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.you and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me, the brethren which came from Macedonia -supplied." The principal fact set forth in this passage, the arrival at Corinth of brethren from Macedonia during St. Paul's first residence in that city, is explicitly recorded, Acts, chap. xviii. 1. 5. "After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth. And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ."

No. VII.

The above quotation from the Acts proves, that Silas and Timotheus were assisting to St. Paul in preaching the gospel at Corinth. With which correspond the words of the epistle (chap. i. 19.): "For the son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea." I do admit that the correspondency, considered by itself, is too direct and obvious: and that an impostor with the history before him might, and probably would, produce agreements of the same kind.

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But let it be remembered, that this reference is found in a writing, which from many discrepancies, and especially from those.noted No. II., we may conclude, was not composed by any one who had consulted, and who pursued the history. Some observation also arises upon the variation of the name. read Silas in the Acts, Silvanus in the epistle. The similitude of these two names, if they were the names of different persons, is greater than could easily have proceeded from accident: I mean that it is not probable, that two persons placed in situations so much alike, should bear, names. so nearly resembling each other*. On the other hand, the difference of the name in the two passages negatives the supposition of the passages, or the account contained in them, being transcribed either from the other.

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No. VIII.

Chap. ii. 12, 13. "When I came to Troas to preach Christ's Gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no

* That they were the same person is farther confirmed by 1 Thess. chap. i. 1, compared with Acts, chap. xvii. 10.

rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia."

To establish a conformity between this passage and the history, nothing more is ne cessary to be presumed, than that St. Paul proceeded from Ephesus to Macedonia, upon the same course by which he came back from Macedonia to Ephesus, or rather to Miletus in the neighbourhood of Ephesus; in other words, that, in his journey to the peninsula of Greece, he went and returned the same way.. St. Paul is now in Macedonia, where he had lately arrived from Ephesus. Our quotation imports that in his journey he had stopped at Troas. Of this, the history says nothing, leaving us only the short account, that "Paul departed from Ephesus, for to go into Macedonia." But the history says, that in his return from Macedonia to Ephesus, "Paul sailed from Philippi to Troas; and that, when the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread, Paul preached unto them all night; that from Troas he went by land to Assos; from Assos, taking ship and coasting along the front of Asia Minor, he came by Mitylene to Miletus."

Which account proves, first, that Troas lay in the way by which St. Paul passed between Ephesus and Macedonia; secondly, that he had disciples there. In one journey between these two places, the epistle, and in another journey between the same places, the history makes him stop at this city. Of the first journey he is made to say, "that a door was in that city opened unto him of the Lord;" in the second we find disciples there collected around him, and the apostle exercising his ministry, with, what was even in him, more than ordinary zeal and labour. The epistle, therefore, is in this instance confirmed, if not by the terms, at least by the probability of the history; a species of confirmation by no means to be despised, because, as far as it reaches, it is evidently uncontrived.

Grotius, I know, refers the arrival at Troas, to which the epistle alludes, to a different period, but I think very improbably ; for nothing appears to me more certain, than that the meeting with Titus, which St. Paul expected at Troas, was the same meeting which took place in Macedonia, viz. upon Titus's coming out of Greece. In the quotation before us, he tells the Corinthians, "When I came to Troas, I had no rest in my

spirit, because I found not Titus, my bro ther; but, taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia." Then in the seventh chapter he writes, "When we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears; nevertheless God, that comforteth them that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus." These two passages plainly relate to the same journey of Titus, in meeting with whom St. Paul had been disappointed at Troas, and rejoiced in Macedonia. And amongst other reasons which fix the former passage to the coming of Titus out of Greece, is the consideration, that it was nothing to the Corinthians that St. Paul did not meet with Titus at Troas, were it not that he was to bring intel ligence from Corinth. The mention of the disappointment in this place, upon any other supposition, is irrelative.

No. IX.

Chap. xi. 24, 25. "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I have been in the deep."

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