strongly disposed to vanity; and, when they fee others pretend to extraordinary gifts, are apt to flatter themselves that they may partake of them as well as thofe whofe merit they think no more than their own. Vanity therefore may juftly be deemed a principal fource of enthusiasm. But that St. Paul was as free from it as any man, I think may be gathered from all that we fee in his writings, or know of his life. Throughout his Epiftles there is not one word that favours of vanity, nor is any action recorded of him, in which the leaft mark of it ap pears. In his Epistle to the Ephefians he calls himself less than the leaft of all faints*. And to the Corinthians he fays, he is the leaft of the Apostles, and not meet to be called an Apostle, because he had perfecuted the church of God t. In his Epistle to Timothy he fays, This is a faithful faying, and worthy of all acceptation, That Chrift Jefus came into the world to fave finners, of whom I am t chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jefus Chrift might fhew forth all long-fuffering, for a pattern < to them which should hereafter believe in him to life everlasting *.' It is true indeed, that in another epiftle he tells the Corinthians, That he was not a whit behind the very chiefeft of the Apoftles, 2 Cor. xi. 5. But the occafion which drew from him these words must be confidered. A falfe teacher by faction and calumny had brought his apoftleship to be in question among the Corinthians. Against fuch an attack not to have afferted his apoftolical dignity, would have been a betraying of the office and duty committed to him by God. He was therefore conftrained to do himfelf justice, and not let down that character, upon the authority of which the whole fuccefs and efficacy of his miniftry among them depended. But how did he do it? Not with that wantonnefs which a vain man indulges, when he can get any opportunity of 1 Tim. i. 15, 16. commend commending himfelf; not with a pompous detail of all the amazing miracles which he had performed in different parts of the world, though he had so fair an occafion of doing it, but with a modeft and fimple expofition of his abundant labours and fufferings in preaching the Gofpel, and barely reminding them, that the figns of an apostle had been wrought among them in all patience, ' in figns and wonders, and mighty deeds *.' Could he fay lefs than this? Is not fuch boafting bumility itfelf? And yet for this he makes many apologies, expreffing the greatest uneafinefs in being obliged to speak thus of himself, even in his own vindication t. When, in the fame epiftle, and for the fame purpose, he mentions the visión he had of heaven, how modeftly does he do it! Not in his own name, but in the third perfon, I knew a man in Chrift, &c. caught up into the third heaven. And immediately after he adds, but now I forbear, left any -man should think of me above that which he * 2 Cor. xii. 12. † 2 Cor. xi. 1,16, 17, 18, 19, 30. 2 Cor. xii. 2. Seeth feeth me to be, or that he heareth of me*. How contrary is this to a spirit of vanity! how different from the practice of enthusiaftick pretenders to raptures and vifions, who never think they can dwell long enough upon thofe fubjects, but fill whole volumes with their accounts of them! Yet St. Paul is not fatisfied with this forbearance; he adds the confeffion of fome infirmity, which he tells the Corinthians was given to him as an alloy, that he might not be above measure exalted through the abundance of his revelations . I would also observe, that he says this rapture or vision of paradife happened to him above fourteen years before. Now had it been the effect of a mere enthufiaftical fancy, can it be fuppofed that in fo long a period of time, he would not have had many more raptures of the fame kind? Would not his imagination have been per petually carrying him to heaven, as we find St. Therefa, St. Bridget, and St. Catharine‡ were carried by theirs? And if vanity had 2 Cor. xii. 6. + 2 Cor. xii. 7. See their works and lives. been been predominant in him, would he have remained fourteen years in abfolute filence upon fo great a mark of the Divine favour? No, we should certainly have feen his epiftles filled with nothing else but long accounts of thefe vifions, conferences with angels, with Chrift, with God Almighty, mystical unions with God, and all that we read in the works of those fainted enthufiafts, whom I have mentioned before. But he only mentions this vifion in anfwer to the falfe teacher who had difputed his Apoftolical power, and comprehends it all in three fentences, with many excufes for being compelled to make any mention of it at all*. Nor does he take any merit to himself, even from the fuccefs of those Apoftolical labours which he principally boasts of in this epiftle. For in a former one to the fame church he writes thus, Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every, man? I have planted, |