34 HORiE FAULI^/E. 



from Jews and Gentiles. Soon alter the writing of this 

 epistle, St. Paul, agreeably to the intention intimated in the 

 epistle itself, took his journey to Jerusalem. The day after 

 he arrived there, he was introduced to the church. What 

 passed at this interview is thus related, Acts 21 : 19-21 : 

 " When he had saluted them, he declared particularly what 

 things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his minis- 

 try. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and 

 said unto him. Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of 

 Jews there are which believe : and they are all zealous of 

 the law : and they arc informed of thee, that thou teachest 

 all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, 

 saymg, that they ought not to circumcise their children, 

 neither to walk after the customs." St. Paul disclaimed 

 the charge ; but there must have been something to have 

 led to it. Now it is only to suppose that St. Paul openly 

 professed the principles which the epistle contains ; that, in 

 the course of his ministry, he had uttered the sentiments 

 which he is here made to write, and the matter is ac- 

 counted for. Concerning the accusation which public rumor 

 had brought against him to Jerusalem, I will not say that it 

 was just ; but I will say, that if he was the author of the 

 epistle before us, and if his preaching was consistent with his 

 writing, it was extremely natural ; for though it be not a 

 necessary, surely it is an easy inference, that if the Gentile 

 convert who did not obsei-ve the law of Moses, held as ad- 

 vantageous a situation in his religious interests as the Jewish 

 convert who did, there could be no strong reason for observ- 

 ing that law at all. The remonstrance therefore of the 

 chur:h of Jerusalem, and the report which occasioned it, 

 were founded in no very violent misconstruction of the apos- 

 tle's doctrine. His reception at Jerusalem was exactly what 

 I should have expected the author of this epistle to have 

 met with. I am entitled therefore to argue, that a separate 

 narrative of effects experienced by St. Paul, similar to what 

 a person might be expected to experience who held the doc 



