his apology to contain an account of his conversion, and of his Apoftolical commiffion in consequence of it; which strengthens much what has been remarked relative to the charge brought against him. It is obfervable, that St. Paul calls himself here a Jew in the very fame breath almost in which he avows himfelf a Christian. He admits his hearers to be zealous towards God, according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, though he plainly intimates all the while that they were erroneously or blindly zealous, or, as he elsewhere expresses it, that their zeal of God was not according to knowlege. He does not undervalue or vilify the law, and much less pronounce it to be void, and of none effect, though he professes himself a preacher of the Gospel. Neither the Jews of Jerufalem, nor those of Afia, could possibly be strangers to the NEW DOCTRINE which he taught under that character: so that we are not at a loss to know the nature and import of the testimony which he bore concerning his Divine Master. Beside, we are to remember, that he was in

terrupted in the course of his harangue, and precluded from enlarging his speech, or expatiating on his doctrine, (which otherwise perhaps he might have done,) by the clamours and outrage of a giddy and incenfed multitude.

We fee him next before the chief priests and council; in which situation he politicly takes advantage of the difference of sentiment between them that composed it: the one part being Sadducees, and the other Pharifees. The Apostle openly declares himself a Pharifee; in which plea his immediate view was manifestly to his own preservation; though ultimately he had doubtless an eye to the conversion of the most confiderable and respectable part of his audience, by tacitly at least referring to the refurrection of Jesus Chrift, and the important consequences necessarily resulting from it.

In much the fame light we may regard his apology for himself before Felix in the

† Acts xxiii. 1, &c.

following following Chapter. Under one article of his accusation he is charged with being a ringleader of the fect of the Nazarenes; or, as the Afiatic Jews had expressed themselves, with teaching men every where against the law; or, in the words of the Jews of Achaia, with perfuading men to worship God contrary to the law; and under another article he is traduced as a mover of Sedition, and a disturber of the public peace. Now there is something observably dexterous in our Apostle's reply to all this; in which he partly denies the charge, professes his innocence, and defies them to prove the things whereof they accuse him; and partly afferts the cause he had espoused, and in general terms acknowleges his Christian principles. In this, as in the preceding cafe, there is fine address in the Apostle's endeavour to interest his auditors on the fide of Chriftianity, by representing its professors as holding one common tenet with the straitest and most popular sect of the Jewish religion; while at the same time he was indirectly preaching through Jesus the refurrection from the dead, and by necessary implication maintaining the great mystery of the Christian Faith. Felix, we find, was far from being unacquainted with at least some of the doctrines of Christianity, and reserved the matter for a farther hearing; but in the interim he, with his wife Drufilla, which was a Jewess, fent for Paul privately, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ. It does not appear that our Apostle on this occafion difcoursed on any one article of faith, strictly and peculiarly Christian. He reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, till this iniquitous governor trembled; and probably had proceeded to the full display of all evangelical truth, had he not been abruptly dismissed. However, if there be any difficulty here, it is such as affects not our argument in particular; because the very fame difficulty will subsist, whether we suppose that Jesus whom Paul preached to be " very God of very God," or to be the Son of God in a secondary sense only, or indeed barely the prophet that was to come into the world.

‡ Acts xxiv. 24, &c.

Many

Many of the foregoing remarks may be applied to the defence made afterwards by our Apostle before king Agrippa and Festus †. I think it unnecessary therefore to cite it. It will fuffice to observe, or rather to repeat, that, asserting the doctrine of the resurrection in general, and particularly that of Jesus Christ, St. Paul at one and the same time infinuates himself into the good graces of such as were pharisaically disposed; and points to a fact, the admission of which, upon full and dispassionate enquiry, must lead all that heard him, all the Jews at least into a train of conclusions, necessarily comprehending the great truths of the Gospel. And that this was a much more judicious mode of conviction than the direct or positive assertion of all, or any of those truths could have been, I prefume, I need not stay to prove.

When St. Paul some time after this expounded and testified the kingdom of God to the Jews at Rome, perfuading them concerning fefus both out of the law of Moses, and out of the