much before that time, he could not have said so; for, upon his former journey to Macedonia, his route is laid down from the time of his landing at Philippi to his sailing from Corinth. We trace him from Philippi to Amphipolis and Apollonia; from thence to Thessalonica; from Thessalonica to Berea; from Berea to Athens; and from Athens to Corinth which track confines him to the eastern side of the peninsula, and therefore keeps him all the while at a considerable distance from Illyricum. Upon his second visit to Macedonia, the history, we have seen, leaves him at liberty. It must have been, therefore, upon that second visit, if at all, that he approached Illyricum; and this visit, we know, almost immediately preceded the writing of the epistle. It was natural that the apostle should refer to a journey which was fresh in his thoughts.

Chap. xv. 30.

No. V.

"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for

me, that I may be delivered from them that do not believe, in Judæa."-With this compare Acts, xx. 22, 23.:

"And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me."

Let it be remarked that it is the same journey to Jerusalem which is spoken of in these two passages; that the epistle was written immediately before St. Paul set forwards upon this journey from Achaia; that the words in the Acts were uttered by him when he had proceeded in that journey as far as Miletus, in Lesser Asia. This being remembered, I observe that the two passages without any resemblance between them that could induce us to suspect that they were borrowed from one another, represent the state of St. Paul's mind, with respect to the event of the journey, in terms of substantial agreement. They both express his sense of danger in the approaching visit to Jerusalem: they both express the doubt which dwelt upon his thoughts concerning what might there befall him. When, in his epistle, he entreats the Roman Christians,

"for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, to strive together with him in their prayers to God for him, that he might be delivered from them which do not believe, in Judæa," he sufficiently confesses his fears. In the Acts of the Apostles we see in him the same apprehensions, and the same uncertainty: "I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there." The only difference is, that in the history his thoughts are more inclined to despondency than in the epistle. In the epistle he retains his hope "that he should come unto them with joy by the will of God;" in the history, his mind yields to the reflection," that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city that bonds and afflictions awaited him." Now that his fears should be greater, and his hopes less, in this stage of his journey than when he wrote hist epistle, that is, when he first set out upon it, is no other alteration than might well be expected; since those prophetic intimations to which he refers, when he says, "the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city," had probably been received by him in the course of his journey, and were probably similar to what we know he received in the remaining

part of it at Tyre, xxi. 4.; and afterwards from Agabus at Cæsarea, xxi. 11.

No. VI.

There is another strong remark arising from the same passage in the epistle; to make which understood, it will be necessary to state the passage over again, and somewhat more at length.

"I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from them that do not believe, in Ju

dæa-that I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed."

I desire the reader to call to mind that part of St. Paul's history which took place after his arrival at Jerusalem, and which employs the seven last chapters of the Acts; and I build upon it this observation—that supposing the Epistle to the Romans to have been a forgery, and the author of the forgery to have had the Acts of the Apostles before him, and to have there seen that St. Paul, in fact, "was not delivered from the unbelieving Jews," but, on the contrary,

that he was taken into custody at Jerusalem, and brought to Rome a prisoner-it is next to impossible that he should have made St. Paul express expectations so contrary to what he saw had been the event; and utter prayers, with apparent hopes of success, which he must have known were frustrated in the issue.

This single consideration convinces me, that no concert or confederacy whatever subsisted between the Epistle and the Acts of the Apostles; and that whatever coincidences have been or can be pointed out between them, are unsophisticated, and are the result of truth and reality.

It also convinces me that the epistle was written not only in St. Paul's life-time, but before he arrived at Jerusalem; for the important events relating to him which took place after his arrival at that city, must have been known to the Christian community soon after they happened: they form the most public part of his history. But had they been known to the author of the epistle -in other words, had they then taken place -the passage which we have quoted from the epistle would not have been found there.