1817 Sept 3

Not Paul

Ch Paul’s success―its causes

In addition to whatever ground had been formed by nature Paul had from practice derived an energetic―a what has been called an ardent mind: an energetic will: quicquid vult valdé vult― whatever he wills he wills strongly―is a character / description / not less applicable to him / this / man than to the man / him / JB footnote marker here, and in margin, but no corresponding footnote text. to whom it was applied in the first instance. The phrase was used by Julius Caesar to describe Brutus: see Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, xiv. i. 2.

For giving effect to the designs entertained and pursued by such his will―he possessed moreover on the side of active talent another qualification―viz. fluency in discourse: fluency in written discourse, witness so many fruits and exemplifications of it as it is our lot to possess: of correspondent fluency in spoken discourse the effects actually produced by him may surely be accepted as conclusive / sufficient / proofs: for / . For / whether to the effects stated as having on the several particular occasions been produced in the minds and deportment of his auditories by the respective speeches the alledged substance of which has been handed down to us as do or do not on the whole or in any part give evidence, yet, of the effects produced by his eloquence either in the way of public speaking or large audiences or in the way of private converse or individual records we have those undoubted and as it should seem unexceptionable / unobjectionable / proofs, which the history of his life as delivered by the author of the Acts, and in a still more trustworthy manner confirmed by so many passages in his Epistles―passages written in no such view, has placed in a light the satisfactoriness / clearness / of which seems hardly open / little exposed / to dispute.