filled with amazement, and that its preachers were every day fealing their teftimony with their blood, they began to make a more particular enquiry into the doctrine of Jefus Chrift, and after the mighty works which he was faid to have done in Judea.But although they found the facts fo well attefted that they could not difprove them, yet, as the greatest part of his doctrine was so much above the reach of their faculties, that they could not reconcile it to their manner of reafoning, they treated it as a fable, those who propagated it as fanatics, and declared that all the miracles which they did, were done by the power of magic.

Celfus was the first who wrote publicly against the doctrine of Jefus Chrift: And as his reafoning has been the bafis upon which all the arguments that have been made against Christianity, by the ancient as well as by the modern philosophers, were founded; except that many of the latter have denied the facts, which the former never did; I fhall, with great fubmiffion, make some enquiry into the principal objections that have been made by the ancients as well as by the moderns against the principles of the Chriftian religion; and endeavour to prove, that they can have no folid foundation; and that, in a matter of this confequence, it behoves every person to reflect seriously upon the fubject, before he suffers himself to be led away by fuch frivolous, although perhaps plausible, arguments, which are neither phyfically nor morally fupported.

CELSUS

whole face of the earth; and has not only drawn millions of fouls out of idolatry, and all kinds of vices, to the knowledge of the true God; but, by the pure moral which he hath taught, has greatly tended to civilize the moft barbarous part of mankind, to open their understandings, and to make them think, and act, like rational creatures. Even many of our modern philofophers, who plume themselves upon the knowledge which they fuppofe they have acquired of the Divine attributes, would have been as ignorant of thofe matters, as were the philofophers of Greece and Rome; and the former would have continued in the fame state of idolatry, that St. Paul has defcribed the latter to have been in, if they had not been enlightened by the knowledge of the gofpel, the principal part of which they pretend to deny.

After a number of arguments of the like nature, which for the most part contradict each other, Celfus again introduces his Jew, reproaching his countrymen, with having ridiculously fuffered themfelves to be furprized by the tromperies of Jefus, with having abandoned the law of their fathers, and with having changed their name, and manner of living. But either this author thinks that he does a meritorious act, by publishing a number of calumnies and falfehoods, or otherwife he must have been very ill informed of the customs of those Jews who embraced Chriftianity; because nothing is more certain, than that they continued to obferve the law of their fathers in all things, and

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that

that the Apostles themselves set them the example. For, before that Peter had learnt, from the Holy Ghoft, to raise his ideas from the literal to the fpiritual fenfe of things, he refused to comply with the heavenly voice which spake to him at Joppa, and faid unto him, when he faw the vifion of the sheet which was let down from heaven, full of all manner of four-footed beasts, fowls, and creeping things, " Arife, Peter, kill and eat":" and answered, "Not fo, Lord; for I have never

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eaten any thing that is common, or unclean."---Peter is here reprefented as adhering to the Jewish customs, respecting his eating and drinking, and as defpifing those who were not obfervers of the law of Mofes. St. Paul tells us, likewife +, that St. Peter was, at that time, so fearful of offending the Jews, that, notwithstanding he had seen the great things which God had done for the Gentiles when James and others came to Antioch, where he was bishop, he, Barnabas, and the reft of the Jews who were prefent, would eat no more with the Gentiles, and separated themfelves from them.-Undoubtedly there was fome reafon, that those who were defigned to preach the gospel among the Jews fhould retain the Jewish customs: Moreover Paul himself lived with the Jews, as a Jew, to gain over those people to the Christian Faith; by perfuading them that he had not, in any respect, renounced the obfervation of the law of Mofes.

• A&s x. 9.

+ Gal. ii. 12.

But

but are the fame that had been long before taught by the philofophers.-If Celfus had any writings of the ancient philofophers which contained moral precepts equally pure and refined with thofe of the Evangelifts, they are loft at prefent; because it is certain, that the moral which we find in thofe ancient authors that are handed down to us, is not to be compared with that which was preached by Jefus Chrift and his Apoftles; and I have not heard of any other author who has attempted to put the former in competition with the latter. He then enters upon the point of idolatry; and obferves, that those who profefs Christianity declare against the belief of thofe gods which are made by men's bands, because there is no appearance that the works made, for the most part, by wicked and unjust men, and full of all forts of impurity, can be real gods: But to turn off, what he fuppofed was a merit, from the Chriftians, he immediately proceeds to fhew, that this doctrine was not peculiar to them; and that it was not their books which taught it the firft; and cites a paffage out of Heraclitus, which fays, that those who addrefs themfelves to inanimate bodies, as if they were gods, may be juftly compared to thofe artificers, who would make a piece of brass or of copper to speak, with only touching it.

As the working of miracles through the name of Jefus Chrift, was not ceased among the Chriftians at the time when Celfus wrote, this author takes a great deal of pains to prove, that all the power

which the Chriftians had to work miracles, arofe from their invoking the names of certain demons; and from the particular correfpondence they had with those beings. I am very glad to fee that Celfus avows, that the Chriftians did thofe miraculous acts in his time; because many of our modern philofophers pofitively deny this fact; but the testimony of an enemy, in favour of any perfon or thing, muft always have much weight. If therefore the Chriftians did miracles at the time when Celfus wrote, by invoking the name of Jefus Chrift, it would be abfurd in me, in this enlightened age, to attempt to prove, that this must have been done by the immediate interpofition of the Divinity; because, from the idea which mankind in general have of the nature of demons, or of the power of the wicked principle, it is not in their nature to cure diseases, and to do all manner of good works, as the Chriftians did to their fellow-creatures; which even Celfus himself and their worst enemies have never attempted to deny.

But this author was not content with throwing out all this calumny against the Chriftians of his age; for, in the next page, he extends it to the perfon of Jefus Chrift, the founder of their fect; whom he accuses, with great bitterness, to havě done all the miracles, which he did in Judea, by the power of magic, and to have afterwards banished from the fociety of his difciples, by the effect of his foreknowledge of things, those who had learnt the fame fecrets, and who might, as he had done, value them