114 The Fundamentals wisdom. Could he by feats of jugglery in presence of a shrewd, hostile people strike Elymas the sorcerer, blind; heal a cripple at Lystra; restore the pythoness at Philippi; shake open with a prayer the doors of a prison; raise the dead to life, etc., so that thousands were converted and great pure churches renouncing all sin and dishonesty, established throughout the Roman world? Our author shows that this would be impos- sible without divine help and therefore he concludes'that he has proven (1) that Paul was not a cheat telling a trumped-up story about his conversion, and ( 2 ) if he were, he could not have succeeded. I I . PAUL NOT AN EN THU S IA ST W HO IMPOSED ON H IM SE L F This second argument covers twenty pages. Was Paul a deluded enthusiast whose overheated imagination imposed on him so that he imagined to be true that which had never really taken place? Lord Lyttelton makes an analysis of the elements that enter into the make-up of a man of this type. He finds these to be five. ( i ) Great heat o f temper. While Paul had intense fervor, like all great men, yet it was' everywhere governed by discretion and reason. His zeal was his servant, not the master of his judgment. He pos- sessed consummate tact which proves self-control. In indif- ferent matters he became “all things to all men;” to the Jews he became a Jew, to them that are without law as without law, to the weak he became weak—all, that he might gain some. (1 Cor. 9:19-23.) “His zeal was eager and warm, but tem- pered with prudence, and even with the civilities and deco- rums of life, as appears by his behavior to Agrippa, Festus and Felix; not the blind, inconsiderate, indecent zeal of an en- thusiast.” (
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