Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/533

 the frailties and distresses of earth, to that state of being which alone is wholly sinless and pure."

"From the opposition to St. Peter, which they suppose to be before the Council at Jerusalem, some would have it, that this Epistle to the Galatians was written before that Council; as if what was done before the Council could not be mentioned in a letter written after the Council. They also contend, that this journey, mentioned here by St. Paul, was not that wherein he and Barnabas went up to that Council to Jerusalem, but that mentioned Acts xi. 30.; but this with as little ground as the former. The strongest reason they bring, is, that if this journey had been to the Council, and this letter after that Council, St. Paul would not certainly have omitted to have mentioned to the Galatians that decree. To which it is answered, 1. The mention of it was superfluous; for they had it already, see Acts xvi. 4. 2. The mention of it was impertinent to the design of St. Paul's narrative here. For it is plain, that his aim, in what he relates here of himself, and his past actions, is to shew, that having received the gospel from Christ by immediate revelation, he had all along preached that, and nothing but that, everywhere; so that he could not be supposed to have preached circumcision, or by his carriage, to have shewn any subjection to the law; all the whole narrative following being to make good what he says, ehap. i. 11, 'that the gospel which he preached was not accommodated to the humoring of men; nor did he seek to please the Jews (who were the men here meant) in what he taught.' Taking this to be his aim, we shall find the whole account he gives of himself, from that verse 11. of chap. i., to the end of the second chapter, to be very ctear and easy, and very proper to invalidate the report of his preaching circumcision." (Locke's Paraph.)

"I conceive that this happened at the time here stated, because Paul intimates in Gal. ii. 11., that he was in Antioch when Peter came there; and Peter had never been to Antioch before Paul was in that city after the Council of Jerusalem; and besides the dissension between Paul and Barnabas, who was the intimate friend of Peter, appears to have originated here." Pearson's Annales Paul. (A. D. 50.)

A fine exhibition of a quibbling, wire-drawn argument, may be found in Baronius, (Ann. 51,) who is here put to his wits' end to reconcile the blunt, "round, unvarnished tale," in Paul's own account, (in Galat. ii. 11-14,) with the papistical absurdity of the moral infallibility of the apostles. He lays out an argument of five heavy folio pages to prove that, though Paul quarreled thus with Peter, yet neither of them was in the slightest degree to blame, &c. But the folly of explaining away the Scriptures in this manner, is not confined wholly to the bigoted, hireling historian of papal Rome; some of the boldest of protestants have, in the same manner, attempted to reconcile the statement of Paul with the vulgar notions of apostolic infallibility. Witsius (Vit. Pauli. iv. 12,) expends a paragraph to show that neither of them was to blame; but following the usual course of anti-papist writers, he represents the great protestant idol, Paul, in altogether the most advantageous light, according to the perfectly proverbial peculiarity of the opponents of the church of Rome, who, in their apostolic distinctions, uniformly "rob Peter to pay Paul."

PAUL'S QUARREL WITH BARNABAS.

The church of Antioch having thus made great advances under these very abundant and extraordinary instructions, the apostles began to turn their eyes again to a foreign field, and longed for a renewal of those adventurous labors from which they had now had so long a repose. Paul therefore proposed to Barnabas that they should go over their old ground again:—"Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city, where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do." To this frank and reasonable proposition, Barnabas readily agreed, and as it was desirable that they should have an assistant with them on this journey, he proposed that his nephew Mark should accompany them in this capacity as he had