them from idolaters, by whom they were frequently put to torture, and sometimes to death. And it is wonderful to observe how, in so short time, the religion has increased, amidst punishments, and death, and confiscation, and every kind of torture."

super

It is a satisfaction also to find that these accounts are confirmed by the testimony of Heathen writers, who either knew nothing of Christianity, or were bitter enemies to it. Four principal writers, who were contemporaries of the apostles, complain in their works of the vast increase of Judaism about their age. There is no doubt but that this was Christianity, which they naturally enough confounded with Judaism. Tacitus, who writes thirty years after the ascension, mentions "this stition," as he calls it, being repressed for awhile by persecution; then breaking out again, not only in Judea, where it began, but in the very city of Rome itself. But the most memorable testimony to our purpose is a letter from Pliny, the governor of Bythinia, to the Roman governor, requesting his advice how to treat this new sect. "Their number," says he, "makes it worthy of advice; for many of every age and order, and of both sexes, are accused of maintaining this religion; for the infection of it has spread, not only in cities, but in villages, and many places. The temples,” says he, "of their gods have been deserted, the sacred rites intermitted, and nothing can we find to offer in sacrifice." This same governor wrote about seventy years after Christ's ascension. Upon this evidence, the fact itself of the rapid progress and propagation of Christianity may be depended upon.

The circumstances under which Christianity was propagated remain yet to be considered. One reflection, however, is striking; that a handful of men, of no learn

ing, mean in character, obscure and friendless wanderers, should prevail on such numbers to turn from a loose religion to a strict one; from vice to virtue; from indulgence to self-denial:-should persuade them to quit the religion in which they had been educated, and were at ease; to forego the enjoyment also of worldly pleasures and convenience; to give up ample fortunes, and oblige their dearest friends and relations to leave their country; to offend rulers and magistrates; to suffer all kinds of temporal evils, and in many cases even the loss of life, and this among Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, savage nations and polished people; that they should do this without having any proof to offer of the truth of what they taught, is altogether incredible. Human nature is undoubtedly the same in every age and in every country: to suppose therefore, that thousands, and tens of thousands, should do then, what no man in his senses would do now, is to set aside every rule of reason and probability.

XLIV.

PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

(PART II.)

2 PETER I. 16.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

HAVING given some account of the first preaching and spreading of Christianity in the world, and shown from infallible testimony, that the credit it gained, and the progress it made, was rapid and extensive; we will now proceed to consider the circumstances under which the religion was propagated, with a view to prove that its success under these circumstances can fairly be attributed to nothing but its truth.

Christianity, in our way of considering it, is a history; for it would be received or rejected, according as those to whom it was proposed thought the history of Christ's life and miracles to be true or false. It will be our business, therefore, to note the circumstances which principally distinguish true history from false, supposing the last to have obtained some credit in the world; and then to observe how these circumstances are applicable to the history of Christianity as contained in the gospel,

and published in the very country and days of the apostles and early teachers of the religion.

Now the first important circumstance to be looked for in the history is, that the account be published at, or near, the time in which the thing related is said to have happened. A celebrated Roman historian, of great reputation for truth and exactness, describes in his history of Rome several prodigies and miracles which attended the first foundation and early ages of that city; but these accounts, notwithstanding the character and abilities of the author, are universally suspected, because those prodigies confessedly happened some two, others three, and all some centuries before the writer's own time; so that we see the writer of the history could know little or nothing more of the matter than we do. Whatever, therefore, be the integrity of the historian, a very slender deference is due to history so circumstanced; in like manner, was an author of this time of day to publish the original history of one of our Saxon kings, few probably would pay much regard to it; whereas, was the same man to publish a history of the last reign, every one would pay it implicit credit. Of such consequence it is, that the original account of the fact be published near the time in which it is said to happen. Now we are assured that this is the case with the history and first propagation of Christianity. There is some difference amongst learned men in the account of the dates of the gospels and epistles; but by the best accounts, they were within thirty years after Christ's ascension Saint Matthew's gospel probably within nine. As they were most of them written by persons who were present at the transactions they relate, their dates could not be long after; and even if some years had

passed after they had happened, it was not so long after, but that many who had it in their power to detect the fraud and falsehood, if there was any, were still living.

Saint Paul, in the 15th chapter of the 1st epistle to the Corinthians, says that "Christ after his resurrection was seen of about five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some are fallen asleep." All those who did remain, remained to contradict the assertion if it was not true. I believe it will be impossible to produce so fair, so sublime an appeal to living witnesses in any thing which is not founded in truth. But to return to the authority of the New Testament, especially the epistles. Suppose the religion to be already preached and known in the world; it follows that the preaching and the publishing of Christianity, and of the facts upon which it depends, must have commenced some time before the books were written, and consequently very soon after Christ's death. We are told by Tacitus, a heathen writer of great credit, and a stranger, or rather an enemy, to Christianity, that Christianity began in Judea, that it had spread as far as Rome, that there were Christians there in great numbers. Tacitus relates this about thirty years after Christ's crucifixion. If this religion therefore could have spread so far, and converted such numbers, within thirty years after Christ's death, it must have been begun and set forward presently after his death. And this is the testimony of a heathen.

But independent of testimony, there is a circumstance in the nature of the thing, which proves that the preaching and publishing of the gospel facts must immediately have followed the facts themselves, as it is related to have done in the acts of the apostles. The preachers