Could Paul, I ask, have written in such language as this, or anything approaching to this, unless he believed Christ to have been divine, in the fullest sense of that word?  But believing this with all his heart, his whole life and preaching were consistent with such a belief.  He preached Jesus as the Person whom all men were to love and obey as God, confide and rejoice in as in God, and to whom they were to commit themselves, both soul and body, for time and for eternity, as to God.  What he wished others to do, he himself did.  For what was the source and strength of his life?  “The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”  “I live; yet not I, Christ lives in me.”  “I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me.”  What was the one object of his holy ambition?  “That I may win Christ.”  What was his heaven?  “To be with Christ.”  And after thirty years passed in His service, and after having endured such sufferings as never fell to the lot of one man, so far from uttering the language of disappointment or regret, as of one whose early convictions had not stood the test of experience, but had failed to sustain him when most needed, he thus writes, with calm confidence and perfect peace, in his old age, and from a prison, to his dear friend and follower Timothy:—­

“For the which cause I also suffer these things:  nevertheless I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”  “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.  Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”  “But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.  For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”  “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me:  I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear:  and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom:  to whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen,” (2 Tim. i. 12, ii. 1-3, iv. 5-8, 16-18.)

Was that man an idolater and blasphemer,—­the dupe of his own fancy,—­deceived in his faith and hopes,—­or was he the ignorant deceiver of others?