In the present brief digest on Paul and Swedenborg, no attempt will be made at biography; this abounds of both, and in connection with each higher and worthier questions are before the Christian Church of to-day. Interesting as might be the life of him who died A.D. 66, and of him who died in 1772, the principles of theology they have left in their writings are of greater importance, and only in connection with these will biography detain us.

At the outset we draw a line between what is called, and has been taught as "Pauline Theology," and the writings of St. Paul; we have little respect for the one, we have much for the other.

Pauline Theology affords a curious commentary on the doctrinal instruction of the Christian Church for the past few centuries. The Epistles have been made the basis of teaching, almost to the exclusion of Gospel and Old Testament. This is but a portion of the mistake; greater is the error which has foisted doctrines on Paul that he never taught, and drawn up schemes of theology that his writings do not warrant. Between these and genuine deductions we make a difference. Paul cannot be blamed for his followers' misconceptions, and without hesitation we may say that he himself would never have substituted, as basical or exegetical groundwork, his own letters for the whole Word of God. So that rather than accord with Monsieur Renan's dictum, that "after having been for three hundred years, thanks to Protestantism, the Christian doctor par excellence, Paul is now coming

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to an end of his reign," we prefer Matthew Arnold's judgment, "The Protestantism which has so used and abused St. Paul is coming to an end," and that "his fundamental ideas, disengaged from the elaborate misconceptions with which Protestantism has overlaid them, will have an influence in the future greater than any which they have yet had."

To-day, as we put side by side the first great theologian of the Christian Church, Paul, and the last, Swedenborg, whatever advance and development may be shown in the writings of the one, it will be seen that in grand principles they agree.

Taking the former, we ask, How can we best, how only, get at what he really taught in place of what he has been made to teach? Clearly, by carefully considering the circumstances under which he wrote, both as regards himself and those to whom his epistles were addressed, and then reading these epistles as letters, doing as Locke did, who took them one by one, reading each through "with a close attention to the tenor of the discourse and a perfect neglect of the division into chapter and verse."

And while, on the present occasion, it would be too long a task thus to bring forward each separate epistle, having previously done so, we may group together the main conclusions, paying attention to the basis laid down by Bishop Horne in his words, "There is this general difference observable between the scope of the Gospels and that of the Epistles, namely, the former represent the principles of Christianity absolutely, or as they are in themselves, while the latter represent them relatively, that is, as they respect the state of the world at that particular time.”—Introduction, vol. ii. p. 479.

This relative condition is the predominant feature of Paul's theology. His great object was to bring together, first by contrast, and then by association, the Jewish law and Christian righteousness; to him one was spiritual death, the other life eternal. Eminently fitted for the task, as a strict Pharisee he could speak of the law with authority, he had attended to its observances with notorious ardour and fidelity, "as concerning zeal, persecuting the Church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless;" but when the scales had fallen from off his eyes, and he saw the worthlessness and impotency of that mere outward ritual to cleanse the soul, while at the same time the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ appeared to him in power and fulness, he turns at once to Him as "all and in all," determined to know nothing but "Christ and. Him crucified."

Look at the man in whom this great change was wrought, and see what we may expect from him. A zealous and devoted servant of God, a man of large self-sacrificing heart, of refined and widely educated mind, an excellent scholar, speaker, and writer, he could engage with the Jews, the best and most learned of them, handling powerfully and freely their Scriptures; he could come down to the simplest of heathen mind and feeling, and speak to them plain but cheering words of enlightenment; he could stand before the Roman tribunal and plead, so that its king should confess, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian ;" he could move among the polished and learned Athenians and compel them to respect himself and his principles; and he could write simple loving letters that are models of affectionate wisdom. This man, of such vast and varied powers and endowments, turning suddenly from a cold and lifeless Judaism, embraces the Saviour Jesus Christ as a living power, a new vitality, a transforming energy, and he bends his whole soul, he gives his whole life, to impart his knowledge and the faith that springs from it. The two systems are before him; with his keen intellect and large heart, the one a barren formalism, the other a Divine psychology, the one a dead letter, the other a vivifying potent influence; he sees both from extremes, and while turning from the one is to some extent dazzled by the other, henceforth the utter inadequacy of the law to impart salvation is to be made as plain as the righteousness of God manifested to the world, and given to those who believe on Him by the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This is the keynote of Paul's ministry and the burden of his epistles. We cannot attempt a consideration of the many forms under which he works out the leading principle, but it is both interesting and important to notice how, in doing so, he spiritualizes the chief points in Christ's manifestation when applied to personal and individual salvation. Thus, " suffering," "dying," "rising," with Christ, are all lifted above the mere earthly and literal application in a potent and active righteousness; "dying" is dying to sin, "rising" is rising to newness of life in the Lord; the whole worth and work of the Saviour's life, death, and resurrection, shown in the "new creature"-the RIGHTEOUSNESS of His followers. This, as the outcome and result of discipleship, is ever the foremost point in Paul's teaching.

No man ever lived who wrote more powerfully on the absolute necessity of a Christ-like life as the sole test of salvation. Read through that masterly summary prefixed to Dean Alford's edition of

the Epistles. What is said of one may be said of all :-" It was to set before them their real standing in Christ, the majesty of His Person and the completeness of His redemption, and to exhort them to conformity with their risen Lord, following this out into all the subordi nate duties and occasions of common life."

Each epistle is laden with command and entreaty to be “fruitful in every good work." "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." Yet, on this man, whose whole life and teaching thus magnified the life of religion, divines have attempted to graft "schemes" of salvation, justification without works, and kindred errors. If we wanted the meagre and often unfair support which isolated texts give, we might from any epistle refute these; and though we are not now going to review that fundamental fact of all Christian theology, the redemption of the world by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we assert that with Paul it meant a redemption from iniquity-from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. So little has he been understood in this his constant teaching, that the theology which has been for the past three or four centuries drawn from his writings has completely perverted their meaning, and Paul himself would stand aghast at some of the conclusions embodied in "doctrine for the Church of Christ." The ideas of "substitution," "imputation," and "the blood" theory, read in the true light of his epistles, crumble to dust, and there rises in their place the noble Christian servant, warrior, sufferer, that Paul loved to set before his churches, and could with pre-eminent fervour and beauty. In place of the man ignobly hanging down head and hands, there is one who buckles on the whole armour of God, and goes forth, day by day, to fight against his evils-goes forth confidently, because not in his own strength, but in the spirit and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This we assert to be the basis of Paul's whole system, though there are other conceptions involved in his teaching which, introducing other ideas, demand a word.

rightly apprehended the absolute Perhaps in this all human views

We may question how far he truth in his view of the Trinity. can be but relative, and certainly Paul's was modified by the conditions under which he taught. His own admission, "We know in part and we prophesy in part," we "see through a glass darkly," lead us back to Horne's remark on the relative and the absolute, and while repudiating as St. Paul's the theories that have been taught of

the "Three Persons each by Himself God and Lord," believing that he had far truer views of "God manifest in the flesh," yet that his teaching was qualified by the requirements of circumstances, is plain from his own words. Thus to the Corinthians he says: "Brethren, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ; and I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, nor neither yet now are ye able." Remembering the importance of this qualification, and how it must have affected him in every epistle, we forego for the present the consideration of that greatest fact, human redemption, in any further detail, remarking, however, that the common translation of the Epistle to the Romans was made by men whose heads were full of doctrines and ideas of "election" and "justification," which have given a strong bias to their work, and we pass on to notice one or two other points. Paul was wrong in his frequently asserted expectation of a second personal coming of the Lord. The first had then to be made plain and engrafted on human belief and life. The time was not for the second; and of it, as of all others, we may say prophecy is only truly understood in its fulfilment.

He had rightly apprehended the nature of the resurrection, if we may judge from his letter to the Corinthians. He saw the two bodies, natural and spiritual; he showed the one would never rise again, while the man lives on in a glorified spiritual form.

Here and there he foreshadowed the plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture, even in the Jewish ritual and law; but comparison fails in this, as we place him beside the theologian, of whom we must now say a few words, Emanuel Swedenborg. It is a long stretch in time as we pass from the one to the other; this finds its counterpart in the writings of the two. Here we are less inclined to biography than we were with Paul, and shall spare all superfluous eulogy. Like the first, his early training was suited to his subsequent mission. Quiet, pious, and devout by nature, gifted with large mental endowments, every facility afforded him for acquiring knowledge, he was enabled to complete a course of study that few have equalled and perhaps none surpassed. On this rich, grand foundation his theological superstructure had a wide-extended range; and just as his early training was superior, or, let us say, of a different nature to Paul's, so do we find the after building more noble and imposing. In complete accord with the Tarsian, the fruits of righteousness are the true evidences of Christianity. "All religion has relation to life, and the life of religion