No course was so rash, that Paul would shrink from it, no ceremony so awful, or so public that Paul would fear to profane it. Of the asseveration, to which he was called upon to give, in an extraordinary form, the sanction of an oath, the purport was universally notorious: the falsity, no less so: the ceremony, a solemnity on which the powers of sacerdotal ingenuity had been exhausted, in the endeavour to render is efficaciously impressive. Place of performance, the most sacred among the sacred: act of entrance, universally public, purpose universally notorious; operations, whatever they were, inscrutably concealed from vulgar eyes: person of the principal actor occasionally visible, but at an awful elevation: time, requisite for accomplishment, Acts 21:27, not less than seven days: the whole ceremony, effectually secured against frequent profanation, by "charges" too heavy to be borne by the united power of four ordinary purses.[52] With all the ingredients of the most finished perjury in his breast,--perfect consciousness, fixed intentionality, predetermined perseverance, and full view of the sanction about to be violated,--we shall see him entering upon the task, and persevering in it. While the long drama was thus acting in the consecrated theatre, the mind of the multitude was accumulating heat without doors. The seven days necessary, were as yet unaccomplished, when indignation could hold no longer: they burst into the sacred edifice, dragged him out, and were upon the point of putting him to death, when the interference of a Roman officer saved him, and became the first link in that chain of events, which terminated in his visit to Rome, and belongs not to this place. Thus much, in order to have the clearer view of the plan of the Apostles, and of the grounds of it, from which will be seen the unexceptionableness of it, it seemed necessary for us here to anticipate. But such rashness, with the result that followed--the Apostles, in their situation, how could they have anticipated it?