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    suited as we think such treatises to the actual state of the religious world , we have yet to learn why it is prefixed to a work expressly treating on PauJ and bis difficulties , rather than to any other theological disquisition . No one was a greater enemy to Christianity than Paul before , no one endured more for its sake after , his conversio ^; Whether a frien d or a foe , hi £ natural temperament propelled him into the front of the battle ; and from the

    earliest ages down to the present day , Paul has enjoyed a singular pre-eminence among the advocates of the faith . When he leu the world , his writings assumed the station in which he had placed himself , and from open foes and injudicious friends they have had no little adverse treatment to encounter ; but , like their author , though harassed on all sides , they yet remain faithful to their trust . The acknowledgment that they contain things hard to be understood , is as old as the days of Peter himself , and an inconceivable extent

    of labour has been bestowed upon their elucidation . To Mr . Locke , how * ever , the Christian world are , in modern times , chiefly indebted . The principles which he developed in his invaluable essay on the Epistles , he successfully pursued in the commentary which he wrote on several of them . His most judicious plap was followed up in respect of other epistles by Benson , Pierce , and Taylor , till Belsbam united in his late excellent work what is chiefly valuable in the several productions of his predecessors . From these the student of Paul may gather much to aid him in his investigations . It is rather

    their principles than their comment , however , that we would have him study ; and this chiefly because of the prevalence of most erroneous conceptions and practices . Were it not for these , a disciplined mind under the direction of common sense might , with a proper share of industry , learn all that is essential in the writings of Paul , though he had never studied Greek nor read a commentator . Unfortunately , however , the mind almost of every one is preoccupied with false notions and fallacious principles , and hence Paul is studied through tfce medium of prejudice , and requires , in order to be ri g htly understood , the illuminations which the united powers of successive master-spirits can throw upon his pases .

    Dr . Whately grjievously complains of the neglect and disesteem which Paul ' s writings have had to suffer . At the hands of friend and foe he has met with like treatment ; orthodox and heterodox have either perverted or neglected the Apostle of the Gentiles . But the Unitarians meet with a more than equal share of blame . " There is no one of the sacred writers whose

    expressions have been so tortured , whose authority has been so much set at nought by Unitarians , as St . Paul ' s—which is a plain proof that they find him a formidable opponent . " As to torturing , that is a matter of opinion ; and much do we question that Dr . Whately himself will be accused of torturing St . Paul by those who believe in the doctrines which he has in this work

    endeavoured to overthrow . This accusation we will leave him to settle with numbers of his own church . But it is strange , if Unitarians are wont to set at nought the authority of the Apostle , that they should have been among the most diligent and successful students of his writings—and that Locke on the Epistles—Pierce , Benson , Taylor on the Romans , to whom Dr . Whately himself is no little indebted , and whose merits have been acknowledged by the highest dignitaries of his Church—should be ranked , not on the

    Trinitarian , but the Unitarian side . The great names we have mentioned need not defence even against so respectable a writer as Dr . Whately , otherwise it would be an easy task to cite quotations from their works in proof of the reverence in which they held the Apostle ' s writings . But as the work of Mr .

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    Jrkalei ^ s Essays Writing * . PmL 53 i

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 531, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/11/