bSCOND El'ISTLE TO THE CURJNTHIANS. 75 



theie is one clause in the quotation particularly deserving of 

 remark, because, Avhen confronted with the history, it fur- 

 nishes the nearest approach to a contradiction, without a 

 contradiction being actually incurred, of any I remember to 

 have met with : " Once," says St. Paul, " was I stoned." 

 Does the history relate that St. Paul, prior to the writing of 

 this epistle, had been stoned more than once ? The history 

 mentions distinctly one occasion upon which St. Paul was 

 stoned, namely, at Lystra in Lycaonia : '• There came thith- 

 er certam Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded 

 the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the 

 city, supposing he had been dead." Acts 14:19. And it 

 mentions also another occasion in which "an assault was 

 made, both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their 

 rulers, to use them despitefully and to stone them ; but they 

 weie aware of it," the history proceeds to tell us, " and fled 

 into Lystra and Derbe." This happened at Iconium, prior 

 to the date of the epistle. Now, had the assault been com- 

 pleted — had the history related that a stone was thrown, as 

 it relates that preparations were made both by Jews and 

 Gentiles to stone Paul and his companions ; or even had the 

 account of this transaction stopped, without going on to in- 

 form us that Paul and his companions were " aware of their 

 danger and fled," a contradiction b^t^veen the history and 

 the epistle would have ensued. Truth^is necessarily con- 

 sistent ; but it is scarcely possible that mdependent accounts, 

 ttot having truth, to guide them, should thus advance to the 

 very brink of contradiction without falling into it. 



Secondly, I say, that if the Acts of the Apostles be silent 

 concerning many of the instances enumerated ia the epistle, 

 this silence may be accounted for from the plan and fabric 

 of the history. The date of the epistle synchronize? with 

 the beginning of the twentieth chapter of the Acts. The 

 part, therefore, of the history which precedes the twentieth 

 chapter, is the only part in which can be found any notice 

 of the persecutions to which St. Paul refers. Now it do-^s 



