For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, To AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this set I forth unto you. The God that made the world, and all things therein, He, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is He served by men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He Himself giveth to all life and breath and all things . . . . that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, FOR WE ARE ALSO HIS OFFSPRING. Being then THE OFFSPRING of God we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone graven by art and device of man. The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked: but now He commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent, inasmuch as He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.

In spite of the marvellous skill which the great Apostle showed in introducing his subject, and the great truths which he continued to give forth, directly he reached the special doctrines of the faith, and proclaimed the resurrection of Christ, they would hear him no further.

Thus we see how S. Paul, to use his own words, became all things to all men: to Jews he became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jews; to the Gentiles he became as a Gentile, that he might gain the Gentiles. He became all things to all men, that he might by all means save some.

But though S. Paul varied his method according to circumstances, the subject of his preaching was

always the same. He preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.

And whether this Gospel was preached by himself or by others, in sincerity or from contention, he could and did rejoice.

And though at Athens his labours did not seem crowned with success, yet he was casting the seed of life upon the waters, and would reap the harvest after many days.

CHAPTER VII.

S. PAUL'S GREAT CONTROVERSY.

T. PAUL was not only a great missionary; he was also a great controversialist. But there was this notable difference: he was a missionary by choice; he was a controversialist by necessity.

The special controversy in which the Apostle was engaged, was not of his own seeking; it was forced upon him by the exigencies of his own particular work as the Apostle of the Gentiles.

The subject of the controversy was this:-On what terms were Gentile believers to be received into the Church of Christ? were they to be received on a profession of faith by baptism, or must they also be circumcized, and become obedient to the law of Moses?

The best plan will be, I think, to enquire first of all, what was this Church of Christ into which the Gentiles were to be admitted.

To follow out this enquiry we must go back to the time when Christ began His earthly ministry.

For 400 years the Jewish people, the members of the Jewish Church, had been living, some in Judea, some scattered over the empire, without any voice from heaven. No prophet had been sent to them. Deliverers most noble and heroic they had had, but no prophet. Deprived of the keen criticism and higher teaching of the prophets, the religion of the

chosen people had degenerated into an intricate ceremonialism, and a still more intricate system of casuistry and ecclesiastical hair-splitting. The living spirit had departed from their worship, and had left only a gorgeous ceremonial: the divine law was no longer a law of liberty, but was degraded into a mechanical system of rules and ceremonies.

Suddenly the whole nation was roused and startled by a prophet, who preaching in the wilderness, and baptizing with a baptism of repentance, announced that the Messiah's kingdom was at hand, and the Messiah Himself standing unknown among them. Το prepare the way for the coming Christ was his special mission; to this end he summoned the whole nation to repentance, with the warning that they were not to rest in being children of Abraham, since God was able from the very stones of the desert to raise up children unto Abraham.

He proclaimed that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, that the Messiah had already come, whose coming would usher in the end of the age, the winding up of the old dispensation, and bring in the new age, the dispensation of the Spirit; that His winnowing fan was in His hand, and that with it He would thoroughly purge the harvest floor of the Jewish Church, and gather what was sound and good of the chosen nation into His kingdom, and leave the worthless residuum to be consumed in the fires of an impending judgement.

As John the Baptist had said, Christ was manifested.

He, too, and His disciples preached that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and that the end of the age was near. In parable after parable He taught that His coming would be a time of separation and winnowing; that the approaching

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consummation, the winding up of the Jewish age was very near, when the wheat should be gathered into the barn, and the tares burnt with unquenchable fire; that the draw-net of the gospel would be drawn through the waters of the Jewish world, and the good would be stored up, and the bad rejected; that the vineyard should be taken away from the wicked husbandmen, and should be given to others.

This winnowing process began with the first proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom: the disciples were led on step by step to a clearer knowledge of Christ's person and His work: and His enemies advanced step by step from suspicion to hatred, and from hatred to final rejection and judicial murder.

But the work of the Christ did not end with His rejection and death. While on earth He had chosen twelve men to be His witnesses and heralds. In a few weeks after His death the Apostles were preaching in the streets of Jerusalem, and in the Temple courts, that Jesus was risen from the dead, and was exalted to the right hand of God, and that He would soon come again, in the clouds of heaven, to judge the Church and a nation which had rejected Him. They proclaimed, moreover, that the kingdom which John the Baptist and their Master Himself had said was at hand, was now set up.

But now let us ask what was the outward appearance of this kingdom? How did it show itself to the world of the Jews?

To outward appearance it was a society of Jews, admitted into fellowship by baptism, a society still worshipping in the Temple, still observing the ceremonial law, undistinguishable in most respects from other Jews. They had not ceased to be Jews. They had not rejected their calling as Israelites. No, they