183

CHAP. VIII.

SAINT PAUL'S JUDGMENT IN HIS INTERCOURSE WITH THE PAGANS.

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 deeper was the anxiety which he expressed for the salvation of men, so much the more vehemently were they exasperated against him; the more merciful were his miracles, so much the faster did they accelerate his ignominious catastrophe. "Did not this "prove," says the eloquent Bossuet, "that not his words, but his Cross was

to bring all men to Him? Does it not

prove that the power of his persuasion "consisted in the shedding of his "blood ?" This he himself predictedAnd I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. Were it not for this reason, it would be astonishing to our shallow wisdom, that the Author of Christianity made so few proselytes to his own faith, and his apostles so many: that the disciple who denied Him 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!

;

If Saint Paul had declined visiting the learned and polished regions of Greece, it might have been produced against him, that he carefully avoided those cultivated cities where men were best able

to judge of the consistency of the Gospel doctrines with its precepts, and of the truth of those miracles by which its Divinity was confirmed. The Greeks might have urged it as an argument against Saint Paul's integrity, that he confined his preaching to the countries which they called barbarous, knowing that 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 examination great numbers "of men embraced the Gospel, who "were best qualified to judge of its "nature and evidences, their conversion "would render it indubitable in after "times, that the Gospel was supported

66

by those great and undeniable miracles

"which were performed in every coun "try by the preachers of Christianity; "so that no person might hereafter suspect that idolatry was destroyed and

66

66

Christianity established merely through "the simplicity and ignorance of the people among whom it was first preached."

86

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, under 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,

.

* Macknight on the Life of Saint Paul.

yet it is probable that he afterwards, for their fuller confirmation, would refer them.

There appears to have been a considerable difference between Saint Paul's reception among the Jewish and the Gentile populace. Among the former, the "common people who had heard "Jesus gladly," must have had their prejudices softened, and in many instances removed; even those, probably, who were not converted, had seen and heard of his miracles with astonishment. They were also witnesses of the wonderful effects produced by Saint Peter's sermon. Their minds were become so favourably disposed, that, after the miracle wrought by Peter and John *, the enraged council did not venture to punish them, "because of the people, for all "men glorified God for that which was "done."

A

Acts, iv.