He  did  not  wish  that  his  people  should  receive  his  truth  be
cause  he  the  apostle  had  said  it,  but  because  it  was  truth.
He  did  not  seek  to  bind  men,  as  if  they  were  destitute  of
reasoning,  to  any  UVTOQ  'i$r\,  as  is  set  up  now  by  Evangelical
ism  or  Popery,  but  throughout  the  whole  of  this  Epistle  he
uses  arguments,  he  appeals  to  reason  and  to  sense.  He  con
vinces  men  that  he  was  an  apostle,  not  by  declarations  that
they  must  believe  him,  but  by  appealing  to  the  truth  he  had
taught — "by  manifestation  of  the  truth,  commending  our
selves  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God."

Further,  we  see  in  the  fact  of  St.  Paul's  joining  with  him
self  Sosthenes,  and  calling  him  his  brother,  another  proof  of
his  desire  to  avoid  erecting  himself  as  the  sole  guide  of  the
Church.  He  sends  the  Epistle  from  himself  and  Sosthenes.
Is  that  like  one  who  desired  to  be  Lord  alone  over  God's
heritage  ?  I  am  an  apostle — sent  by  the  will  of  God  ;  but
Sosthenes  is  my  brother.  Of  Sosthenes  himself  nothing  cer
tain  is  known.  He  is  supposed  by  some  to  be  the  Sosthenes
of  Acts  xviii.,  the  persecutor,  the  ringleader  of  the  Jews
against  the  Christians,  who  was  beaten  before  the  judgment-
seat  of  Gallio.  If  so,  see  what  a  conqueror  St.  Paul,  or  rather
Christianity,  had  become.  Like  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,
Sosthenes  now  built  up  the  faith  which  once  he  destroyed.
