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    the salvation of God is sent ( that is , the gospel is to be preached ; to the Gentiles , and that they will hear it . ' Whereas , according to

    tlis epistle , it must have been knoun already to the Jews of Rome , ihat the gospol had been preached to the Gentiles of that city , and that they had received it . **

    There is , I allow , an apparent contradiction between the epistle and the xxviiith chapter of Acu ; vvhich if a real one , would shew the writer of the epistle to be a clumsy forger ; but if it vani ^ hts

    on a more accurate examination , k becomes a striking , because , evidentl y ^ an undesigned coincidence . I have no doubt that the gospel had never been preached at Rome by any apostle or

    apostolic person till Paul arrived there a prisoner . Neither does the epistle make any such assertion ; in * deed , we may conclude the contrary from the language which it uses . In the xvth chapter , 19 h

    and 20 th verses , Paul says , ' * From Jerusalem , and round about to Illyricum , I have preached thegot >* pel of Christ , earnestly striving , however , to preach ihe gospel in this manner not where Christ

    , was named , lest I should build upon another man ' s foundation , " 4 C On which account , having oft - en been hindered , I have had a great desire for these many years to come to you . "

    It may not be immediately apparent , how under these cm umstances there could be a Christian church at Koine . This " falsifier of the second century" seems to

    have laid himself open very unne cessarily t 6 objections . He sec ms to have little concern to explain away difficulties , and throws in circumstances which tend only to

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    perplex his readers * But let us examine the matter a little ; perhaps he is not such a fool as We take him ( or .

    We know that the Jews , even when JeruMali-m was existing and Judi a inhabited by them , had always a gnat deai of that wander * ing spirit which now distinguishes them . Bv the history in the Acts

    we find that they had synagogues in almost every town of Asia Minor and Greece , and probably of Italy . The spirit of their character , if not of their institutions , inclined them to commerce and

    trade , which amongst the Ko . mans were accounted mean and servileoccupations ; the Jews were therefore the merchants and trades .

    men of the whole civilized world . It may easily be conceived how numerous a body of Jews there must have been at Rome . So respectable a body were they , that various edicts were made in favour

    of the Jewish people ; and so wealthy were they that an edict was ibsm d on purpose to regulate and protect the offerings sent by them to Jerusalem . It is

    probable that the wealth and property of the Jews of Rome w&s greater than that of Jerusalem . And the Jewish population at Rome must have borne some

    considerable proportion to the ordinary population at Jerusalem . — These two great cities were the foci of that large tract of countries through which this eccentric people were scattered ; and they

    continually drew to themselves a large proportion of fhe whole Jewish population . From this cortstant resort to Jerusalem for religious , to Rome for mercantile purposes , it is evident , that many Jews of Rome might be converted

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    408 On the Genuineness of the Epistle to the Romans .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1813, page 402, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2429/page/46/