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CHAP. X.

THE STYLE AND GENIUS OF SAINT PAUL.

THOUGH Saint Paul frequently alludes to the variety of his sufferings, yet he never dwells upon them. He does not take advantage of the liberty so allowable in friendly letters, that of endeavouring to excite compassion by those minute details of distress, of which, but for their relation in the Acts of the Apostles, we should have been mainly ignorant.

How would any other writer than the Apostle have interwoven a full statement of his trials with his instructions, and how would he have indulged an egotism, not only so natural and so pardonable, but which has been so acceptable in those good men who have given us Histories of their own Life and Times ! That intermixture, however, which excites so lively an interest, and is so proper in Clarendon and Baxter, would have been misplaced here. It would have served to gratify curiosity, but might not seem to comport with the grave plan of instruction adopted by the Apostle; whilst it comes with admirable grace from Saint Luke, his companion in travel.

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Saint Paul's manner of writing will be found in every way worthy of the greatness of his subject. His powerful and diversified character of mind seems to have combined the separate excellencies of all the other sacred authors: the loftiness of Isaiah, the devotion of David, the pathos of Jeremiah, the vehemence of Ezekiel, the didactic gravity of Moses, the elevated morality and practical good sense, though much more highly coloured, of Saint James, the sublime conceptions and deep views of Saint John, the noble energies and burning zeal of Saint Peter. To all these he added his own strong argumentative powers, depth of thought, and intensity of feeling. In every single department he was eminently gifted; so that what Livy said of Cato might with far greater truth have been asserted of Saint Paul, that you would think him born for the single thing in which he was engaged.

We have observed, in an early chapter, that in the Evangelists the naked majesty of truth refused to owe any thing to the artifices of composition. In Saint Paul's Epistles, a due, though less strict, degree of simplicity is observed; differing in style from the other, as the comment from the text, a letter from a history; taking the same ground as to doctrine, devotion, and duty, yet branching out into a wider range, breaking the subject into more parts, and iving results instead of facts.

Though more at liberty, Saint Paul makes a sober use of his privilege: though never ambitious of ornament, his style is as much varied as his subject, and always adapted to it. He is by turns vehement and tender, and sometimes both at once; impassioned and didactic; now pursuing his point with a logical exactness, now disdaining the rules, of which he was a master; often making his noble neglect more impressive than the most correct arrangement, his irregularity more touching than the most lucid order. He is frequently abrupt, and sometimes obscure : his reasoning, though generally clear, is, as the best critics allow, sometimes involved, perhaps owing to the suddenness of his transitions, the rapidity of his ideas, the sensibility of his soul.

But complicated as his meaning may occasionally appear, all his complications are capable of being analysed into principles; so that from his most intricate trains of reasoning, the most unlearned reader may select an unconnected maxim of wisdom, a position of piety, an aphorism of virtue, easy from its brevity, intelligible from its clearness, and valuable from its weight.

An apparent, though not unpleasing, disconnection in his sentences is sometimes found to arise from the absence of the conjunctive parts of speech. He is so affluent in ideas, the images which crowd in upon him are so thick-set, that he could not stop their course while he might tie them together. This absence of the con

necting link, which in a meaner writer might have induced a want of perspicuity, adds energy and force to the expression of so spirited and clear-sighted a writer as our Apostle. In the sixth chapter of the second of Corinthians, there are six consecutive verses without one conjunction. Such a particle would have enfeebled the spirit, without clearing the sense. The variety which these verses, all making up but one period, exhibit, the mass of thought, the diversity of object, the impetuosity of march, make it impossible to read them without catching something of the fervour with which they are written. They seem to set the pulse in motion with a corresponding quickness; and without amplification, seem to expand the mind of the reader into all the immensity of space and time.

Nothing is diffused into weakness. If his conciseness may be thought, in a very few instances, to take something from his clearness, it is more than made up in force. Condensed as his thoughts are, the inexhaustible instruction that may be deduced from them proves of what expansion they are susceptible. His compression has an energy, his imagery a spirit, his diction an impetuosity, which art would in vain labour to mend. His straight-forward sense makes his way to the heart more surely than theirs who go out of their road for ornament. He never interrupts the race to pick up the golden bait.

Our Apostle, when he has not leisure for reflection himself, almost by imperceptible methods invites his reader to reflect. When he appears only to skim a subject, he will suggest ample food for long-dwelling meditation. Every sentence is pregnant with thought, is abundant in instruction. Witness the many thousands of sermons which have sprung from these comparatively few, but most prolific seeds. Thus, if he does not visibly pursue the march of eloquence by the critic's path, he never fails to attain its noblest ends. He is full without diffuseness, copious without redundance. His eloquence is not a smooth and flowing oil, which lubricates the surface, but a sharp instrument which makes a deep incision. It penetrates to the dissection of the inmost soul," to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

The numerous and long digressions often found, and sometimes complained of, in this great writer, never make him lose sight of the point from which he sets out, and the mark to which he is tending. From his most discursive flights he never fails to bring home some added strength to the truth with which he begins; and when he is longest on the wing, or loftiest in his ascent, he comes back to the subject, enriched with additional matter, and animated with redoubled vigour. This is particularly exempli

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