From thence he went to Lyftra, where having caused a man, born a cripple, to walk and leap, the spectators would have worshipped him and his companion Barnabas, faying, They were gods come down from Heaven. Yet all this honour ended in his being caft out of the city, ftoned, and left for dead. Soon after this, he returned to the devoted city of Antioch. And here, the fathers tell us, he was joined by his convert Thela. A very proper asylum, no doubt, for the preservation of her virginity; where could it be fo fafe as in the hands of a faint? Reputation-But what have female adventurers to do with reputation? Luke, or Paul himself tells us, that here, in this devoted place he confirmed the fouls of the difciples, and exhorted them to continue in the faith. The faint was fcourged again at Thyatira for tampering with the women. Practising the fame next at Theffalonica, the fame reward was prepared for him, but he was fecreted by his friend Jafon, and fent from thence by night. to Berea. From Berea he foon abfconded likewife; being, it seems, more obnoxious than his companions Silas and Timotheus. His next adventure was at Athens; and here he made a moft egregious blunder: Athens-the feat of philofophy and learning!-it was unfortunate. In that city was an altar, thus infcribed-To the Gods of Europe, Afia, and of Afric: To the unknown

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and foreign Gods-Judge the astonishment of the people, when they faw the faint mounted upon Mars's Hill, and heard him thus declaimYe men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too fuperftitious: for as I paffed by and ' beheld your devotions: I found an altar with * this infcription To the unknown God-Whom "therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I

unto you, &c." Acts, eh. xvii. They very justly might, and perhaps did retort upon him the charge of ignorance, but their politeness or curiofity fuffered him to proceed; which he does very cautioufly, condefcending to defcribe God, in the language of their own poets. It is here that he faid God the Father made the world, and all things therein. That in times of ignorance, God winked at their idolatry: but that now he commanded men every where to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained: whereof he hath given. afsurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. At this, fome mocked: others faid, we will hear thee again of this matter. ritated at the former, and inattentive to the latter (who probably fpoke ironically) he, in difguft, retired from that celebrated city, to which he never returned. At Corinth he met with better fuccefs; here he found a brother craft, Aquila, a Jew, expelled with his wife Prifcilla from Rome.

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Rome. With thefe he worked at his trade of tent-making and preaching alternately for the fpace of eighteen months. The Jews complained of him to the Roman Deputy, who treated both parties with contempt. Paul then (having fhorn his head in confequence of a vow) failed to Ephefus, where he leaves his companions Aquila and Prifcilla, who had fo much benefited by his inftructions, that meeting with a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the fcriptures, who taught in the fynagogue the baptism of John; they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. Thus qualified, by the tent-maker and the tent-maker's wife, he paffed into Achaia, where he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, thewing by the fcriptures that Jefus was Chrift, Acts, ch. xviii. St. Paul, after having travelled over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia, returned to Ephefus, where finding certain difciples, he faid unto them-Have ye yet received the Holy Ghoft fince ye believed? And they said unto him-We have not fo much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghoft. (By this answer it doth not appear that they had profited much by the inftructions of Aquila, Prifcilla, or their pu pil, the eloquent and mighty Apollos.) They however were now baptized in the name of the Lord Jefus, and when Paul had laid his hands

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upon them, the Holy Ghoft came on them, and they spake with tongues, and prophefied. And all the men were about twelve. After this, he preached in their fynagogue three months to fo little purpose, that he quitted it entirely, and for the space of two years difputed daily in the School of one Tyrannus. We are then told God wrought fpecial miracles by the hands of Paul; fo that from his body were brought unto the fick, handkerchiefs, or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. But the Jew exorcifts, whom he calls vagabonds, endeavouring to difpoffefs evil fpirits, in the name of Jefus, whom Paul preached : feven of them, the fons of Sceva a chief prieft, received this anfwer-Jefus I know, and Paul I know ; but who are ye? They found, to their cost, that the devil was in the man; or, which amounts to much the fame, that he was the devil of a man ; for we are told that he leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, fo that they (the feven ftout brothers) fled out of that house naked and wounded. We are then toldthis was known to all the Jews and Greeks alfo dwelling at Ephefus; and fear fell on them all. Under this fear we may fuppofe it was, that many of them which ufed curious arts, brought their books together and burned them before all men : and they counted the price of them; and they found it fifty thousand pieces of filver. Were

they conjurers who did this? Difpleafed perhaps at feeing their books fo far outdone by Paul's handkerchiefs and aprons, they in anger exhibited this Auto De Fe. The faint, in his preachings at Epheíus, had, I apprehend, faid nothing difrefpectful of the great goddefs Diana, or of her image which fell down from Jupiter: but he attacked the fmall filver fhrines (little images of Diana) faying they be no gods which are made with hands. The filverfimiths finding their trade injured, or likely to be fo, by this doctrine, headed by Demetrius, raised a tumult, in which the general cry was-Great is Diana of the Ephefians. Some of Paul's companions were caught; but he himfelf, not chufing to abide the mode of trial recommended by the Town Clerk, efcaped into Macedonia. After a variety of vifits; he, in his way to Jerufalem, arrived at Miletus, about fifty miles from Ephefus, whither he durft not return; nor had he candour enough to acknowledge it, but fays-He had determined to fail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Afia, for he hafted if it were poffible for him to be at Jerufalem the day of Pentecoft. He how ever fends for his difciples from Ephefus to Miletus; where he reminds them of their obligations to him, foretells their misfortunes (no very difficult matter) and bids them a laft adieu. ter this he visited Tyre, Prolomais, and Cæfaria, where, at the houfe of Philip (one of the feven Deacons

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