lAO HOR^ PAULINiE, 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS, 



I. There is a circumstance of conformity between St 

 Paul's history and his letters, especially those which were 

 written during his first imprisonment at Home, and more 

 especially the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians, which 

 being to'D close to be accounted for from accident, yet too in- 

 direct and latent to be imputed to design, cannot easily be 

 resolved into any other original than truth : which circum- 

 stance is this, that St. Paul in these epistles attributes his 

 imprisonment, not to bis preaching of Christianity, but to 

 his asserting the right of the Gentiles to be admitted into it 

 without conforming themselves to the Jewish law. This 

 was the doctrine to which he considered himself as a martyr. 

 Thus, in the epistle before us, chap. 1 : 24 : I Paul, "who 

 now rejoice m my sufferings for you" — ''for you,'' that is, 

 for those whom he had never seen ; for a few verses after- 

 wards he adds, " I would that ye knew what great conflict 

 I have for you, and for them in Laodicea, and for as many 

 as have not seen my face in the flesh." His suffering there- 

 fore for them was, in their general capacity of Gentile 

 Christians, agreeably to what he explicitly declares in his 

 epistle to the Ephesians, 3:1: "For this cause, I Paul, the 

 prisoner of Jesus Christ /or you Gentiles^ Again, in the 

 epistle now under consideration, 4:3: "Withal praying also 

 for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to 

 speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds." 

 What that "mystery of Christ" was, the epistle to the 

 Ephesians distinctly informs us : "Whereby, when ye read, 

 ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christy 

 which in other ages was not made known unto the sons ol 

 men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and 

 prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow- 

 heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his lyromisi 



