to cut the ropes by which the boat was fastened, and give her up to the sea.

Their only remaining resource was to force the ship upon the shore, in a place where landing would be most practicable, and of this the mariners were the most proper judges. If this isl (as is generally supposed) was that which we now call Malta, we know that it is almost environed with rocks. They having therefore discovered an open bay, with a beach of sand or pebbles,* endeavoured to run the ship there; but had the management of this business been left to the soldiers and passengers, who were unexperienced in sea affairs, they might probably have let her drive at random against the rocks, where an escape would (humanly speaking) have been impossible. In this view we may observe, that the apostle's firm confidence in the promise he had received was connected with a prudent attention to the means in their power, from which the promise received was so far from dispensing them, that it was their chief encouragement to be diligent in employing them. This incident may be applied to points of more general importance, and, if carefully attended to, might have determined, or prevented many unnecessary and perplexing disputes concerning the divine decrees, and their influence on the contingencies of human life. What God has appointed shall surely come to pass, but in such a manner, that all the means and secondary causes by which he has determined to fulfil his designs, shall have their proper place and subserviency. Accordingly they made the best of their way to the shore; but before they quite reached it, the ship was stopped by a point or bank,† where her fore part stuck fast and remained immoveable; but the stern, or hinder part, was presently broken by the violence of the surges. In the general confusion the soldiers, unmindful how much they were indebted to Paul, proposed that all the prisoners should be killed without distinction, lest they should be accountable if any of them escaped: but the centurion, who interested himself in his preservation, rejected the motion, and commanded every one to do what they could for their own safety. Many who

*They discovered a certain creek, with a shore.' But there was a shore all round the island. Aryaλos does not express the sea coast in general, or a rocky, craggy shore, but the skirts of an open bay convenient for launching, landing, or drawing a net for fish. See Matt. xiii. 2. 48. John xxi. 4. A mariner who understood Greek would, perhaps, render the sentence thus'They observed a certain bay, with a beach.' And this they chose as the most likely place to get safe to land.

+ Tomov didandardov is rendered in our version,' a place where two seas met;' but there is nothing answerable to the word met; probably it means what the mariners call a spit, or point of sand, running off from the shore, and which had a sufficient depth of water on either side.

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could swim cast themselves into the sea; the rest availed themselves of planks and broken pieces of the ship; and the merciful providence of the Lord gave their endeavours success, so that the whole company, consisting of two hundred and seventy-six persons, came safe to land.

The inhabitants, though called Barbarians, received and accommodated them with great humanity, and manifested a tenderness too rarely found upon such occasions, amongst those who bear the name of Christians; they brought them under cover, and kindled fires to warm and dry them. The apostle, who cheerfully suited himself to all circumstances, assisted in supplying the fire with fuel; but having gathered a parcel of sticks, a viper, which was unperceived in the midst of them, fastened itself upon his hand. He had just escaped from storm and shipwreck, and was exposed to as great a danger of another kind. Such is the nature of our present state; and it is a proof of our pride and ignorance, that we are seldom greatly apprehensive for ourselves, but when some formidable appearance is before our eyes. A tempest, pestilence, or earthquake, alarms us, and not without reason; but, alas! we are not such mighty creatures as to have nothing to fear but from such powerful agents. A tile, a fly, a hair, or a grain of sand, are sufficient instruments, in the hand of God, to remove a king from the throne to the grave, or to cut off the conqueror at the head of his victorious army. On the other hand, those who serve the Lord, and trust in him, are equally safe under all events: neither storms, nor flood, nor flames, nor the many unthought-of evils which lurk around in the smoothest scenes of life, have permission to hurt them till their race is finished; and then it little signifies by what means they are removed into their Master's joy. The apostle, in the strength of divine faith, shook off the venomous creature into the fire, and remained unmoved and unhurt. The islanders, who saw what had past, judged at first (from those faint apprehensions of a superior power inflicting punishment on the wicked, which seem to remain in the darkest and most ignorant nations) that he was certainly a murderer, who, though he had escaped the seas, was pursued by vengeance, and marked out for destruction; but when, after expecting for some time to see him drop down dead, they found that he had received no harm, they retracted their censure, and conceived him to be a god, or something more than man. This event probably prepared them to hear him with attention.

The apostle and his friends were courteously entertained three days by Publius, the chief person of the island, who resided near the place of their landing. He requited the kindness of his host by restoring to health his father, who had been some time ill of a

fever and dysentery. In the same manner he laid his hands on many sick persons, who were healed in answer to his prayers. These acceptable services procured him much favour from the inhabitants; and when, after three months' stay, he was about to depart, they furnished him liberally with necessary provisions for his voyage.

A. D. 61.] They sailed from thence in a ship of Alexandria, that had wintered in the island, and stopping three days at Syracuse in Sicily, soon after arrived at Rhegium, and from thence, in two days, at Puteoli, near Naples, where they disembarked, and continued a week, at the request of the Christians of the place. From Puteoli to Rome their journey lay about one hundred miles by land.

The disciples at Rome having heard of Paul's approach, several of them met him at a place called Appii Forum, and another party at the Three Taverns; the former place being about fifty, and the other thirty miles from the city. At the sight of these believers, whom he had loved unseen, we are told he thanked God and took courage. Even the apostle Paul, though habitually flaming with zeal and love, was not always in the same frame. We learn, from his own account of himself, that he had sometimes sharp exercises of mind; and perhaps this was such a time, when his thoughts were much engaged on what awaited him upon his arrival at Rome, and his appearance before the cruel and capricious Nero. The Lord has so constituted his body, the church, that the different members are needful and helpful to each other, and the stronger are often indebted to the weaker. St. Paul himself was revived and animated at this juncture by the sight of those who were, in every respect, inferior to him. It rejoiced him to see that Christ his Lord was worshipped at Rome also; and being in the presence of those with whom he could open his mind, and freely confer upon the glorious truths that filled his heart, he forgot, at once, the fatigue he had lately suffered, and the future difficulties he had reason to expect.

Upon their arrival at Rome, the centurion delivered up the prisoners to the proper officer; but Paul had the favour allowed him to live in a house which he hired, under the guard of one soldier. Here he immediately discovered his usual activity of spirit in his Master's cause; and, without losing time, sent, on the third day, for the principal persons of the Jews, (according to his general custom of making the first declarations of the Gospel to them,) and acquainted them with the cause of his prosecution and appeal. He assured them that he had no intention in vindicating himself, to lay any thing to the charge of his own people; adding that, not for any singularities of his own, or for any offence against

the law of Moses, but for the hope of Israel, he was bound with* the chain he then wore. They answered, that they had received no information concerning him from Judea, but that they understood the sect to which he professed an attachment was every where spoken against; they therefore desired to hear his sentiments, and appointed a day for the purpose, when many of them came to him, and he spent the whole day, from morning till evening, in proving, confirming, and explaining the nature and necessity of the Gospel and kingdom of Christ, from the books of Moses and the prophets. His discourse had good effect upon some, but others believed not, and they departed with considerable disagreement among themselves; the apostle taking leave of them with that solemn warning, which our Lord had often used in the course of his ministry, from the prophecy of Isaiah,† denouncing incurable and judicial blindness and hardness of heart upon those who wilfully rejected the proposal of the truth.

He remained a prisoner in his own hired house for the space of two years, having an unrestrained liberty to receive all who came to him, and to preach the glad tidings of salvation by Christ: which, we learn from his epistles,‡ he did with so much success, that his imprisonment evidently contributed to the furtherance of the Gospel, enlarged the number of believers, and animated the zeal and confidence of those who had already received faith and grace.

A. D. 63.] The history of St. Luke ends here, which I have followed more closely than I at first designed; partly because the facts he has recorded suggest many reflections which have, more or less, a reference to our main design, and partly from a reluctance to leave the only sure and incontestible history by which our researches into the establishment and state of the primitive church can be guided. For though some monuments of the early ages of Christianity, which are still extant, have a great share of merit, and will afford us materials to make good our plan, yet they must be selected with caution; for it would be a want of ingenuousness not to acknowledge, that there are great mixtures and blemishes to be found in the writings of those who lived nearest to the apostles' times. And in the most ancient historical remains several things have a place which show that a spirit of credulity and superstition had very early an extensive influence; the evi

*Among the Romans, the prisoner was always chained to the soldier or soldiers who guarded him. St. Paul speaks of his chain, both to friends and enemies, with an indifference that shows how well content he was to wear it for his Master's sake. See Ephes. vi. 20. 2 Tim. i. 16.

dent traces of which have given too fair an occasion to some persons, of more learning than candour, to attempt to bring the whole of those records into disrepute. But where the characteristic genius and native tendency of the Gospel are rightly understood, and carefully attended to, a mind, not under the power of bias and prejudice, will be furnished with sufficient data, whereby to distinguish what is genuine and worthy of credit, from the spurious and uncertain additions which have been incautiously received.

I shall be brief in deducing our history from this period to the close of the first century. St. Paul, after more than two years' confinement at Rome, having not yet finished his appointed measure of service, was providentially preserved from the designs of all his enemies, and set at liberty. We are told by some, that in pursuance of the design he had long before expressed, he went into Spain, and from thence to Gaul, now called France: nor have endeavours been wanting to prove that he preached the Gospel even in the British isles. That he, at some time, accomplished his desire of visiting Spain, is not improbable; but we have no certain evidence that he did so. Much less is there any ground for supposing that he was either in France or Britain. From his own writings however, we have good reason to believe, that upon his dismission from Rome, he revisited the churches of Syria, and some other parts of Asia; for, in his epistle to the Hebrews, he mentions his purpose of seeing them, in company with his beloved Timothy; and writing to Philemon, who lived at Colosse, he requests him to prepare him a lodging, for that he hoped to be with him shortly. And it was probably in this progress that he preached in Crete, and committed the churches he gathered there to the care of Titus; for we have no account in the Acts of his having visited that island before, except the little time he touched there in his passage to Rome, which seems not to have been sufficient for so great a work. How he was employed afterwards we know not, but it is generally agreed, that towards the latter part of Nero's reign, he returned to Rome, and there received the crown of martyrdom.

In the accounts preserved of the rest of the apostles, we likewise meet with great uncertainty; nor can any thing be determined to satisfaction, concerning either the seat of their labours, or the time or manner of their deaths. I shall therefore waive a particular detail of what is not supported by sufficient proof. I only observe, concerning St. Peter, that the assertion of his having been bishop of Rome, on which (and not on the true rock) the whole system of the papacy is built, is not only inconsistent with what is recorded of him in the Acts, and the silence of St.