Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/627

 *burdened by the mass of feelings struggling for expression. He is profoundly penetrated with the new truth he has discovered, or rather which Christ has discovered to him, and he seems to have scarcely time to consider how he may best express it. His mind, though wealthy in ideas and fertile in applying them to practice, is not always clear. It seems rather to struggle with its thoughts than to command them. Hence a certain confusedness in style, a crowding together of notions in a single sentence, and a want of logical arrangement in his presentation of a subject, which render his epistles not altogether easy reading. It may have been those characteristics which caused another apostle (or one who wrote in that apostle's name) to say that there were some things in the writings of his beloved brother Paul that were "hard to be understood" (2 Pet. iii. 16).

When, however, the uncouth style is surmounted, the thought will be found well worthy of consideration. Of all the writers in the New Testament Paul is the one who presents the largest materials for intellectual reflection. Whether or not we agree in his views, we can scarcely refuse to consider his arguments. And herein he is peculiar among his associates. He is the only one of the canonical writers who has any notion of presenting arguments for consideration at all. While others dogmatize, he reasons. He may reason badly, but he has at least the merit of being able to enter in some degree into the views of his opponents, and of attempting to reply to them on rational grounds.

Another striking feature of the mind of Paul is its robustness. Brought up a Pharisee, a sect devoted to extending the regulations of the law to the utmost minutiæ, he nevertheless rose completely above the domination of trifles. Even matters which in most religions are regarded as of capital importance, he treated as of little moment in themselves. Ceremonies, observances, outward forms of every kind he held in slight esteem in comparison with moral conduct. Not the mere knowledge of the Jewish law or the power of teaching it to others, is of any avail, but the observance of its ethical precepts (Rom. ii. 17-23). Uncircumcision is just as good as circumcision, provided the uncircumcised man keep the law. The true Jew