214 RORM PAULINA. 



And if it be true that we are in possession of the very 

 letters which St. Paul wrote, let us consider what confirma- 

 tion they afford to the Christian history. In my opinion 

 they substantiate the whole transaction. The great object 

 of modern research is to come at the epistolary correspond- 

 ence of the times. Amid the obscurities, the silence, or the 

 contradictions of history, if a letter can be found, we regard 

 it as the discovery of a landmark — as that by which we can 

 correct, adjust, or supply the imperfections and uncertainties 

 of other accounts. One cause of the superior credit which 

 is attributed to letters is this, that the facts which they dis- 

 ^lose generally come out incide^itally , and therefore without 

 design to mislead the public by false or exaggerated accounts. 

 This reason may be applied to St. Paul's epistles with as 

 much justice as to any letters whatever. Nothing could be 

 further from the intention of the writer than to record any 

 part of his history. That his history was in fact made 

 public by these letters, and has by the same means been 

 transmitted to future ages, is a secondary and unthought-oi 

 efTect. The sincerity, therefore, of the apostle's declarations 

 cannot reasonably be disputed ; at least, we are sure that it 

 was not vitiated by any desire of setting himself off to the 

 public at large. But these letters form a part of the muni- 

 ments of Christianity, as much to be valued for their contents 

 as for their originality. A more inestimable treasure the 

 care of antiquity could not have sent down to us. Besides 

 the proof they afibrd of the general reality of St. Paul's his- 

 tory, of the knowledge which the author of the Acts of the 

 A.postles had obtained of that history, and the consequent prob- 

 ability that he was, what he professes himself to have been, 

 a companion of the apostle's — besides the support they lend to 

 tliese important inferences, th<^y meet specially some of the 

 principal objections upon which the adversaries of Christian- 

 ity have thought proper to rely. In particular they show, 



I. That Christianity M^as not a stoiy set on foot amid the 

 confusions which attended and immediately preceded the 



