has thought him worthy to be a minister of the New Covenant, the spirit of which (iii. 6) he contrasts with the literal outwardness of the Law of Moses.

Ch. iv. 1. He describes the spirit of his ministry, and (ver. 7) contrasts with its dignity and value the feebleness of the "earthen vessels" to which it is committed, and the sufferings of an apostle's life. 15. All is for the sake of others; and while the outward man perishes, the inward is renewed continually,-temporary trials leading to eternal blessedness.

Ch. v. 1. For when the earthly tent shall be taken down, there will be a mansion of God's own building prepared in the heavens; and he feels that, while he is at home in the body, he is absent from the Lord, and labours, therefore, whether present or absent, to be accepted of him.* 11. This sense of responsibility gives earnestness to his efforts; and though some call him mad, others will understand the deep sobriety of his conduct, as inspired by duty to God for the sake of his fellowmen. The love of Christ constrains him to judge, that if one died for all, his death was their death,† and the living were to live henceforth no more to themselves, but to Christ. 16. Therefore he knows no carnal distinctions between Jew and Gentile; for Christ, whom he once viewed through such a medium, is no longer seen by him as Saviour of the Jews alone: Christians are a new creation; God is reconciling the whole world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and this message of reconciliation is committed to Paul's hands among others. Hence his affectionate urgency (vi. 2): "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."

Ch. vi. 3. He alludes again to his own trials and sufferings (11), opening his mouth and heart to them, and inviting their confidence in return; and then (14) renews the injunctions of his former letter, to keep free from all participation in heathen vices.

* If I mistake not, the lately definite expectation of the apostle, that the day of Christ would be visible and external, and that he should live to see it, is fast giving place in his mind, when he writes this passage, to the simpler expectation of a spiritual life immortal. † Conybeare and Howson, II. 104,

Ch. vii. 2. He recurs to the state of anxious feeling respecting them in which he had come to Macedonia, and the comfort and joy which he had derived from the report of Titus. 8. Still, he does not regret having written that painful letter to them. It has led them to repentance; and he can now altogether confide in them.

Chs. viii. and ix. are devoted to the subject of the collection for the poor Christians in Judea. He mentions what is doing in Macedonia among brethren comparatively poor themselves, and begs the Corinthians to complete what they had begun a year ago, as alluded to in his previous letter. 6. Titus will revisit them to superintend the completion, as he had done the beginning, of this good work, and two well-approved brethren will accompany him.* An earnest and affectionate exhortation to liberality follows; the blessings of cheerful giving are upon both giver and receiver; and are not temporal only, but spiritual, drawing forth gratitude to God and love to man.

Ch. x. 1. The tone of the Epistle changes at this point from gentleness and kindness to a sternness bordering upon severity and mixed with threatening, which requires us to regard it as no longer referring to the members of the Corinthian church in general, but to those Jewish disturbers of its harmony, whose machinations, though defeated, were not relinquished, and might yet become troublesome. We find, from this part of the letter, that St. Paul's detractors had descended so low as to disparage his personal appearance. He begins the subject by intreating them not to make it necessary for him to shew his bold reliance upon his own authority, against some who would measure him by a carnal standard. When the obedience of the church in general is complete, he will still be ready to punish any who are disobedient. 7. If any one thinks he is Christ's, Paul has a better right to boast of being so; and, in a delicate hypothetical way (with frequent apology and deprecation of any really boastful thought), he glances at his own apostolic endowments and claims. Ch. xi. 21. Hebrew birth

The brother in ver. 18 is generally believed to be Luke; and the other in ver. 22 is variously supposed to be Gaius, Tychicus or Trophimus, mentioned in Acts xx. 4,

and privileges were his as much as any one's. In the service of Christ, he was more abundant in toil and danger* than any of his detractors. Ch. xii. 1. Then, coming to visions and revelations of the Lord, he says he knows a man in Christ who sixteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body, he cannot tell) had been caught up into Paradise, and heard things beyond his power to declare. He adds, resuming the first person: "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh,† a messenger of Satan, to buffet me." 11. They have compelled this glorying, which seems to himself foolish. He appeals with stern seriousness to his past course among them,

* He enumerates several things unrecorded in the history:-five scourgings by the Jews, three Roman beatings (of which we read one in Acts xvi. 22), and three shipwrecks, none of which are noted in the history, for that at Malta was yet to come.

+ The bodily infirmity thus confessed by Paul, and meanly thrown against him by the taunts of others, is not sufficiently defined on either hand to enable us to know what it really was. He himself merely calls it a "thorn in his flesh." But he also says (1 Cor. ii. 3) that, when he first preached at Corinth, he was with them "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." And to the Galatians (iv. 13, 14), he speaks of having preached to them amid "infirmity of the flesh," by which some sort of bodily infirmity must certainly have been meant. His opponents and detractors seem to have said of him, that he was "in personal presence lowly among them, but when absent bold towards them" (2 Cor. x. 1); and, more pointedly, that "his letters are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible" (x. 10). Some of the old fathers thought the thorn in his flesh was headache, or some complaint of the head and eyes. Some tell us that he was a man of low stature, with mean aspect of body, a bald head, and an impediment in his speech. Some kind of paralytic affection has been imagined by others, which made writing difficult to him, and would account for his employing a scribe. Extreme shortsightedness is another conjecture. Mere conjectures all of them! Yet the want of a commanding presence, and the accompaniment of any kind of impediment or defective articulation, would account for all that his opponents said of him; while nothing of this kind can be supposed to have existed beyond a slight degree, if the records of his public speeches and their effect upon the audiences are borne in mind. Perhaps we should not be wrong in supposing special ill-health during the time included in the Corinthian and Galatian visits.

when he had shewn all the signs of an apostle, but abstained from burdening their generosity for his personal support. ("Forgive me this wrong!") 19. Again he earnestly urges that any who have not already repented of their heathenish sins, will do so before he comes; for he will be grieved indeed to have to shew his authority and power in punishment. He would be glad to be weak in this respect, through their being strong in virtue; "and this also we wish, even your perfection.' Ch. xiii. 11. Salutations and benediction conclude the letter.

EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
(A.D. 57?)

THE apostle Paul visited Galatia both on his second. and third journeys (pp. 376 and 381, and Acts xvi. 6, xviii. 23); but of his labours in that province, the historian of the Acts has preserved no details whatever. The chief towns of Galatia were Ancyra, Tavium and Pessi

nus.

It is not quite certain when and where the Epistle to the Galatians was written; but the most probable opinion makes its date to have been Corinth, A.D. 57, to which place Paul was on his way (in his third missionary journey) when he wrote the letter (2 Cor.) last analyzed. Dr. Lardner, indeed, places the Galatian letter much earlier, and supposes it to have been written from Ephesus or Corinth, A. D. 52 or 53, on Paul's second journey, and very shortly after his first visit to Galatia; while the common postscript quite erroneously makes it to have been written from Rome some years later.

Taking it as written from Corinth, A.D. 57, we suppose the apostle to have heard, on his arrival there, the unsatisfactory tidings that the Galatian churches had fallen under the influence of Judaizing teachers, who

insisted upon the necessity of circumcision, and, like similar teachers at Corinth, disparaged the authority of St. Paul. These tidings might meet him at Corinth direct from Ephesus, between which places the mercantile communication was constant. The letter to the Galatians is instantly written by him and despatched. It bears all the marks of earnest urgency. Paul seems to have written it with his own hand throughout (contrary to his usual practice), as he points their attention to this fact as shewn in the large writing (vi. 11).* This was either a sign of haste that could not wait for an amanuensis, or of affectionate earnestness which would write personally at whatever effort.

The letter is intirely devoted to the great question of the obligation of the Mosaic law upon Gentiles,-a doctrine which Paul indignantly repudiates and disproves by the clearest arguments. He had already repudiated the idea in his letters to the Corinthians; but here he argues the question thoroughly, as thoroughly, perhaps, though not so much at length, as afterwards in the epistle to the Romans, of which, indeed, this letter to the Galatians may be considered the germ.

In attempting an abstract of this most lively epistle, I shall generally keep its personal forms of address, as the only way of retaining any of its fire and force.

ABSTRACT OF THE EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

Ch. i. 1. The salutation includes "all the brethren who are with me" (probably some of those who are mentioned by name in Acts xx. 4, as returning with Paul from Achaia into Asia after this visit to Corinth). The apostle asserts, at the outset, his divine call to the ministry of Christ: "Paul, an apostle,—

πnλíкоis yрáμμaov: not "how large a letter" (it is rather a short one, in fact), but in what large letters.