10 HOfLiE PAULINA. 



to the Galatians, that I cannot deny but that it would h* 

 easy for an impostor who was fabricating a letter in the 

 name of St. Paul, to collect these articles into one view. 

 This, therefore, is a conformity which we do not adduce. 



"^But when I read in the Acts of the Apostles, that when 

 " Paul came to Derbe and Lystra, behold, a certain disciple 

 was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman 

 which ivas a Jcicess f and when, in an epistle addressed to 

 Timothy, I find him reminded of his " having known the 

 holy Scriptures /ro??^ a child,''' which implies that he must, 

 on one side or both, have been brought up by Jewish par- 

 ents ; I conceive that I remark a coincidence which shows, 

 by its very obliquity, that scheme was not employed in its 

 formation. In like manner, if a coincidence depend upon a 



«*^omparison of dates, or rather of circumstances from which 

 the dates are gathered, the more intricate that comparison 

 shall be, the more numerous the intermediate steps through 

 which the conclusion is deduced, in a word, the more cir- 

 cuitous the investigation is, the better ; because the agree- 

 ment Vv'hich finally results is thereby further removed from 

 the suspicion of contrivance, affectation, or design. And it 

 should be remembered, concerning these coincidences, tliat 

 it is one thing to be minute, and another to be precarious ; 

 one tiling to be unobserved, and another to be obscure ; one 

 thing to be circuitous or oblique, and another to be forced, 

 dubious, or fanciful. And this distinction ought always to 

 be retained in our thoughts. 



The very particularity of St. Paul's epistles ; the perpet 

 ual recurrence of names of persons and places ; the frequent 

 allusions to the incidents of his private life, and the circum- 

 stances of his condition and history ; and the connection and 

 parallelism of these with the same circumstances in the Acts 

 of the Apostles, so as to enable us, for the most part, to con- 

 front them one with another ; as well as the relation which 

 subsists between the circumstances, as mentioned or referred 

 to in the different epistles, afford no inconsiderable proof oi 



