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    century * may be easily conceived to be an * insufficient and ineffectual teacher of professed Christians , or' secret unbelievers , at the end of an interval of nearly two thousand years . The world has changed since the Apostle wrote , and therefore what he wrote to the Church at Rome or Corinth may well be occasionally dark to the modern artisan whose world is in his own breast , or at most his

    own cottage , his little neighbourhood , and his ill-informed spiritual guide . Yet , whether it be from a love of the dark and mysterious , from a disposition to try their powers at solving difficulties to which we have found them not a little inclined , or from bad guidance , it may in some cases have been interested and intentional misdirection ,- — -the people , those who are least able to understand their sense or appreciate their beauties , are most fond of the Epistles of Paul .

    Under these circumstances the remarks we are about to offer may not be wholly useless . We say at once , then , prefer Jesus to Paul : take the Gospels rather than the Epistles as the guide of your faith and practice . Even from the days of Peter the letters of Paul were known to contain things hard to be understood ; and ; therefore , presuming this to be the fact , we merely say in advising you to prefer Jesus to Paul—prefer the clear to the obscure . We

    are not among those who think that there was any deficiency in the Gospel as developed by him who called himself ' The way , the truth , and the light , '—who declared that * Ail things whatsoever he had heard of the Father , he had made known to his disciples ;* and of whom Paul , too , speaks in terms the most expressive and lofty , as ' The wisdom , as well as * Power of God , ' as the Image of God' and The fullness of him who filleth all in all . * In

    bidding you sit at the feet of Jesus we are not , therefore , sending you where you will suffer from any defect . In him there is an allsufficiency for the enlightenment of the mind in that knowledge which , in its practical results , is ' Life eternal / But the preference we recommend is not exclusive . Wherever you see light follow its guidance , whether it emanates from Jesus or Paul ; but

    if you have little leisure or little capacity , or with whatever capacity you have , can find but little satisfaction under the teachings of Paul ; or should it appear that these teachings , as you understand them , contravene your own experience , stand in opposition to the discourses recorded in the Gospels , the views there intimated of the divine character and dealings , or those which by the

    interpretation of reason conle forth from the frame of nature and of society , then , we say , fly and cleave to Jesus , and that without a fear that you will fail of knowledge in any essential or important particular of the Christian religion . There are , however , aids in the use of which the honest inquirer will find most of the difficulties disappear which are commonly found in the letters of Paul . These letters , we have seen , are written in a style which wta suited to the understanding of a

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    On the Study of St . PaUTs Epistles . 67 &

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 673, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/25/