At Jerusalem was the board-room in which sat the Council of the Apostles: of those men, to whom their bitterest enemies would not, any more than their disciples and adherents, have refused the appellation of constant companions and selected disciples of the departed Jesus. To them was known, everything that, in relation to Jesus, was known to any one else: and moreover, in unlimited abundance, particulars not capable of being known by any one else. As to Paul, let us suppose him now a believer in Jesus; and, on this supposition, note what could not but have been the state of his mind, with relation to those select servants of Jesus. In them he beheld the witnesses--not only of the most material and characteristic acts and sayings of their Master, but of his death, and its supernatural consequences--the _resurrection_ and _ascension_, with which it had been followed. In them he beheld--not only the witnesses of his _miracles_, but a set of pupils, to whom such powers of working the like miracles--such miraculous powers, in a word, as it had pleased him to impart,--had been imparted. In their labours, he beheld the causes of whatsoever prosperity, he found the society, established by them, in possession of. In himself, he beheld the man, who, with such distinguished acrimony and perseverance, had done his utmost, for the destruction of that society, into which, for the purposes, indication of which has been so clearly given by his own pen, he was preparing to intrude himself. To form an ostensible cause for his intrusion,--in addition to such information, as, by means of his persecution, it had happened to him to extract from those whom he had been persecuting, what, on his part, had he?--He had his own learning, his own talents, his own restless and audacious temper, and the vision he had got up:--the baseless fabric of that vision, a view of which has just been given. Of the representation thus given of the matter,--whether we take his own account of it, or that of the Acts,--suppose the truth to rest upon no other ground than this vision, with or without that other vision, which has been seen so slenderly tacked to it, and so strangely inserted into it,--thus slender is the ground, on which we shall find him embarking upon his enterprize,--assuming to himself, without modification or apology, the name of _an Apostle_,--thrusting himself into the society, and putting himself altogether upon an equality, not to say more than an equality, with the whole company of the men, whose title to that appellation was above dispute:--those of them who, among the chosen, had been the most favoured, not excepted. GALATIANS i. 11-23.