Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-12-01
THE EPISTLEs OF PAUL.

IEE EFlSILES Or PAUL.
We have alluded to Paul as the principal let
ter writer in the New Testament. When that
change that passed over him with the shock of a
spiritual earthquake, had subsided into resolute
attachment to the new religion, what ardor and
heroism were seen to be united in him-what
rare combination ofintellect aud heart, Of enthu-
siasm and perseverance Still with him there
was no stoical abnegaton of humanity; while
he lived for the world, he lived in the world
The culture of the schools was in him, {" bap-
tised with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
Words are often unable to convey his thoughts;
they reel and stagger beneath the weight and
power of his conceptions. And whether we
turn to his alarmed appeal to the people of Ly-
caonia, where he was taken for the god of elo-
quence, to his Grafton before the critics and
judges of Areopagus, or to his pleading at the
bar of Felix and Agrippa-or whether we sur
vey his letter to the Church in Rome, in it's
fullness, profoundly, and compacted system
or his Epistle to Cornth, so varied and magnif-
cent in argument, so earnest and so persuasive
in remonstrance and yindicat!on-or the mis-
sve sent to Galatia, so vivid and startling in its
surprise indignation or sorrow-or that to Ep.
hesus, so opulent in thought, and exalted in
sentiment, as if to compensate for the costly
book of magic which had been to the flames
or that to Philippi, so warm and exuberant in
its congratulations to the first European city
where the gospel had been proclaimed-or that
to Colosse, exposing the insidious assaults of
a specious philosophy which corrupted the pu-
rity and marred the simplicity of the gospel
or his twin communications to Thessalonica
calm, affectionate, and consolatory-or those to
Timothy aud Titus, replete with the sage and
cordial advice of paternal kindness, and long
and varied experience-or the brief note TO
Philemon concerning dishonest and fugitive
slave, who had been unexpectedly brought to
"the knowledge of the truth"--or, the epistol-
ary tractrate addressed to the Hebrews with it's
powerful demonstrations of the superior glory
and the unchanging permanence and spiritual
ity of the New Dispensation--to whichever Of
these compositions we turn, we are struck with
the same lofty genius and fervd eoquence, the
same elevated and self denying temperance, the
same throbbings of noble and yearning heart,
the same masses Of thought, luminous and
many-tinted, like the cloud which glows under
the refectng splendors of the setting sun, the
same vigorous mental grasp which, amid nu
merous digressions, is ever tracing truths up to
first principles-all these the results of a mas
ter mind, into which nature and grace had pour
ed, in royal profusion, their rarest and richest
endowments
In the epistles, what specimens have we not
of almost every form of mposition-descrip-
ton, narrative, argument, oratory-bold invec-
tive and sudden ostrophe-antithesis and eli
max--the brief words of fanger-the sad regrets
of disappointed hope--the soft breathngs of
af1ection--the vehement our burst of sef-vin-
dcation--the strong and effective argument, Of
ten ending in an anthem--logc swelling into
lyrics--the terse deliverance of ethical maxims,
and the cordial greeting and kind remembrance
of former friends. No wonder that Longnus
adds Paul of Tarsus to list of names, which
wore the crown Of all eloquence and Grecian
genius" There are some passages in the
Epstles to the Corinthians which have all the
vehement and thrilling penetration of Demos
themes, and other sections in the same books
which in elevation, imagery, and music, have
no parallel, even in the Platonic dialogues.
North British Review.