544 THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS

men; therefore, behold, the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid” (xxix. 13, 14). Then take the New Testament, and observe how St. Paul himself speaks of the Romans, even as hardly needing his epistle, but able to admonish one another: “Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind” (xv. 15). Any one, we should have thought, might have done as much as this, and yet St. Paul increases the modesty of it as he goes on; for he claims the right of doing as much as this, only “because of the grace given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles.” Then compare 2 Cor. v. 11, where he appeals to the consciences of the people for the manifestation of his having done his duty; and observe in verse 21 of that, and 1 of the next chapter, the “pray” and “beseech,” not “command”; and again in chapter vi. verse 4, “approving ourselves as the ministers of God.” But the most remarkable passage of all is 2 Cor. iii. 1, whence it appears that the churches were actually in the habit of giving letters of recommendation to their ministers; and St. Paul dispenses with such letters, not by virtue of his Apostolic authority, but because the power of his preaching was enough manifested in the Corinthians themselves. And these passages are all the more forcible, because if in any of them St. Paul had claimed absolute authority over the Church as a teacher, it was no more than we should have expected him to claim, nor could his doing so have in anywise justified a successor in the same claim. But now that he has not claimed it,-who, following him, shall dare to claim it? And the consideration of the necessity of joining expressions of the most exemplary humility, which were to be the example of succeeding ministers, with such assertion of Divine authority as should secure acceptance for the epistle itself in the sacred canon, sufficiently accounts for the apparent inconsistencies which occur in 2 Thess. iii. 14, and other such texts.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]