The Gospel Witnesses.
Consider some points of agreement between St. Paul and St. James.
I. Take the New Testament as we have received it. Admitting that there were two principles at work in the development of the Christian Church, they are inextricably united as regards the documents of faith. Consider the Epistle to the Hebrews, which would be sufficient evidence, if there were no other, of the identity of St. Paul's doctrine with St. James's. Be as disputatious as you like about its author; still it comes at least from the school of St. Paul, if not from that Apostle himself. Now look through it from beginning to end, observe well its exhortations to obedience, its warnings against apostasy, its solemn announcement of the terrors of the Gospel, and further its honourable treatment of the Jewish law, which it sets forth as fulfilled, not disrespectfully superseded, by the Gospel, and then say whether this Epistle alone be not a wonderful monument of the essential unity of the Gospel creed among all its original disseminators.
II. In the case of the original Apostles the intention of delivering and explaining their Divine Master's teaching cannot be mistaken. Now of course St. Paul, professing to preach Christ's Gospel, could not but avow such an intention also; but it should be noticed, considering that he was not with our Lord on earth, how he devotes himself to the sole thought of Him; that is, it would be remarkable were not St. Paul Divinely chosen and called, as we believe him to have been. The thought of Christ is the one thought in which he lives; it is the fervent love, the devoted attachment, the zeal and reverence, of one who had heard, and seen, and looked upon, and handled the word of life.
III. The doctrine of the Incarnation, or the Gospel economy, as embracing the two great truths of the Divinity of Christ and the Atonement, was not (as far as we know) clearly revealed during our Lord's ministry. Yet how close is St. Paul's agreement with St. John. I consider the exact accordance between these two men (to all appearance as unlike each other by nature as men could be) to be little short of a demonstration of the reality of the Divine doctrines to which they witness. "The testimony of two men is true," and still more clearly so in this case supposing (what unbelievers may maintain, but they alone) that any rivalry of schools existed between these holy Apostles.
IV. St. John and St. Paul both put forward (1)the doctrine of regeneration; (2) the praise of charity as the fulfilling of the law and the characteristic precept of the Gospel; (3) the duty of almsgiving; (4) self-denial; (5) the Holy Eucharist. Beyond controversy the agreement is in essentials: the nature and office of the Mediator, the gifts which He vouchsafes to us, and the temper of mind and the duties required of a Christian; whereas the difference of doctrine between them, even admitting there is a difference, relates only at the utmost to the Divine counsels, the sense in which the Jewish law is abolished, and the condition of justification, whether faith or good works. A difference of opinion as to the latter subjects cannot detract from that real and substantial agreement of system visible in the course of doctrine which the two witnesses respectively deliver.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. ii., p. 175.
References: 2 Corinthians 13:1-10. C. Short, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 235. 2 Corinthians 13:3-5. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxx., No. 1788.