Wright - BT300 W8 1788

310 The NEW and COMPLETE LIFE. of Our BLESSED LORD that he fludied the law in one of the fchools of Jerufalem, where he was con- verted by our Lord, and was one of the feventy difciples mentioned in Scripture. However this be, St. Luke became the infeparable companion of St. Paul in all his travels, and his con fiant fellow-labourer in the work of the minifiry : he followed him in all his dangers, was with him at his fevers! arraignments at Jerufalern, ac- companied him in his tedious and dan- gerous voyage to Rome, where he pill attended on him, to adminifler to him in his neceffities, and fupply thofe Jninifierial offices, which the apople's confinement `would not Puffer him, to undertake ; and efpecially in carrying meffages to other churches, where he had planted the Chrif- tian religion. This infinitely endeared him to St. Paul, who feemed delighted with owning him for his fellow -labourer, and in calling him the beloved phr zcian, and the brother zahofe praife is in the gotel, 2 Cor. viii. 18. It is very probable, he did not leave St. Paul till he had finifhed his courfe, and received the 'crown of martyrdom ; though fome tell us, that he left St. Paul at Rome, and returned back into the Eail, travelling into Egypt and feveral parts of Libya, where he preached the gofpelwrought miracles, converted mul- titudes, and conflituted guides and minif- ters of religion; nay, that he himfelf un- dertook the epifcopal charge of the city of Thebais. Epiphanius tells us, that he fire preached in Dalmatia and Galatia, then in Italy and Macedonia, where he fpared no pains, and declined no dan- gers,that he might faithfully difcharge the true committed to him by his great Mailer. The time or manner of his death are not very well agreed upon by the ancients ; force affirming him to die in Egypt, others in Greece, the Roman martyrology in Bythinia, and Dorothwus at Ephefus; force will have that he died a natural, and others- a violent death. Indeed neither 2 Eufebius nor St. Jerom take any notice of it, but Gregory Nazianzen, Paulinus bifhop of Nola, and feveral others, ex- prefsly affert, that he fuffered.martyrdom; and Nicephorus gives us this particular account of it : " That coming into Greece, he fuccefsfully preached the gofpel, and baptifed many converts into the Chriffian faith, till, at laft, a party of infidels op- pofed his doárines : but, being unable to filence him by reafon and argument, they had recourfe to cruelty, dragged him from the place where he was teaching the gofpel, and hung, him on an olive tree, in the eightieth, or, according to St. Jerom, in the eighty- fourth year of his age." Kirfienius thinks, he fuffered martyrdom at Rome loon after St. Paul's fire im- prifonment, becaufe he did not continue his ails of the apoflles any further, which it is natural to think he would have done, had he lived any confiderable time after St. Paul's departure. His body was after- wards; by, the command of Conflantine, or his fon Conpantius, removed, with great folemnity, to Conflantinople, and buried in the great church, erebted to the memory ofthe apofiles, in, that city. His gofpel, and the ails of the apoples, were written by him for the ufe of the church ; both which he dedicated toTheo philus, which many of the ancients fup pofe to be a feigned name, denoting a lover of God, a title common to all fin - cere Chriftians : but others think it was a real perron, becaufe the title of " molt excellent" is attributed to him, the ufual title and form ofaddrefs in thofe times to princes and great men. Probably he was force magifirate, whom St. Luke had con- verted and baptifed, and to whom he dedicated thefe books, not only as a ter timony of honourable refpeft, but alto as a means of giving him further certainty and affurance of thofe things wherein he had infiruiled him, and which it was re- quifite he fhould be informed of. The principal tranfaffions of our Lord's life are contained in his gofpel; and the particulars

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