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And the Christian may find Christianity embodied in Pauls ' letters . The . Apostle ' s mind was fraught with Christianity ; he had taken up its diffusion as the one and only business of his life and he was richly furnished for his work . There are parts , indeed , of the Gospel which appear in his letters in a new form , but the essence of eternal truth lies under the exterior and animates the
mass , while other principles are set forth with a fulness and prominence , a frequency and ardour to which no one of the primitive or any subsequent age has , been able to approach . And , then , what exquisite morality does he recommend , and how constrainingly ! In the purity , the correctness , and elevation of his
moral tone , in that consummate perfection of which paganism , with all its mental power , had never , conceived an idea , and which unbelief , with all the addition of experience which 2000 years can give , has never rivalled ; in the perfection and loveliness of his morality , Paul appears to the Christian to be almost Jesus again dwelling and speaking amongst men .
If required to point to passages in justification of these remarks , I should be almost content to forego . the general mass of the Apostles' writings , and to fix upon the 15 th chapter , 1 st Corin ^ thians , as a piece of writing in which the logician , the scholar , the orator , the poet , the philanthropist , and the Christian—or he who unites all these characters in himself , may find concentrated in a brief space—excellencies that merit the highest praise . What
argument to convince , what knowledge to gratify , what . eloquence to captivate , what sublimity to raise and fill the soul with brighter promises than ever were the mere philanthropist ' s visions , and an ardour of devotion , an exultation of piety , an enforcement of obedience which delight the Christian , while they make him feel the littleness of his attainments in contrast with the grandeur of his calling .
Notwithstanding , the letters of Paul are not the book for the people . Independently of their antiquity , their dealing with forms of society and modes ^ af thought , which have long since vanished —disqualifications under which they labour in common with all works of remote origin , profane , as the term is , as well as sacred ;—they are letters , and therefore more brief and more obscure than direct narratives , or systematized reasonings , or public history ; and they were designed specially to exhibit Christianity in a form
which should meet and dissipate the peculiar prejudices of Jews and heathens . By reason of this last consideration they will of course contain arguments and illustrations the most difficult to be understood by us , inasmuch as they would be most easy to be understood by those for whom they were adduced . Modes of thought and expression , historical recollections , and national prejudices , the Apostle had to study and adapt himself to , of which we know comparatively little ,, and in which we tan feel no manner of sympathy . A sermon , preached , to Jews and heathens of the first
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6 $ 2 0 * the Study of St . Paul ' s EpUiles .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 672, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/24/
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