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LECTURE V.

ROM. i. 5.

By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his

name.

AFTER the conversion of St. Paul to the faith which he had before opposed and persecuted, he began immediately to assert the Messiahship of Jesus, to the amazement and confusion of the Jews who dwelt at Damascus. They had expected to find in him an active and powerful ally; but when, contrary to their expectations, he preached Christ in their synagogues, they took counsel to kill him, and watched the gates of the city day and night.* Then, says the sacred historian, the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. This is written in the twenty-fifth verse of the ninth

* They watched them by means of the soldiers of Aretas, the king of Arabia, as St. Paul informs us in the eleventh chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.

chapter; and the twenty-sixth verse speaks of
Saul as being come to Jerusalem. But there
was an interval of three years, of which, although
St. Luke passes it over in silence, St. Paul
himself has given an account in his Epistle to
the Galatians: when it pleased God, who sepa-
rated me from my mother's womb, and called me
by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I
might preach him among the heathen; immedi-
ately I conferred not with flesh and blood;
neither went I up to Jerusalem, to them which
were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia,
and returned again unto Damascus.
Then after
three years I went up to Jerusalem, to see Peter;
and abode with him fifteen days: but other of
the apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's
brother.*

Upon his arrival at Jerusalem, the brethren were all afraid of him; and believed not that he was a disciple. His three years' seclusion in Arabia, during which time they had heard nothing of him, probably led them to disbelieve the reality of that conversion which had, no doubt, been reported to them at the time when it happened. But Barnabas, with whom Saul appears to have had some previous acquaintance,

*Gal. i. 15-19.

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took him, and brought him to the Apostles; that is, to Peter and James, whom alone, he declares, that he then saw; as being probably the only Apostles at that time in Jerusalem. And there, while he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians, (that is, the Jews who were natives of Grecian cities, as St. Paul himself was, and who usually spoke the Greek language,) they went about to slay him: but being rescued by the brethren, he was safely conveyed to Cesarea, and thence to Tarsus, his native city. And there also we may suppose him to have executed the office of an Apostle, in preaching the Gospel to his own immediate countrymen; for in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts, the Apostles are said to have written to the brethren which were of the Gentiles in Cilicia; and Paul is described as going through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the Churches, which had before been founded there. But he preached the Gospel at that time to the Jews, and not to the Gentile inhabitants of Asia; for it was reserved to another Apostle, to open a door of admission into the Church of Christ, to those who were not the seed of Abraham, nor the children of promise. + Acts xv. 23, 41.

*Acts ix. 27.

The part which was assigned to St. Peter, in the great work of planting the Gospel in the world, deserves to be distinctly considered. His portrait stands conspicuously forward with that of St. Paul, in the narrative of St. Luke: but it is also very prominent in the history of our Saviour's ministry.

Peter was the first disciple of our Lord who expressed a sense of his own sinfulness, and, at the first bidding of Jesus, forsook all and followed him. In his house Jesus resided at Capernaum: for him he paid the tribute money. Both St. Matthew and St. Mark assign to him the post of honour among his brethren; Now the names of the twelve Apostles are these; the first, Simon, who is called Peter.* The angel said to the women, at the sepulchre, Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter. It was he, who on all occasions was the foremost to testify his faith and affection. None of the Apostles, but Peter, ventured to quit the ship and walk upon the sea: and, lastly, it was Peter, who first professed a belief, not only in the Messiahship, but in the divine nature of Christ. When our Lord, having heard from his Apostles the various opinions which the Jews entertained respecting + Mark xvi. 7.

* Matt. x. 2.

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himself, put to them the question, But whom say ye that I am? no one seems to have been prepared with an answer but Peter. He replied--and very remarkable are his words---Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.* For that revelation of the vital, but mysterious doctrine of the Gospel, Peter was qualified by his distinguishing peculiarities of disposition, which attracted the special notice and regard of his blessed Lord; a more zealous warmth of attachment, a more lively faith, a more fearless courage, than seem to have been possessed by his brethren. We find him generally mentioned by the Evangelists in company with John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

These two were

and in the gar

present at the transfiguration, den at Gethsemane: they were sent to prepare the last paschal supper:§ they followed their Master, when arrested, to the palace of the High Priest: they went together to the sepulchre ;¶ and, in the history of the Acts, these two went

* Matt. xvi. 16, 17. Comp. John vi. 69. + Matt. xvii. 2.

Matt. xxvi. 37.
John xviii. 15.

§ Luke xxii. 8.
¶ John xx. 3.

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