the preaching of the Gospel, to add affliction to Paul's imprisonment, and whom he charges with insincerity? We must here take into view what he afterwards says in reference to this distinction, viz. that by the one class Christ was preached in truth, by the other only in appearance. Are we to suppose that these men, that these men, without personal love to the Gospel, without personal conviction of its truth, preached Christ for no other reason than to add to the hardship of Paul's situation, and to bring him into greater danger by the wider extension of the Gospel in Rome; thus rendering him, as the origin of it all, more obnoxious to the Roman civil power? It appears at once how unnatural, and intrinsically improbable, is such a supposition. If they could thus bring Paul into greater peril, they would by so doing plunge themselves into equal danger. Can it be imagined that one would play so hazardous a game, simply from hatred to another? He who at that time did not himself believe in the Gospel, must be enlisted against it; and would certainly not have given himself up to the business of preaching it, merely as the means to another end. We must seek, then, another explanation of this difficulty. When it is

said of an individual that he preaches the Gospel only in appearance, this need not be understood as necessarily meaning that he has no concern whatever in regard to the subject of his preaching; that he has no personal interest in it, no conviction of its truth, that he makes use of it only as a means to another end. It may mean that he preaches it, not in its purity and completeness, but mingled with foreign elements; that although an interest in it cannot be denied him, yet this is not perfect and unalloyed. In this sense it might be said of such an one, that he does not preach the Gospel sincerely. Paul might therefore express himself thus, in regard to persons who testified of the Gospel of Christ from real conviction; yet did not preach the whole, unmixed, pure Gospel in its completeness, but an adulterated, mutilated Gospel. And when, moreover, he says of such, that they were actuated by party zeal and hatred against him, desiring to add new affliction to his sufferings; it is not necessary to understand by this, that their witness for the Gospel was mere pretence, a form of hypocrisy to which the circumstances of the time afforded no occasion and no ground; but that their ruling motive in

preaching was not pure love to the Lord, that it was their aim, consciously or unconsciously to themselves, by their manner of preaching to give offence to Paul, and to raise up for themselves a party against him.

If now we look farther into the history of the development of Christianity in this its earliest period, and investigate more minutely, in the history of the Apostolic church, the peculiar relations and opposing influences under which Paul's labors were prosecuted, we shall soon be in a position to determine with greater exactness what we have here remarked in general. We know that Paul had to contend with opposers, to whom all that has here been said is applicable. There were those who did indeed acknowledge and preach Jesus as the Messiah, but a Messiah in the Jewish sense; who acknowledged him, not as that which he has revealed himself to be, the only ground of salvation for man; who in connection with the one article of faith, that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, still adhered to the Jewish legal position; who understood nothing of the new creation of which Christ was the author, and to whom faith in Jesus as the Messiah

was only a new patch upon the old garment of Judaism. These were the opposers, with whom we so often find Paul contending in his Epistles. Of such he might justly say, that they preached the Gospel not purely and sincerely, but only in appearance; for they were indeed far more concerned for Judaism than for Christianity, and their converts became rather Jews than Christians. Of such he might also say, that they sought to form a party against him, and to add affliction to his bonds; for these persons everywhere seem chiefly animated by jealousy of Paul, through whom the Gospel was preached to the heathen world as freed from all dependence upon Judaism, and standing upon its own foundation. They oppose themselves to him on all occasions, contest his Apostolic dignity, seek to encroach on his sphere of labor, to draw over the people from him to themselves, from that pure and complete Gospel to their own mutilated one. And it need not surprise us to meet such even in Rome; for Paul's Epistle to the church at Rome, written some years previous to his imprisonment there, shows us in this church, consisting chiefly of Gentile converts, a small party of such judaizing Christians who

were in conflict with the rest. It was a matter of course, then, that when the pure Gospel in the sense of Paul was preached by the one party, the other, provoked to rivalry, should rise up in opposition and seek to give currency to their own corrupted form of the Gospel.

We must now endeavor to understand fully Paul's position towards these opposers. Rightly understood, it will furnish an important rule for our own application in many cases. In the first place, it is clear that these men were personal enemies of Paul; and that in their efforts to promote the Gospel, their object was to frustrate the labors of the Apostle, and to form a party of their own in opposition to him. What self-renunciation must it then have required, to enable Paul to rise so entirely above this personal relation, that forgetting the design against himself he can rejoice with his whole heart that the One Christ, whom it is his sole desire to glorify, is preached, even though it be by his personal enemies! Thus everything pertaining to self gives place to that all-absorbing love to the Lord, and to those for whom He gave his life. How rare are the examples of a love so heaven-like, so purified from all