learnt from the same example in the domes- Ignorance and prejudice respecting relitic walks of life. If pious young persons do gion can never be fairly pleaded in excuse not patiently bear with any averseness in a by minds cultivated by diligent inquiry on parent or a friend from that serious spirit other subjects. Paul, indeed, says, that, which they themselves have been happily though a persecutor, he obtained mercy, bebrought to entertain; moroseness and ill-cause he did it ignorantly. The apology humoured opposition will not only increase from him is valid, for he does not offer the the distaste, instead of recommending a reli- plea for ignorance and prejudice, till he was gion, of which their own temper affords so cured of both. His sincerity appears in his unamiable and so unfair a specimen. abandoning his error, his humility in confessing it. Our spiritual strength is increas This remembrance left a compassionate feeling for the errors of others on the impressible heart of Saint Paul. Perhaps in his early mad career against the Church of Christ, he might be permitted to carry it to such lengths, to afford a proof that Omnipotence can subdue even prejudice! It was the same discretion which led Paul at one time to confer on Timothy* the ini-ed by the retrospection of our former faults. tiatory rite of the Jewish church, because his mother was of Jewish extraction; and at another, induced him to forbid Titus undergoing the same ceremony, because his origin was Pagan. The one was allowed, to avoid doing violence to Jewish prejudices; the other prohibited, lest the Gentile convert should be taught to place his dependance on any thing but the Saviour. He inflexibly resisted granting this introductory rite to Pagan converts. Though this union of candour with firmness is a very exemplary part of his character, it has not escaped the charge of inconsistency. But he thought it was acting in a more Christian spirit, to continue, in different instances, his conformity to ancient usages; than by a violent opposition to mere forms, to irritate persons, some of whom conscientiously persevered in them. It is a melancholy feature in the character of the human mind, that Saint Paul met with less mercy from his brethren, among whom he had been bred, and whose religion approached so much nearer to that which he had adopted, than from the higher class of the Pagans, who stood at the farthest possible distance from it. Caiaphas, Ananias, Tertullus, and the whole Sanhedrim, were far more violent than Lysias, Felix, Festus, Gallio, the town-clerk of Ephesus, or the rulers of Thessalonica. Perhaps no quality has been more fatal to Even on that awful occasion, when prejuthe interests of Christianity than prejudice. dice did its worst, the Roman judge who conIt is the moral cataract of the human mind demned the Saviour of the world, was more In vain the meridian sun of Truth darts his candid than the High Priest, who delivered full beams. The mental eye is impervious him up. While the Jews cried, Crucify! to the strongest ray. When religion is to be the Governor declared he found no fault in assailed, prejudice knows how to blend an- him' and, but for the suppleness and venaltipathies. It leagued those mutual enemies ity of his character, would have protected Herod and Pontius Pilate in one common the life which he sacrificed to Jewish bigotcause. It led the Jews to prefer the robber ry While Pilate deliberated, Caiaphas cut to the Saviour. Though they abhorred the the matter short on the plea of expediency* Roman yoke, yet rather than Jesus shall es--it is expedient that one man should die cape, they will have no king but Cæsar.' for the people.' In this High Priest the docAt Jerusalem it had united the bigot Phari trine found a patron worthy of itself. see and the infidel Sadducee against Paul. There was in the Divine Sufferer a veiled till his declaration that he was of the former majesty; there was a mysterious grandeur class, by exciting a party-spirit, suspended, thrown round his character; there were but did not extinguish their fury. At Athens glimpses of glory breaking through the obit combined, in one joint opposition, two scurity in which he was shrouded, which exsects, the most discordant in sentiment and cited a curiosity not unmingled with fear in practice. When truth was to he attacked, the great ones of the earth. It was a grand the rigid Stoic could unite with the voluptu-illustration of that solemn indistinctness ous Epicurean. ་ which is said to be one cause of the sublime. Both Herod and Pilate were surprised into something like an involuntary respect, mixed with a vague apprehension of they knew not what. Prejudice had not only blinded the understanding of the Jews, so as to prevent their receiving the truth, but led them to violate it, by asserting a glaring falsehood. When our Lord told them that if they would But to return from this too long digresknow the truth the truth would make them sion, for which the only apology that can be free' as they had no idea of spiritual free- offered is, that the uniform temper and condom, so of civil liberty they had nothing to duct of Saint Paul with the Jews was emiboast. But, exasperated at any offer of denently calculated to parry every objection liverance, because it implied subjugation, that had any show of reason, and to remove they indignantly replied, we were never in every prejudice which was not invincibondage to any man,' though it was notori- ble. ous that they had been bond-slaves in Egypt, captives in Babylon, and were, at the very moment of this proud boast, tributary to the Romans. In the case of Paul, Agrippa appears to have been the only Jew in authority who ever manifested any show of candour towards him. Even the offended Athenians were so *John, xviii, 14. THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. 255 far affected with his discourse, as to betray accomplishment; and, to leave them with- ground on which to stand, no references to Though the Gentiles were ready to oppose principles, he had with them no middle way to Saint Paul wherever he came, we do not find take. He could not improve upon polytheAs they were little acquainted with first that they pursued him with hostility from ism; there was no such thing as mending one city to another, as the Jews of Thessa-idolatry; it was not a building to be relonica did, in following him to Berea, to excite a persecution against him The temper to which allusion has been made, is not, it is to be feared, quite extinct. Are there not, at this favoured period of light and knowledge, some Christians by profession, who manifest more hostility towards those who are labouring to procure instruction for the Hindoos, than towards Hindooism itself? Are not shades of our own colour looked at with a more jealous eye, than a col our of the most opposite character and is not the remark too nearly founded in experience; that approximation rather inflames than cools; that nearness aggravates because it is not identity? If, like the apostle, a man is impelled by his conscience to act against the opinion of those with whom he desires to live well; to obey the impulse, as it is a severe trial of his feelings, so it is a surer test of his integrity, than to expose himself to the censure of his enemies; of their hostility he was assured before; he is, in the other case, risking the loss of his friends. Saint Paul's prudence, under the Divine direction, led him to adopt very different measures in his intercourse with the Jews and with the Gentiles; measures suggested by the different condition of the two classes, both in their civil and religious circumstances. To the one, the very name of Messiah was unknown; of the other, he was both the glory and the shame. in whom they fully believed, they were to To the one true God add the reception of Jesus Christ. came to his own,' but his own, so far from He receiving, crucified him. this event, Paul laboured to convince them, Subsequently to that this was the Saviour promised, first by God himself, then by a long and unbroken succession of the very prophets whom they professed to venerate. ries, therefore, he had substantial grounds on With these adversawhich to expostulate; analogies, from which to argue; promises, which they believed; predictions, of which they had expected the paired; it must be demolished; no materials the construction of the everlasting edifice; the rubbish must be rolled away. A clear were to be picked out from its ruins towards stage must be left for the new order of things; with this order it had no compatibilities; old things were past away, all things must become new. absorb the faint, but not false, lights of Judaism, was utterly to dispel the darkness of The Sun of Righteousness which was to Paganism. (most of whom thought that they could not all blessed for ever, which had been long ministry, a cordial kindness for his breth- * Bishop Butler. CHAP. VIII. Saint Paul's Judgment in his intercourse with the Pagans. der an eminent Jewish doctor, would have been so competent to produce, before both Jews and Gentiles, proofs that the miracles, sufferings, and death of Jesus happened in exact conformity to the predictions of those prophets of whom the Jews had perfect knowledge, and to whom, though the Gentiles previously knew them not, yet it is propable that be afterwards, for their fuller confirmation, would refer them. Ir is among the mysteries of Christianity, that the preaching of Jesus made so few converts, and his death so many. The more affecting were his discourses, the stronger was the indignation they excited; the deep er was the anxiety which he expressed or There appears to have been a considerable the salvation of men, so much the more ve difference between Saint Paul's reception hemently were they exasperated against among the Jewish and the Gentile populace. him; the more merciful were his miracles, Among the former, the common people, so much the faster did they accelerate his who had heard Jesus gladly,' must have had ignominious catastrophe. Did not this their prejudices softened, and in many inprove,' says the eloquent Bossuet, that not stances removed; even those, probably, his words, but his Cross was to bring all men who were not converted, had seen and heard to Him? Does it not prove that the power of his miracles with astonishment. They of his persuasion consisted in the shedding were also witnesses of the wonderful effects of his blood? This he himself predicted--produced by Saint Peter's sermon. Their And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men minds were become so favourably disposed, unto me.' Were it not for this reason, it that, after the miracle wrought by Peter and would be astonishing to our shallow wisdom, John,* the enraged council did not venture that the Author of Christianity made so few to punish them, because of the people, for proselytes to his own faith and his apostles all men glorified God for that which was so many. That the disciple who denied him done." should, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, awaken, by a single sermon, the consciences of three thousand auditors; and that the persecutor, who reviled Him, should become, under the influence of the same Divine Spirit, the mighty instrument of the conversion of the Pagan world. founded on their ignorance of the true religion of Judaism, and that again had prevented any inquiry into their opinions. From the prejudiced pen of Tacitus, and the sarcastic muse of Juvenal, we see the disdain in which they were held. The great writers, only less culpable than modern infidels, like them collected a string of misrepresentations, and then turned into ridicule the system of their own invention. While the Heathen governors seem, in their transactions with Saint Paul, less intolerant than the Jewish Sanherdim, the Heathen multitude appear to have been more furious than the Jewish. The Jewish leaders had a personal hatred to Christ; the Gentile community bad a national hatred to the If Saint Paul had declined visiting the Jews. If a party among the Jews detested learned and polished regions of Greece, it the Christians, the Pagans as a body despised might have been produced against him, that the Jews, whilst they would consider Chrishe carefully avoided those cultivated cities tianity but as a new modification of an anwhere men were best able to judge of the tiquated and degrading superstition, made consistency of the Gospel doctrines with its worse by the offensive addition of certain precepts, and of the truth of those miracles tenets, still more unphilosophical and incredby which its Divinity was confirmed. The ible than were taught under the old dispenGreeks might have urged it as an argument sation. The contempt of the Gentiles was against Paul's integrity, that he confined his preaching to the countries which they called barbarous, knowing they would be less acute in discovering inconsistencies, and more easily imposed upon by impostures which men of liberal education would have immediately detected His visiting every city famous for literature, science, and philosophy, would also be a complete refutation of any such charge in after ages. Because,' says a judicious commentator, if upon an accurate ixamination, great numbers of men embraced the Gospel, who were best qualified to judge of its nature and evidences, their con version would render it in 'ubitable in after times, that the Gospel was supported by those great and undeniable miracles which were performed in every country by the preachers of Christianity; so that no person might hereafter suspect that idolatry was destroyed and Christianity established merely through the simplicity and ignorance of the people among whom it was first preached." Saint Paul was with more propriety selected to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, than if he had been of Gentile extraction; none but a teacher, educated as he had been, un Marknight on the Life of Saint Paul' The philosophers, who disagree each with the other, all join in the contemning more especially one doctrine of Christianity, which every sect alike conceived to be the most inconsistent with their own tenets, and the most contradictary to general philosophi cal principles, the resurrection of the body, which they contemptuously called the hope of worms. The Pagan magistrates looked with a jealous eye upon all innovators; not indeed so much from an aversion to any novelty of religious opinion, (for to this they were so indifferent as to make little objection to any mode of worship which did not seek to subvert their own;) but, through the machinations of the mercenary priests, who, fearful *Acts, chap. 4 THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. 257 of any invasion of their corrupt establish- sible to God. Even at Paphos, where the ment, any detection of their frauds, any dis- most impure worship was offered to the most, closure of their mysteries, any danger of their impure deity, he made a most important conaltars, their auguries, their profitable oracles, vert in the Proconsul himself.* This wise and, above all, any abridgment of their po- governor holds out an example to men in litical influence; excited the civil governors high public stations; he suffered not himself against Paul by the stale artifice of insinua- to be influenced by report, or duped by misting that his designs were hostile to the state. representation; he would hear with his own The artisans who enriched themselves by ears the word of God' which Paul preached, the occupation of making the symbols of and see with his own eyes the miracle which idolatry, found that, by the contempt into confirmed it. which their deities were likely to be brought, their craft would not only be endangered, but destroyed. This conviction, more perhaps than any zeal for their own religion, served to influence them also against that of Saint Paul. liked the easy and pleasant way of appeasAnd finally the populace, who ing their divinities by shows and pageants, and ceremonies, and lustral days, were unwilling to lose their holydays, and all the decorations and pleasures which distinguished them, and did not care to exchange this gay and amusing religion for the spiritual, sober, and unostentatious worship of the Christians. ་ ces his great commission to the Gentiles in the most dignified and masterly manner, reIn his preaching at Antioch, he introduferring the Jewish auditors to the striking passages of their national history; to the testation of the Baptist; to Christ's death prophecies and their fullment: to the atand resurrection. He ends with a most awful peroration; Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish; and then, with a measured sternness which nothing could shake, he makes the disclosure of that grand scheme, of Almighty Goodness, the scheme of proclaiming to the Gentiles that Gospel which There was therefore no disposition in any ed, so contumeliously rejected. How strikclass of society to receive the doctrines of ing the contrast of manner in which these the chosen people to whom it had been offerthe Gospel, or to forgive the intrusion of its words of the apostle were received by the teachers. had to open his own commission to audiences nity, the contradictions and blasphemies of Paul, unsupported, unfriended, two classes of hearers !-the envy and maligbacked by multitudes, protected by power, the Jews; the joyful gratitude with which patronized by learning, countenanced by the the heathen 'glorified the word of the Lord,' national priesthood. It was a far more une- at the annunciation of a blessing so vast and qual contest than that of David and Goliath; so unexpected! for, besides the people, he had to combat with the giants of Areopagus. But greater was He that was for him, than they who were against him. short, plain, and simple, yet passionate and energetic: so plain, as to be not only underTo the people of Lystra his address is Had he not been an adept in the knowl- so powerful, that when aided by a miracle of edge of human nature, how could there have mercy, which he wrought before them, he stood, but felt by the meanest auditor; yet been, in his diversified discourses, such an scarcely restrained them from offering him adaptation to the moral wants of men? His divine honours. His appearance before Fesuperiority in this respect appears not only lix having been more largely detailed by the in his general knowledge of man in the ab- sacred historian, we may well be allowed a stract, but in his acquaintance with life and more particular consideration of it. Heamanners, in what we call knowledge of the then historians represent Felix as having, by world; in his scrupulous observance of time every kind of misconduct, excited disturbanand place, in his admirable judgment in so ces in Judea, and by exactions and oppresakilfully accommodating his discourses to the sions obtained the contempt of his subjects, condition, character, and circumstances of to whom he had occasioned great calamities; the persons whom he addressed. To some his mal-administration, but for the intervenhe applied as to decided enernies to Christianity; to others as utterly unacquainted with its nature, and ignorant of its design, but not averse from inquiring into its truth. He always carefully distinguished between the errors of the followers of religion and the sins of her adversaries. To some he addressed himself as awakened, to others, as enlightened, to many as sincere, but to none as perfect. The various powers of his opulent mind he exercised with a wise appropriation to the genius of those whom he addressed. With the Jews 'he reasoned;' with the Athenian controvertists he disputed ;' at Ephesus he boldly disputed and persuaded.' The apostle's zeal was never cooled by the improbability of success. what seemed hopeless to men was not imposHe knew that VOL. II. 34 tion of the governor of Syria, would have kin- Let us now contrast the different conduct * Sergius Paulus. 258 THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. 'the worthy deeds' done by him,-but even we incidentally discover a singular instance exalting him into a sort of deity, by whose of his discretion in avoiding to excite unneprovidence their prosperity was procured. cessary irritation. He found in the EpheThen, in the usual strain of artful and disin- sians a strong devotion to one particular genuous adulation, having already exceeded idol; yet it is intimated, in a candid speech all bounds of decency, he finishes his harangue of their chief magistrate, that he had neither We may, therefore, faned their temples. by hypocritically expressing his fears that reviled their great goddess, Diana, nor propraise might be tedious to him.' After the affected declamation of this rhet-fairly presume that he contented himself orical parasite, how are we refreshed with with preaching against idolatry in general, the wise, temperate, and simple defence of instead of endeavouring to excite the popuInstead of loading Tertullus lar indignation by inveighing against the lo the apostle! with reproaches for the infamous charges of cal idol.* heresy and sedition brought against himself, he maintains a dignified silence till the governor beckoned to him to speak.' He then enters upon his vindication without a single invective against his accusers, and what is still more honourable to his own character, without a single compliment to his judge, though well aware that his liberty, and even his life, were in his hands. Unjust as Felix was, the charges against Paul were too fla grantly false to mislead him, and the noble simplicity of the prisoner's defence carried in it something so convincing to the understanding of the judge, that he durst not act upon the allegations of the accuser, nor condemn the innocent. . It is not the meanest of the triumphs of incipient Christianity, that at this place the professors of forbidden arts brought out their costly professional books, the registers of their unlawful mysteries, and burnt them, giving a striking proof of the sincerity of their conversion, by thus putting it out of their power to repeat their impious incantations; their destroying them in the presence of the people, was a triple sacrifice of their prejudices, their credit, and their profit. What an example have they left to those who, though professing Christianity, give birth, or afford encouragement, to profane or ent character from those of the Ephesian profligate books, which, though of a differsorcerers, possess a magic power over the mind of the reader, not less pernicious in itself, and far more extensive in its influ Saint Paul's good sense, and may we be permitted to say, his good taste-qualities we could rather wish than expect to see always brought to the service of religion,--were eminently displayed in his examination at Cesarea. While his pleading before the royal audience, and other persons of dignity and station, exhibits a fine specimen of wisAt once, his docdom and good breeding, it exhibits it without the smallest sacrifice of principle, or the least abatement of truth. trines are scriptural, and his language is classical. On this occasion, as upon all others, conscious dignity is mingled with politenes; an air, carrying with it the authori ty of truth, with the gentleness of Christianity, pervades all he says and does. At a subsequent meeting, Paul seemed more intent to alarm the conscience of the governor, than he had previously been to assert his own integrity. Felix, ever present-ence.t ing us with the idea of a bad mind, ill at ease with itself, sends for Paul, and desires to hear him concerning the faith of Christ.' Charmed, no doubt, with the occasion given him, Paul uses it wisely. He does not embark on topics irrelevant to the immediate case of his auditors, nor by personal reproof does he expose himself to the charge of contumacy. He never loses sight of the respect due to the judge's office, but still, as he knew the venality and profligacy with which he administered that office, together with the licentious character of his wife, who was present, he reasoned, not declaimed; he reasoned' on the virtues in which he knew they were so shamefully deficient-righteousness and temperance; and then, doubtless with the dignity of one who was himself to 'judge angels, closed his discourse with referring these notorious violaters of both duties to the judgment to come. This admirable conduct has extorted, even from that eloquent rhapsodist, the sceptical sion, how handsomely Paul accommodates author of the Characteristics,' a confesthose polite people, the witty Athenians, and The result of this discourse is the best ev- himself to the apprehension and temper of The the Roman court of judicature, in the preidence of the power of his reasonings. Conscience-struck, Felix trembled. judge dissolved the court, dismissed the pris- sence of their great men and ladies.' At this oner, withheld the sentence, deferred the last-named memorable audience, with what further trial to an indefinite time,-which admirable temper does he preserve his rever* Acts, 19. time he contrived should never arrive,-till ence for constituted authorities, while he both were cited to appear together before the mighty Judge of quick and dead. Paul throughout maintains his character, and Felix adds one to the numberless instances in which strong convictions not being followed up, only serve to enhance guilt and aggra vate condemnation. To the inhabitants of Ephesus, his reasoning and his persuasive powers are alternateIn his conduct in this place ly exercised. When the French revolution had brought to light the fatal consequences of some of Voltaire's writings, some half-scrupulous persons, no longer their library, sold them at a low price. This meawilling to afford his fourscore volumes a place in sure, though it stayed the plague' in their own houses, caused the infection to spread wider. The Ephesian magicians made no such compromise; they burnt theirs. Lord Shaftesbury |