain, how the neceffity of employing the eloquent and the learned, in diffusing the Gospel, should arise from the change of circumstances in the lapse of time. The Apostles in general were commanded to preach the Gospel "every where," "to every creature,"