After the death of Domitian, and on the succession of Nerva, who re pealed all the odious acts of his predecessor, and by public edicts recalled those whom the fury of Domitian had banished, St. John returned to Asia & fixed his seat again at Ephesus; and rather, because the people of that city had lately martyred Timothy their bishop. Here, with the assistance of seven other bishops, he took upon himself the government of the large diocese of Asia Minor, erected oratories, and disposed of the clergy in ther best manner that the circumstances of those times would permit, spending his time in an indefatigable execution of his charge, travelling from East to West to instruct the world in the principles of the holy religion he was sent to propagate. In this manner St. John continued to labour in the vineyard of his great Master, till death put a period to all his toils and sofferings; which happened in the beginning of Trajan's reign, in the ninety eighth year of his age, and he was buried near Ephesus, according to Eusebius. :: This great evangelist and apostle seems always to have led a single life; though some of the ancients tell us he was a married man. With regard to his natural temper, he seems to have been of an eager and reso Jute disposition, easily inflamed, but which age had reduced to a calmer temper. He was polished by no study or arts of learning; but what was wanting from human art, was abundantly supplied by the excellent constitution of his mind, and that fulness of divine grace with which he was adorned his humility was admirable, studiously concealing his own hon our; for in his epistles, he never styles himself either apostle or evangelist; the title of presbyter or elder, is all he assumes, and probably in regard to his age as much as his office, in his gospel, when he speaks of the dis ciple whom Jesus loved," he constantly conceals his own name, leaving the reader to discover whom he meant: love and charity he practised him self, and affectionately pressed them upon others; the great love of his Saviour towards him, seems to have inspired his soul with a larger and more generous charity than the rest. This is the great vein that runs through all his writings, especially his epistles, where he urges it as the great and peculiar law of Christianity, and without which all other preten ces to the religion of the holy Jesus are vain and frivolous, useless and insignificant; and this was his constant practice to the very hour of his dissolution; for when age and the decays of nature had rendered him so weak that he was unable to preach to the people any longer, he was con stantiy led, at every public meeting, to the church at Ephesus, and always repeated to them the same precept," " Little children, love one another:" and when his hearers, wearied with the constant repetition of the same thing, asked him why he never varied his discourse, he answered, "Because to love one another was the command of our blessed Saviour, and if they did nothing more, this alone was sufficient to denote whose they were, and whom they served." 1 The largest measures of his charity were, however, displayed in the re markable care he took to promote the salvation of the souls of men; travel. ling from East to West, in propagating the principles of that religion he was sent to teach, patiently enduring every torment, surmounting every difficulty, and removing every obsticle, to save the souls of the human race, free their mind from error and idolatry, and turn them from the paths of ⚫vice and debauchery. Amongst many other instances of this kind, Eusebius relates the following. "St. John, during one of his visitations of the church at Ephesus, was greatly pleased with the appearance and behaviour of a young man, when he called to him, and, with a special charge, recommended to the bishop, who undertook the trust, and promised to discharge it with the greatest fidelity: accordingly, the bishop took him home with him to his house, carefully instructed him in the principles of the Christian religion, and at 1 ast baptised and confirmed him After he had proceeded thus far, he thought he might a little relax the reins of discipline, but the youth made a bad use of his liberty, and being debauched by, evil company, he came, the captain of a gang of robbers, and committed the most horrid outrages in the adjacent countries. St. John, being informed of this at his return, sharply reproved the bishop, and determined to find the young man out, never considering the dangers that would inevitably attend him, by venturing himself amongst persons of desperate fortunes accordingly, he repaired to the mountains where they usually abode, and heing taken by one of the robbers placed as a watch, he desired to be carried to their captain, who, on seeing St. John coming towards him, immediately fled. The apostle forgetting his age, hastened after him, but being unable to overtake him, he passionately cried out, "Child, why dost thou run from thy father an old and defenceless man ? Spare me this pains of following thee, and let not terrors and despair seze upon thee. Thy salvation is not irrecoverable. Stay, and be convinced that CHRIST himself hath sent me." At these words, the young man stopped, fixed his eyes upon the earth, trembled in every part, and burst into a flood of tears. And when the aged apostle approached, he embraced him, and implored forgiveness with such weeping and lamentations, that he seemed to be rebaptized, and to wash away his sins with his own tears. The apostle re ceived him with the greatest kindness, assured him that he had obtained pardon for his sins at the hands of his great Redeemer, and returned him a true penitent and convert to the church of which he was a member. Our apostle's care for the souls of men, is further evidenced by the writings he left to posterity. The first of which in time, though placed last in the sacred canon, is his Apocalypse, or book of Revelation, which he wrote during his banishment at Patmos. After the preface and admonition given to the bishops of the seven churches in Asia, it contains a prophetic view of the persecutions the faithful were to suffer from the Jews, heretics and tyrannical princes, together with the peaceable and flourishing state of the church, till disturbed by other enemies; and the happiness of the church triumphant in heaven. And hence St. John is, in the strictest sense, a prophet, and has thereby one material addition to his titles, being not only an apostle and evangelist, but also a prophet: an honeur peculiar to himself. St. Peter was an apostle, but no evangelist: St. Mark and St. Luke were evangelists but no apostles: St. Matthew was an apostle and evangelist, but no prophet: but St. John was an apostle, an evangelist, and a prophet likewise. His three epistles take place, in order of time, next to the Apocalypse; the first of which is catholic, being calculated for all times and places, and containing the most excellent rules for the conduct of a Christian life, pressing to holiness and pureness of manners, and, not to be satisfied with a naked and empty profession of religion; not to be led away with the crafty insinuations of seducers; and cautioning men against the poisonous principles and practices of the Gnostics. The apostle here, according to his usual modesty conceals his name, it being of more consequence to a wise man what is said, than he who says it. It appears from St. Augustine, that this epistle was anciently inscribed to the Parthians, because, in all probability, St. John preached the gospel in Parthia, the other two epistles, are but short, and directed to particular persons; the one a lady of great quality, and the other to the charitable and hospitable Gaius, the kindest friend, and the most courteous entertainer of all indigent Christians, in those primitive times. We are told by Eusebius and St. Jerom, that St. John, having perused the other three gospels, approved and confirmed them by his authority; but observing, at the same time, that these evangelists had omitted several of our blessed Saviour's transactions, particularly those which were per formed before the Baptist's imprisonment, he wrote his gospel to supply what was wanting in them; and because several heretics were at that time sprung up in the church, who denied the divinity of our blessed Sav jour, he took care to guard against these heresies, by proving that our great Redeemer was God from everlasting. He largely records our Saviour's discourses but takes liste notice of his miracles, probably because the other evangelists had so fully and particularly written concerning him. Previous to his undertaking the task of writing his gospel, he caused a general fast to be kept by all the Asian churches to implore the blessing of heaven on so great and momentous an undertaking. When this was done, he set about the work, and completed it in so excellent and sublime a manner, that the ancients generally compared him to an eagle's soaring aloft amongst the clouds, whither the weak eye of man was not able to follow him. "Among all the evangelical writers," says St. Basil, " none are like St. John, the son of thunder, for the sublimity of his speech, and the height of his discourses, which are beyond any man's capacity fully to reach and comprehend." "St. John as a true son of thunder," says Epiphanius, by a loftiness of speech peculiar to himself, " acquaints us, as it were out of the clouds and dark recesses of wisdom, with the divine doctrine of the Son of God, the glorious Saviour of mankind." Thus have we given the character of the writings of the great apostle and evangelist, who as we have hinted before, was honoured with the endearing title of being the beloved disciple of the Son of God and was a& writer so sublime as to deserve, by way of eminence, the character of "St. John the Divine." : The LIFE of St. PAUL, The APOSTLE to the GENTILES. THIS eminent and laborious apostle was a native of Tarsus, and a descendant from the ancient stock of Abraham. He was born about two years before the blessed JESUS, and belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, the youngest son of Jacob, who thus prophecied of him, " Benjamin shall raven as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil;" a prophetical character which Tartullian and others will have to be accomplished in this apostle: for, in his youth, or the morning of his days, he persecuted the churches, destroying the flock of the Almighty; he devoured the prey: in his declining age, or evening of his days, he became a physician of the nations, feeding and distributing with the greatest care and assiduity, the sheep of CHRIST, the great Shepherd of Israel. The place of this apostle's nativity, was Tarsus, the metropolis of Cilicia, situated about three hundred miles distant from Jerusalem; it was exceedingly rich and prosperous, and a Roman municipium, or free corporation, invested with the privileges of Rome by the two first emperors, as a reward for the citizen's firm adherence to the Cæsars in the rebellion of Crassus. St. Paul was therefore born a Roman citizen, and he often pleads this privilege on his trials. The inhabitants of Tarsus usually sent their children into other cities for learning and improvement, especially to Jerusalem, where they were so numerous, that they had a synagogue of their own, called the syna LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST, and his APOSTLES, &c. 299 : gogue of the Cilicians. To this capital our apostle was also sent, and brought up at the feet of that eminent rabbi Gamalia, in the most exact knowledge of the law of Moses: nor did he fail to profit by the instructions of that great master; for he so diligently conformed himself to his precepts, that, without boasting, he asserts of himself, that touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless, and defied even his enemies to allege any thing to the contrary, even in his youth. He joined himself to the sect of the Pharisees, the most strict order of the Jewish religion; but, at the same time, the proudest, and the greatest enemies to CHRIST and his holy religion, as evidently appears by the character given of them by the evangelists, and our Lord's description of that self-righteous sect. Respecting his double capacity, of Jewish extraction, and Roman freedom, he had two names Saul and Paul, the former Hebrew, and the Jatter Latin. It was common for the descendants of Benjamin to give the name of Saul to their children ever since the time of the first king of Israel, who was chosen out of that tribe; and Paul was a name as common amongst the Romans. We must also consider his trade of tent making as a part of his education, it being the constant practice of the Jews, to bring up their children to some honest calling, that, in case of necessity, they might provide for themselves by the labour of their own hands, without becoming burdensome to the public. Having obtained a thorough knowledge of the sciences cultivated by the Jews, and being naturally of a very hot and fiery temper, Saul became a great champion for the law of Moses, and the tradition of the elders, which he considered as a zeal for God. This rendered him impatient of all opposition to the doctrine and tenets he had imbibed, and a vehement blasphemer and persecutor of the Christians, who were commonly reputed the enemies and destroyers of the Jewish economy. We must not however consider our apostle as guilty of the pride and hypocrisy of the Pharisees; for he declares, that he had ever been careful to act in conformity to the dictates of his conscience, by which he thought himself bound to do many things contrary to the name of JESUS of Nazareth. It was therefore the prejudice of his education, and the natural warmth of his temper, that excited him to those violent persecutions of the Christians, for which he became so famous, in the infancy of the church. We find that the first action he engaged in, was the disputation he and his countrymen had with the martyr Stephen, concerning the Messiah. The Christian was too hard for them in the dispute; but they were too powerful for him in their civil interests; for being enraged at his convineing arguments, they carried him before the high-priest, who by false accusations, condemned him to death. How far Saul was concerned in this cruel action, it is impossible to say; all we know is, that he kept the raiment of them that slew him, and, consequently, was accessary to his death. The enemies of the church having thus raised a storm of persecution against it, it increased prodigiously, and the poor Christians of Jerusalem were miserably harrassed and dispersed. In this persecution, our apostle was principal agent, searching all the adjacent parts for the afflicted saints, beating some in the synagogue, compelling some to blaspheme, confining in prison, and procuring others to be put to death for their profession: nor could Jerusalem and the adjacent parts confine his fiery zeal; he applied to the Sanhedrim, and procured a commission from that court, to extend his persecution to Damascus. How eternally insatiable is the fury of a misguided zeal! how restless and unwearied in it's designs of cruelty! It had already sufficiently harrassed the poor Christians at Jerusalem but not content with that, it persecuted them to strange cities, even to Damascus itself, whither many of them had fled for shelter, resolving to bring them back to Jerusalem, in order to their punishment and execution there. We think it necessary to observe here, that the Jewish Sanhedrim had not only the power of seizing and scourging offenders against their law within the bounds of their own country, but, by the connivance and favour of the Romans, might send into other countries, where there were any synagogues that acknowledged a dependence in religious affairs upon the council of Jerusalem, to apprehend them; and accordingly, Saul was sent to Damascus, to apprehend what Christians he could find in that city, and bring them bound to Jerusalem, to be tried and punished. It was however Saul's peculiar happiness, that the Almighty designed to employ him in a work of a very different nature, and, accordingly stopped hini in his journey: for as he was travelling between Jerusalem and Damascus, to execute the commission of the Jewish Sanhedrim, a refulgent light, far exceeding the brightness of the sun, darted upon him; at which both he and his companions were terribly amazed and confounded, falling together with their horses, prostrate on the ground. Amidst this confusion, a voice was heard in the Hebrew language, saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" To which Saul replied, Who art thou Lord ?" and was immediately answered, "I am Jesus," of Nazareth, "whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.* As if the blessed JESUS had said, All thy attempts to exterpate the faith in me, will prove abortive, and, like kicking against the spikes wound and forment thyself the more." 64 *Being now sufficiently convinced of his folly in acting against JESUS, whom he was now assured to be the true Messiah, Saul asked, "Lord, what wilt thou have the to do?" 'On which the blessed JESUS informed him of the true intention of his appearance, "Arise, said he, and stand upon thy feet'; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which 1 will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance amongst them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." Acts xxvi. 16, 17, 18. And for further instruction, the immaculate JESUS referred him to one of his followers, named Ananias, commanding him to repair immediately to the city, and receive further inctruction from that disciple. こ1 The men who were with him heard the voice, but did not see the person who spake from heaven: in all probability they were ignorant of the Hebrew language, and therefore only heard a confused sound'; for the apostle himself tells us, that they heard not the voice of him that spake, that is, they did not hear it with a proper degree of understanding. Saul now arose from the earth, but found himself deprived of sight, the resplendent brightness of the vision being too intense for mortal eyes to behold. His companions therefore led him by the hand to the city of Darmascus, where he entered the house of Judas, and remained there three days without sight, nor did he either eat or drink but spent his time in prayer to the Almighty, beseeching him to pardon the sins of his past life, and be gracious to him. 4 Our blessed Saviour, in the mean time appeared in a vision to Ananias, a very devout and religious man, highly esteemed by all the inhabitants of Damascus, though he professed the religion of the crucified JESU's, commanding him to go into such a street of the city, and enquire in the house of Judas, for one Saul of Tarsus, then offering up the most fervent prayers to the throne of grace. Ananias, who was very ready to obey the commands of the Most High, High, startled at the name, having heard of his bloody practices at Jerusalem, and what commission he was now come to execute in Damascus: he therefore suspected that ims pretended conversion was nothing more than a snare artfully laid for the Christians. But our blessed Saviour soon removed his apprehensions, by telling him that his sus |