EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. 33 



success, which he must have known were frustrated in the 

 issue. 



Thi? single consideration convinces me, that no concert 

 or confederacy whatever subsisted between the episth^ and 

 the Acts of the Apostles ; and that whatever coincidences 

 have been or can be pointed out between them are unso 

 phisticated, and are the result of truth and reality. 



It also convinces me that the epistle was written nol 

 only m St. Paul's lifetimxC, but before he arrived at Jerusa 

 lem ; for the important events relating to him which took 

 place after his arrival at that city, must have been knowr 

 to the Christian community soon after they happened : they 

 form the most public part of his history. But had they been 

 known to the author of the epistle — in other words, had they 

 then taken place, the passage which we have quoted from 

 the epistle would not have been found there. 



VII. I now proceed to state the conformity which exists 

 between the argument of this epistle and the history of ita 

 reputed author. It is enough for this purpose to observe, 

 that the object of the epistle, that is, of the argumentative 

 part of it, was to place the Gentile convert upon a parity oi 

 situation with the Jewish, in respect of his reHgious condi- 

 tion, and his rank in the divine favor The epistle supports 

 this point by a variety of arguments ; such as, that no man 

 of either description was justified by the works of the law— 

 for this plain reason, that no man had performed them; 

 that it became therefore necessary to appoint another me- 

 dium or condition of justification, in which new medium the 

 Jewish peculiarity was merged and lost ; that Abraham's 

 o\M justification was anterior to the law, and independent 

 of it ; that the Jewish converts were to consider the law i s 

 fiow dead, and themselves as married to another ; that wh tt 

 the law in truth could not do, in that it was weak through 

 the flesh, God had done by sending his Son ; that God had 

 rt^jected the unbeHeving Jews, and had substituted in their 

 place a society of believers in Christ, collected indiflerentlj 



Hora- Faul. 1 7 



