WADDINGTON, however, does not need the aid of other historians to justify the statement we first quoted. In the following he gives, and that most forcibly, further reasons why he cannot rely fully on the words of Eusebius:—
“But that delinquency of Eusebius which we have just mentioned is confined to the suppression of truth—it does not proceed to the direct assertion of falsehood. We shall now notice a still more serious suspicion to which he has rendered himself liable. The thirty-first chapter of the twelfth book of his ‘Evangelical Preparation’ bears for its title this scandalous proposition—‘How it may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, for the advantage of those who require such a method’! We have already deplored with sorrow and indignation, the fatal moment when fraud and falsehood were first admitted into the service of religion. Philosophy, in the open array of her avowed hostility, was not so dangerous as when she lent to her undisciplined adversaries her own poisoned weapons, and placed them in unskillful hands, as implements of self-destruction. It was disgraceful to the less enlightened fathers of the second and third centuries, that even in the midst of trial and tribulation, they borrowed a momentary succor from the profession of falsehood—but the same expedient was still more shameful to Eusebius, who flourished during the prosperity of the church, whose age and more extensive learning left him no excuse in ignorance or inexperience, and whose great name and unquestionable piety gave sanction and authority to all his opinions. There can be no doubt, then, that the publication of that detestable principle in any one of his writings, however modified and limited by his explanation, must, to a certain extent, disturb our confidence in the rest—the mind which does not profess to be constantly guided by truth possesses no claim to our implicit submission.”—Church History, p. 91.
Mosheim more than casts a doubt upon the veracity of Eusebius, or his reliability at the least, in the following language:—
“These very edicts, which evince his good will for the Christians and his reverence for Christ, at the same time prove that all the things stated by Eusebius could not be true; and they show Constantine was not, at that time, a Christian, except in the lowest sense. For while he believed Christ to be a God, he did not believe him to be the supreme God, who created all things; nor did he consider the Christian religion to be the only way of attaining salvation.”—His. Com., p. 467.
Keightley, speaking of the murder of Constantine’s son—for no other name can be given to the crime—thus presents the evidence against the “courtly bishop”:—
“When a biographer passes in silence over any important action of his hero, we may be certain that a minute and exact inquiry, and a sifting of all the circumstances, has convinced him that it is incapable of bearing exposure to the light, and that no ingenuity can avail to extenuate, much less excuse it. On this principle we hold the profound silence of Eusebius on this mysterious transaction to be conclusive of the guilt of Constantine and the innocence of Crispus; and, at the same time, destructive of that prelate’s claim to truth and integrity as an historian.”—History of Rome, p. 346.
No one can reasonably complain of the tenor of this language. No one can deny that it is fully justified by the circumstances. On the part of Eusebius there is more than the suppression of a well-known and important fact; he exalted the character of Constantine even as if the crushing fact did not exist. It must appear to every one that if he had considered that that action could be justified, he would have noticed it with all the extenuating circumstances he could command. But, as Keightley well says, it was evidently beyond his power to justify or extenuate. Who, then, can justify the course of Eusebius in holding up Constantine as a man of pure life and pure motives, in the face of such facts?
Nor was it left to later ages to discover this want of integrity in Eusebius. One born in his own century has left on record the following estimate of his reliability:—
“In writing the life of Constantine this author has very slightly treated of the Arian controversy, being evidently more intent on a highly wrought eulogium of the emperor, than an accurate statement of facts.”—Socrates’ Eccl. His., p. 1.
Thus we think it is made plain beyond question that Constantine was not, in consideration of either his laws or his actions, worthy of the name of Christian. And that Eusebius, his favorite bishop and most servile flatterer, was so intent on exalting Constantine as a Christian emperor that he both suppressed and misrepresented facts to such an extent as to render his testimony unreliable in many respects.
The questions will naturally arise in many minds, Why is it that Eusebius is regarded so highly as a historian while the evidence is so abundant that he was so biased and blinded that he greatly perverted the facts of history? And why is it that Constantine, even in this day, is held up as a Christian, and extolled as a Christian emperor and the benefactor of the church, while historians are so well agreed that his religion was a mixture of Christianity and paganism, that his whole life was unworthy of a Christian and even of a humane pagan, and that his influence over the church was evil, and disastrous to her as regards piety and purity of both faith and life? The reader is requested to weigh these questions, and consider what reasonable solution may be offered to this apparent mystery. We have no hesitation in giving it as our opinion that partisan prejudice has had much to do with this perversion of history, and that men have, perhaps not always conscious of the motive or of the evil resulting, exalted unworthy means for the purpose of maintaining what they really considered worthy ends.
We come now to the consideration of Constantine’s famous Sunday edict. While many will, no doubt, be surprised at the evidence of history on this subject, all will be able to perceive the justness of the remark in the preceding paragraph.
In the year 321, March 7, Constantine issued the following:—
“Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines; lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by Heaven.”
This is a matter of great historical interest, and the place which it has been made to occupy in theology makes it the most interesting event in the life of Constantine. History points with unmistakable directness to this decree as the first law for resting from labor on Sunday. And because of the position given to Sunday for a few centuries past it is important to understand the real motive which actuated the emperor in giving this decree. From a careful observation of the subject, we are constrained to believe that the effort to make Constantine appear as a “Christian emperor” has been made in reference to this Sunday law, to give it the character of a Christian institution. It is indeed true that if Constantine had been an earnest or sincere Christian at the time of his issuing this decree, it would not prove it to be a Christian institution. To prove that, we should require something back of his authority, as it cannot be disputed that an emperor in the fourth century, however sincere in his belief in Christianity, could not bring into existence a Christian institution. For such an institution we must have the direct evidence of Scripture.
First, then, we must notice the fact that this was the first public authority for Sunday keeping. Dr. Heylyn, of England, who wrote extensively on this question, said:—
“Tertullian tells us that they did devote the Sunday partly unto mirth and recreation, not to devotion altogether; when in a hundred years after Tertullian’s time there was no law nor constitution to restrain men from laboring on this day in the Christian church.”—History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 8, §13.
Tertullian died in the year 216; a hundred years brings us to 316, only five years before Constantine’s law. Thus does Heylyn point to that as the first law to restrain men from laboring on Sunday.
They who have read Alexander Campbell’s debate with Bishop Purcell will not question his ability to judge of any historical question concerning the early church. Speaking before a graduating class in Bethany College in 1848, he said:—
“Was the first day set apart by public authority in the apostolic age? No. By whom was it set apart, and when? By Constantine, who lived about the beginning of the fourth century.”—Copied from Proclamation and Reformer, Cincinnati.
Morer wrote thus of the first day:—
“And being taken up and made a day for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was no law to bind them to it, and for want of such a law, the day was not wholly kept in abstaining from common business; nor did they any longer rest from their ordinary affairs (such was the necessity of those times) than during the divine service.”—Dialogues on the Lord’s Day, p. 223.
Here, again, three hundred years pass away before there was any law for resting on Sunday. Although the churches were accustomed to hold divine service on that day, they were accustomed to do the same on the sixth day; on the one, in honor of the crucifixion; on the other, in honor of the resurrection. They did not, however, claim any scriptural authority for such customs, nor did they abstain from secular labor on either day.
Sir Wm. Domville, who closely and critically examined this subject, wrote as follows:—
“Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the sabbatical edict of Constantine in A. D. 321.”—Exam. of the Six Texts, p. 291.
J. W. Morton, formerly missionary of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, in his address to the synod, said:—
“The first day of the week was not observed by any of the children of men, as a Sabbath, for three hundred years after the birth of Christ. Do you ask for proof? I refer you to Theodore de Beza, who plainly says so. If you are not satisfied with the witness, will you have the goodness to prove the affirmative of the proposition?”—Vindication of True Sabbath, p. 34.
Grieving the Holy Spirit
By John Wesley
Grieving the Holy Spirit.—A perfect Christian can grieve the Holy Spirit of God: 1. By such conversation as is not profitable to the use of edifying, nor apt to minister grace to the hearer. 2. By relapsing into bitterness or want of kindness. 3. By wrath, lasting displeasure, or want of tender-heartedness. 4. By anger, however soon over; want of instantly forgiving one another. 5. By clamor, or brawling, loud, harsh, rough speaking. 6. By evil speaking, whispering, tale-bearing, or needlessly mentioning the fault of an absent person, though in ever so soft a manner.—John Wesley.
Everything Ready—Use It.
By Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
WHEN our blessed Lord told us that impressive parable about the great supper, he intended to clinch this truth that God provides and we have only to use his provisions. "Come; for all things are now ready," is the message which big-hearted hospitality sends out. The invited guests are not required to go to market, or to set the table. All that is done for them; their duty is to come and partake of the banquet.
This is the way that our wise and loving God acts in the natural world. He sets the winds in motion and the mariner has but to spread his sails to the breeze. He sends water on its down-hill course, and the miller places his overshot wheel in its path, and the grain is ground. My house is lighted and warmed by what the Creator lodged in so many tons of coal. All these natural forces,—wind-power, steam-power, water-power, and the power of soil to grow vegetation,—seem to say to man, "Come, for we are all ready; use us." If man foolishly neglects to employ these forces, he finds no substitutes and he fails. Success in agriculture, commerce, manufactures, etc., all depends on taking advantage of what God has already provided.
Precisely in the same way does our heavenly Father act in the spiritual world. Everything that he could do for the salvation of your soul and my soul, he has done or is willing to do. Our Bible tells us everything that we need to know about himself and about ourselves; that word is absolutely perfect, both to enlighten the eyes, to direct our footsteps, to convert the soul and lead it Godward and Heavenward. Your Bible is ready to your hand, my friend. Use it. Wherever you find a vital truth, accept it. Wherever you discover a precious promise, trust the promise. When you encounter a command of Christ, obey it. That is the right way to make your Bible a blessing. All the discourses of a Spurgeon or a Moody about the word of God are only reflected light. Open your soul's windows to the glorious sun of revealed truth and let the light pour in; then walk according to the light.
The central truth in your Bible is that Jesus Christ has made a sacrifice for the sins of every human being; so that no sinner need perish for want of an atonement. Jesus Christ by his self-sacrifice on the cross has provided a redemption for a universe of sinners. So has God provided winds enough to carry all the fleets of the globe from here to Liverpool; but only those vessels are actually borne thither which are placed in the path of the winds. The loving Jesus has tasted death once for you, my friend. He never will do it again. The indescribable benefits of his atonement are ready for you and waiting. How are you to use them? Come to him in honest penitence and say to him (with your conduct backing your words):—
"Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Vile, I to this fountain fly,
Wash me, Saviour, or I die."
Come to him in prayer, and ask him to forgive you, to give you his presence and his power. Come to him also in practice, by beginning at once to do what will please him, or, in other words, to keep his commandments. Pray don't wait for a "revival" to come, or any evangelist to come, or any violent excitement to arise in your own mind. Jesus does not say, "Come to church, or to the Bible, or to an inquiry-meeting;" he says with all the authority of his mighty love "Come unto me." If anybody gets between you and Christ, he is an intruder and a hindrance. Jesus stands ready; hasten to him; he is the LIFE.
But you may say, "I have often tried to be a Christian; I have done the best I could; my heart won't yield, and I am discouraged." Your "best" does not amount to a farthing; your efforts to regenerate your own heart without the Holy Spirit are all doomed to utter failure. That Holy Spirit is offered you; he is ready to do the mighty work which he only can do; but you must co-operate with the gracious Spirit, just as truly as the sailor must co-operate with the fair wind, or the miller with the stream of water. But how? I answer: Stop resisting him as you have been all the while doing. Yield to him. If he suggests a vital truth, accept it. If he suggests anything to be said, say it. If he moves you to do any right thing, lose no time in doing it. As he convicts you of personal sins, break off those sins, cost what it may. Be sure of one thing, and that is that the Holy Spirit will point you only to Jesus Christ, and will shut you up to Jesus alone for your salvation. Do you insist that you have been obeying the divine Spirit all along, and co-operated with him; and yet you are no nearer being a Christian than ever? If this be so, you are the only person in God's universe that ever had such an experience. It is impossible. Again I say, the Holy Spirit is ready; do not grieve him away by an hour's delay, or by doing one act of willful sin.
If the truth were known, I suspect that the real trouble with you is that you have neglected to use what God has provided for you. It makes no odds what the fever patient does with his medicine as long as he does not take it. No cure for him until he uses it. It is the neglect of Christ's offered LIFE that will yet destroy your soul. Grasp him as your life, and the work is done.
Observe, also, how God has provided in you all the appliances, so to speak, for Christ and his gospel and Spirit to act upon. You have a mental eye to see Jesus. Use it, or you may lose it! You have a conscience which, like an ear, hears God's voice. Obey it, or else it may become deaf and dead by long neglect. There is a faith-faculty in your nature, which, like a hand, can lay hold on Christ. Tie up that hand, and it will wither or be paralyzed. In addition to all these provisions, God offers you his infinite and immediate help. He does so now—not tomorrow. Everything that a loving God could possibly provide for you is at your hand. You have not a shadow of excuse for going to hell. Are you ready, dear friend, to come to Jesus?—T. L. Cuyler, D. D.
Take Your Own Measure.
THERE are people—you have seen them, and I have seen them—who are never happier than when they see a fair opportunity of taking somebody's measure. It is wonderful how many opportunities they find—their neighbor, their pastor, their lawyer, and even "their dearest friend."
They are never at loss for a place, in the church, on the street, at home, anywhere, in fact, where a scrap of humanity is to be seen. But the most wonderful thing about these people is that they never take their own measure.
No; with the exact weight of Mr. B's, Miss C's, and Mrs. D's brains at their finger's end, they yet know nothing of their own worth.
Carelessly they drift on through life, a looker-on here, a hanger-on there, indifferent apparently to the responsibility which, in a great or small measure, God has placed before every soul, a responsibility which each one is called upon to lift, shoulder, and carry.
You may find them in every walk, in every calling of life, men who can, without a quibble, point the finger of patronizing pity at their brother; men who take it lightly upon themselves to analyze the worth of, and then judge one of God's sacredly veiled images.
Horrible indeed must be the responsibility of the man who thus dares to don the mantle of Omnipotence.
Our judgeship apprenticeship must begin and end with ourselves; our Maker holds the key; ours is the fac-simile, which, if properly inserted, will enable us justly and accurately to take our own measure.—Sel.
Fighting a Good Fight.
SOME twenty-five years ago Rev. Russell G. Toles related the following incident to Mr. Adams, of the Christian at Work, who vouches for its truth as here given: Mr. T. was preaching a sermon on charity, and one of his congregation who was nearly deaf, was accustomed to sit facing the congregation, right under the pulpit, with his ear-trumpet directed up toward the preacher. The sermon moved him considerably. At one time he said to himself, "I'll give ten dollars;" again he said, "I'll give fifteen dollars." At the close of the appeal he was very much moved, and he thought he would give fifty dollars. Now the boxes were being passed. As they moved along his charity began to ooze out. He came down from fifty to twenty, to ten, to five, to zero. He concluded that he would not give any. "Yet," said he, "this will not do—I am in a bad fix. This covetousness will be my ruin."
The boxes were getting nearer and nearer. The crisis was upon him. What should he do? The box was now under his chin—all the congregation were looking. He had been holding his pocketbook in his hand during the above soliloquy, which was half-audible, though in his deafness he did not know that he was heard. In the agony of the final moment he took his pocketbook and laid it in the box, saying to himself as he did it, "Now squirm, old natur'!"
Here is the key to the problem of covetousness. Old nature must go under. It will take great giving to put stinginess down. A few experiments of putting in the whole pocketbook may, by and by, get the heart into the charity-box, and then the cure is reached. All honor to the deaf old gentleman. He did a magnificent thing for himself, and gave an example worth imitating, besides pointing a paragraph for the students of human nature.—Sel.
Facts Better Than Speculations.
By N. Y. Observer
WHEN an effort was made to introduce the doctrine of evolution into the class-books of science in Prussia, Professor Virchow, of Berlin, successfully resisted the attempt.
"While facts," he said, "should be taught, conjecture should only be mentioned as conjecture. The production of the first organism out of inorganic matter has never been proved, and the connection between monkeys and men is unintelligible to those who are content to argue from what comes under their own observation. Every attempt to form our problems into doctrines, to introduce our hypotheses as the bases of instruction by a religion of evolution, every such attempt will make shipwreck, and in its wreck will also bring with it the greatest peril for the whole position of science."
When a German philosopher of such eminence as Virchow warns his disciples against "a religion of evolution," we may well summon Christian teachers to pause before they imbue their young pupils' mind with theories of which there is no proof, and which tend directly to materialism. The disciple very soon gets ahead of his master when the master is off the track. Nor is there a more dangerous teacher than the good great man, who, in the pride of intellect, or in the rarified atmosphere of too much learning, has attempted to evolve a new system of creation which will explain what needs no explanation. "Professing to be wise they became fools," may be said of many in these days, as of old, and great men are not always wise in this country any more than they were in the land of Uz.—N. Y. Observer.
Words Become Things
PREACHERS should remember that in popular notions of religious truth, words easily become things. If reverence is not cherished for biblical forms of truth, it will be for uninspired forms. The popular mind will have it for something.—Sel.
The Sabbath-School.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
LESSON FOR THE PACIFIC COAST—MAY 9.
Inheritance of the Saints.
PROMISES TO ABRAHAM.—CONTINUED.
1. Repeat the promise made to Abraham after Lot had separated from him.
2. Where is this promise found?
3. What did this promise embrace?
"For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." Rom. 4:13.
4. How great a posterity did the Lord say Abraham should have?
"And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." Gen. 13:16.
5. On another occasion, what did the Lord say of his posterity?
"And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." Gen. 15:5.
6. Had Abraham at this time any children?
"And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?" Gen. 15:2.
7. How did he regard this promise from the Lord?
"And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:6.
8. How did the Lord regard Abram's belief? Ib.
9. How old was Abram when the Lord next appeared to him?
"Now when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." Gen. 17:1.
10. What part of the promise did the Lord at this time renew?
"And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly." "And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." Gen. 17:2, 6.
11. What name did the Lord at this time give him as a continual reminder of this promise?
"Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee." Gen. 17:5.
13. What did the Lord at this time say he would give to Abraham and his seed?
"And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." Gen. 17:8.
14. How long did the Lord say they should possess this land? Ib.
15. And how much land have we learned that they were to have?
16. On what condition was this promise given?
"And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." Gen. 17:1.
17. Then to what other promise is this equivalent?
"But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." Ps. 37:11.
THE promise made to Abraham after Lot separated from him, will be found in Gen. 13:14-17. It will be remembered that the promise embraced a grant of land, and this land, we learned (Rom. 4:13), was the whole earth. In Gen. 17:1-8, we have the same thing repeated. At that time the Lord gave him his name, "Abraham," meaning, "a multitude of nations," or a "father of many nations." This would serve to continuously keep in mind the promise that his seed should be as the dust of the earth, and as the stars of heaven. God also at this time repeated the statement that he would give the land (the earth) to Abraham and his seed for an "everlasting possession." As noted in our last lesson, this promise was on condition that Abraham should walk perfectly before the Lord. Since a meek person is a follower of Christ, and therefore perfect, it follows that this promise is equivalent to that already learned in Ps. 37:11.
ST. PAUL had seen many magnificent cities, but never one which was approached by a road so regular and so costly in construction as Rome. As they passed each well-known object, the warm-hearted brethren would point out to him the tombs of the Scipios and Cæcilia Metella, and the thousands of other tombs, with all their architectural beauty, and striking bass-reliefs and touching inscriptions; and the low seats for the accommodation of travelers at every forty feet; and the numberless statues of the Dei Viales; and the roadside inns, and the endless streams of carriages for travelers of every rank—humble birotae and comfortable rhedæ, and stately carpenta—and the lecticae or palanquins borne on the necks of slaves, from which the occupants looked luxuriously down on throngs of pedestrians passing to and from the mighty capital of the ancient world.
How many a look of contemptuous curiosity would be darted at the chained prisoner and his Jewish friends as they passed along with their escort of soldiers! But Paul could bear all this while he felt that he would not be utterly lonely amid the vast and densely-crowded wilderness of human habitations, of which he first caught sight as he mounted the slope of the Alban hills. And so through ever-lengthening rows of suburban villas, and ever-thickening throngs of people, they would reach the actual precincts of the city. It was thus that the dream of Paul's life was accomplished, and thus that in March, A. D. 61, in the seventh year of the reign of Nero, under the consulship of Cæsennius Pætus and Petronius Turpilianus, he entered Rome.
Here the charge of the centurion Julius ended, though we can hardly suppose that he would entirely forget and neglect henceforth his noble prisoner, to whom, in God's providence, he owed his own life and the safety of the other prisoners intrusted to him. Officially, however, his connection with them was closed when he had handed them over to the charge of the Præfect of the Prætorian guards, the honest and soldierly Afranius Burrus. So far, Paul was fortunate, for Burrus, as an upright and humane officer, was not likely to treat with needless severity a prisoner who was accused of no comprehensible charge—of none at any rate which a Roman would consider worth mentioning—and who had won golden opinions both from the Procurators of Judea and from the centurion who had conducted him from Jerusalem. A vulgar and careless tyrant might have jumped to the conclusion that he was some fanatical Sicarius, such as at that time swarmed throughout Judea, and so have thrust him into a hopeless and intolerable captivity. But the good word of Julius, and the kindly integrity of Burrus, were invaluable to him, and he was merely subjected to that kind of military custody which was known as observatio. For the first three days he was hospitably received by some member of the Christian community, and was afterwards allowed to hire a lodging of his own, with free leave to communicate with his friends both by letter and by personal intercourse. The trial of having a soldier chained to him indeed continued, but that was inevitable under the Roman system. It was in mitigation of this intolerable concomitant of his imprisonment that the good will of his Roman friends might be most beneficially exercised. At the best, it was an infliction which it required no little fortitude to endure, and for a Jew it would be far more painful than for a Gentile. Two Gentiles might have much in common; they would be interested in common topics, actuated by common principles; but a Jew and Gentile would be separated by mutual antipathies, and liable to the incessant friction of irritating peculiarities.
That St. Paul deeply felt this annoyance may be seen from his allusions to his "bonds" or his "coupling-chain" in every epistle of the captivity. Yet even over these coarse, uneducated Gentiles, the courtesy, the gentleness, the "sweet reasonableness" of the apostle, asserted its humanizing control. If he was chained to the soldier, the soldier was also chained to him, and during the dull hours until he was relieved, many a guardsman might be glad to hear from such lips, in all their immortal novelty, the high truths of the Christian faith. Out of his worst trials the apostle's cheerful faith created the opportunities of his highest usefulness, and from the necessities of his long-continued imprisonment arose a diffusion of gospel truths throughout the finest regiment of that army which less than a century later was to number among its contingents a "thundering legion," and in less than three centuries was to supplant the silver eagles of the empire by the then-detested badge of a slave's torture and a murderer's punishment.—Farrar.
THE JEWS who had been banished from Rome some years previous, had been tacitly permitted to return, so that large numbers were now to be found there. To these, first of all, Paul determined to present the facts concerning himself and his work, before his enemies should have opportunity to embitter them against him. Three days after his arrival at Rome, therefore, he called together their leading men, and in a simple, direct manner stated the reasons why he had come to Rome as a prisoner.
"Men and brethren," he said, "though I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who, when they had examined me, would have let me go, because there was no cause of death in me. But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Cæsar; not that I had aught to accuse my nation of. For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you and to speak with you because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain."
He said nothing of the abuse which he had suffered at the hands of the Jews, or of their repeated plots to assassinate him. His words were marked with caution and kindness. He was not seeking to win personal attention or sympathy, but to defend the truth and to maintain the honor of the gospel.
In reply, his hearers stated that they had received no charges against him by letters, public or private, and that none of the Jews who had come to Rome had accused him of any crime. They also expressed a strong desire to hear for themselves the reasons of his faith in Christ. "For as concerning this sect," they said, "we know that everywhere it is spoken against." It was supplanting the religion of their fathers, and causing disputations and dissensions which they considered injurious to the people.
Since they themselves desired it, Paul bade them set a day when he could present to them231the truths of the gospel. At the time appointed, many came together, "to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening." He related his own experience, and presented arguments from the Old Testament scriptures with simplicity, sincerity, and power. Upon some minds, at least, his words made an impression which would never be effaced. All who were honestly seeking for truth were convinced, as Paul spoke of what he knew, and testified of what he had seen.
He showed that religion does not consist in rites and ceremonies, creeds and theories. If it did, the natural man could understand it by investigation, as he understands worldly things. Paul taught that religion is a practical, saving energy, a principle wholly from God, a personal experience of God's renewing power upon the soul.
He showed how Moses had pointed Israel forward to Christ as that Prophet whom they were to hear; how all the prophets had testified of him as God's great remedy for sin, the guiltless One who was to bear the sins of the guilty. He did not find fault with their observance of forms and ceremonies, but showed that while they maintained the ritual service with great exactness, they were rejecting Him who was the antitype of all that system.
He declared that in his unconverted state he had known Christ after the flesh, not by personal acquaintance, but by the conceptions which he, in common with others, cherished concerning his character and work. He had rejected Jesus of Nazareth as an impostor because he did not fulfill these expectations. But since Paul's conversion, his views of Christ and his mission were far more spiritual and exalted than the Jewish conception of the long-promised Messiah. He asserted that he did not present to them Christ after the flesh. Herod had seen Christ in the days of his humanity; Annas had seen him; Pilate and the chief priests and rulers had seen him; the Roman soldiers had seen him. But these had not seen him with an eye of faith, and discerned him spiritually as the glorified Redeemer. To apprehend Christ by faith, to have a spiritual knowledge of him, was more to be desired than a personal acquaintance with him as he appeared on earth. The communion with Christ which Paul now enjoyed, was more intimate and more enduring than a mere earthly and human companionship.
Some of Paul's hearers eagerly received the truth, but others stubbornly refused to be convinced. The testimony of the Scriptures was presented before them by one who was their equal in learning and their superior in mental power, and who had the special illumination of the Holy Spirit. They could not refute his arguments, but refused to accept his conclusions. The prophecies which the rabbis themselves applied to Christ were a great annoyance to these opposing Jews; for the apostle showed that the fulfillment of these very prophecies required them to accept of Christ.
His humble entry into Jerusalem, his rejection by his own people, the treachery of Judas, the paltry sum paid for his betrayal, his death as a malefactor, even the bitter stupefying draughts offered him in his dying agony, the lots cast upon his garments, his victory over death and the grave by the resurrection on the third day, his final exaltation on the right hand of God,—all these were in direct fulfillment of the words of the prophets. But the more conclusive the arguments presented, the more determined were the Jews in their opposition. Frenzied with malice, they reiterated their assertions that Jesus of Nazareth was a deceiver.
Further argument was useless. Paul closed with a solemn address, in which he applied to them the words of Isaiah, before quoted by Christ himself: "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive; for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them."
Paul's words had not been in vain. Some fully accepted Jesus as the world's Redeemer, and, despite the opposition of their former brethren, became earnest advocates of the truth.
The truth always involves a cross. Those who will not believe, oppose and deride those who do believe. The fact that its presentation creates a storm of opposition, is no evidence against the truth. The prophets and apostles imperiled their lives because they would conscientiously obey God. And our Saviour declares that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." This is the Christian's legacy.—Mrs. E. G. White, in Sketches from the Life of Paul.