1)4 HOE.^ PAULINA. 



Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Fathai of mercies, anr. 

 the God of all comfort ; Avho comforteth us in all our tiibu- 

 lation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in 

 any trouble by the corrifort wherewith we ourselves are com- 

 forted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in U2, 

 so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. And whethei 

 we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation., which 

 is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we 

 also suffer ; or whether we be comforted, it is for your con- 

 solation and salvation. And our hope of you is steadfast, 

 knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall 

 ye be also of the consolation. For we would not, brethren, 

 have you ignorant of our trouble ivliich came to us i?i Asia, 

 that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, inso- 

 much that we despaired even of life : but we had the sen- 

 tence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in our- 

 selves, but in God which raiseth the dead : who delivered 

 us from so great a death, and doth deliver : in whom we 

 trust that he will yet deliver us." Nothing could be more 

 expressive of the circumstances in which the history describes 

 St. Paul to have been at the time when the epistle purports 

 to be written ; or rather, nothing could be more expressive 

 of the sensations arising from these circumstances, than this 

 passage. It is the calm recollection of a mind emerged from 

 the confusion of instant danger. It is that devotion and so- 

 lemnity of thought which follows a recent deliverance. There 

 is just enough of particularity in the passage to show that it 

 is to be referred to the tumult at Ephesus : "We would not, 

 brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble v/hich came to us 

 in Asia." And there is nothing more ; no mention of Ds- 

 metrius, of the seizure of St. Paul's friends, of the interfer- 

 ence of the town-clerk, of the occasion or nature of the ;Un- 

 ger which St. Paul had escaped, or even of the city Avhere 

 it happened ; in a word, no recital from which a suspicion 

 could be conceived, either that the author of the epistle had 

 made use of the narrative in the Acts, or, on the ^ther hand 



