FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSAL. NIAN S. 163 



apostle had met with a like species of persecution, in his 

 progress through the Lesser Asia : in every city " the unbe- 

 lieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds 

 evil-aflected against the brethren." Acts 14:2. The epis- 

 tle therefore represents the case accurately as the history 

 states it. It was the Jews always who set on foot the per- 

 eecutions against the apostles and their followers. He speaks 

 truly therefore of them, when he says in the epistle, they 

 " both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and 

 have 'persecuted us; forbidding us to speak unto the Gen- 

 tiles." Chap. 2 : 15, 16. But out of Judea it was at the 

 hands of the Gentiles, it was " of their own countrymen," 

 that the injuries they underwent w^ere immediately sustain- 

 ed : "Ye have suffered like things of your own countrymen, 

 even as they have of the Jews." 



VL The apparent discrepancies between our epistle and 

 the history, though of magnitude sufficient to repel the im- 

 putation of confederacy or transcription — in which view they 

 form a part of our argument — are neither numerous nor 

 very difficult to reconcile. 



One of these may be observed in the ninth and tenth 

 verses of the second chapter : "For ye remember, brethren, 

 our labor and travail : for laboring night and day, because 

 we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached 

 unto you the gospel of God. Ye are witnesses, and God 

 also, how holily, and justly, and unblamably we behaved 

 ourselves among you that believe." A person who reads 

 this passage is naturally led by it to suppose that the writer 

 had dwelt at Thessalonica for some considerable time ; yet 

 of St. Paul's ministry in that city the history gives no other 

 account than the following : that " he came to Thessalonica, 

 where was a synagogue of the Jews ;" that, " as his man- 

 ner was," he " went in unto them, and three Sabbath-days 

 reasoned with them out of the Scriptures ;" that "some ol 

 them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas." The 

 history then proceeds to tell us that the Jews which believ- 



