descent of the Spirit. And their errors and prejudices were, at last, only dissipated by degrees, as new circumstances arose. It was, in fact, persecution which scattered them abroad, and led them to propose the gospel to the Gentiles. And yet these men subdued the world.

And observe, also, in their manner of preaching, their open appeal to the main facts of Christianity and the immediate power of the Holy Ghost. Read St. Peter's discourses to the Jews, and St. Paul's to the Gentiles. On what does the doctrine rest? Upon man, or upon God? Can anything be more artless, more unassuming, more evidently referring every thing to a divine operation, especially as to the resurrection of their Lord? How strong and unbending are their demands upon their hearers' faith and obedience? How uncompromising their condemnation of polytheism and vice, when addressing the heathen; and of the pride and misinterpretation of the prophecies, when addressing the Jews? They rely on a divine operation. Even in the records of their actions they relate only a part of their wonderful successes, and those relations are often only incidental. ® It is obvious that events as they arose, and not human design and foresight, conducted the steps of the apostles; and that the fact of the resurrection, and their miraculous powers, not human suasion, were the strength of their discourses. And with these peaceful arms they conquer. The most unlikely persons, with the most unlikely doctrine, in the most unlikely manner, convert the world! A divine interposition can alone fill up the chasm between such disproportioned means and the immense effects produced. If the resurrection of Christ were not true, if the Holy Ghost had not descended upon them, if the gifts of

8 This may be traced throughout the Acts of the Apostles. Events of immense magnitude come out incidentally. The Epistles abound with similar discoveries by intimation.

8

tongues and of healing had not been conferred, how could such a doctrine, in the hands of such men, have gained a single convert?

The conclusion of Eusebius (A. D. 270-339) seems unavoidable, "When I consider," he says, "the power of this doctrine, and that great multitudes of men were persuaded, and numerous societies formed by the mean and illiterate disciples of Jesus; and that not in obscure and ignorant places, but in the most celebrated cities, in Rome itself, the queen of all other cities, in Alexandria, and Antioch, throughout Egypt and Lybia, Europe and Asia; and also in villages and country places, and in all nations; I am obliged and even compelled to inquire after the cause of this, and to acknowledge that they succeeded not in their great undertaking any otherwise than by DIVINE POWER Surpassing all human ability, and by the co-operation of him who said unto them, "Go, teach all nations." 9

2. And bear in mind the additional obstacles to their enterprize which arose from the time and place of the propagation of Christianity.

The time when Christianity was promulgated, was just that which would have presented the greatest obstacles to any religion that was not protected by a divine arm. The time was one of high cultivation, of literary and philosophical inquiry, of art, science, elegance, refinement, luxury, vice. It was the period when Rome, the mistress of the nations by her arms, had become their instructress by her arts and laws. It was the polished and enlightened age of Augustus, when the empire was filled with philosophers, orators, poets, and historians.

It was a time of profound peace, when the temple of Janus was shut, and all nations kept, as it were, a state of watchful silence, waiting for the appearance

9 Lardner, iv 220.

of the divine person whom a universal fame pronounced would arise from the east.

It was an age the furthest removed from that credulity which distinguishes ignorant nations. It was an age of scepticism, when dislike of all religion prevailed to a great extent among the learned. The Epicurean doctrine had swallowed up all other sects; a doctrine which maintained the indifference of human actions, made pleasure the chief good, and held the cessation of existence at death. The disciples of this philosophy denied a deity, or asserted such an ideal one as remains in a state of torpor and inactivity, heedless of the concerns of this lower world. No period could be conceived so little adapted to the exhibition of a false, and so well calculated to put to the test the merits of a true religion. They had wits sharpened by curiosity, so that they would eagerly inquire after whatever was new; but at the same time they were disposed to treat with contempt that which pretended to be supernatural. They had long been accustomed to laugh at their own gods; and though they might imagine there was some safety attached to the ancient superstitions, yet in their private life and expectations, it is evident, they did not in the least connect any serious anticipation of happiness with the worship, or of punishment with the neglect, of their deities. The infinite wisdom saw fit to select this time, to silence for ever, as my text speaks, the babblings of philosophy, and to "destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." It cannot be said that Christianity stole upon the world like a thief in the night: it cannot be said that it owed its success to the credulity of mankind; and that if the generations among whom it first appeared, lived now, they would have reasoned to more purpose. For the productions of that age, are the admiration of this. In works of taste and imagination, it has never been surpassed; and it is some

times considered as the highest praise of writers of the present day, that they exhibit a near approach to the inimitable beauties of the authors who then flourished.

It was a time, however, of infinite luxury, effeminacy, and corruption of manners, as we observed in a former lecture,10 when the most dissolute and relaxed standard of opinions, and the most debauched and disgusting state of public and private morals, prevailed. That is, the period was exactly that in which men would examine a new religion with a strict and even feverish suspicion, and would resist the yoke of a holy law with the greatest contempt and pertinacity.

The place also whence the doctrine arose, was just the very spot which witnessed the facts on which it rested. It was not in some distant and obscure region that the apostles first asserted the resurrection of Christ; but at Jerusalem, and at the festival which collected the most numerous assemblage of the nation. The first Christian churches were formed in Judea and Galilee, which had been the scenes of our Lord's ministry and miracles. The success of the apostles on the spot where the chief parts of the history had been transacted, could only arise from the truth of their appeals to the hearts of the witnesses, and from the accompanying power of Almighty God.

These considerations are of surprising force. A religion is established in the place where its facts occurred, and is believed by immense numbers who were capable of ascertaining the truth of them ; and it then goes forth into the heart of a polished and learned world at the very height of all its secular pride and indulgence, and imposes its holy laws on the corrupt and licentious age. It triumphs by its meek and peaceful doctrine over the influence of edu

10 Lect. ii.

cation, the force of habit, the weight of authority, the craft of a corrupt priesthood, the policy of legislators, the skill and genius of poets and philosophers, the fascination of oracles and prodigies, the shafts of scorn and ridicule, and the impositions of an idolatry supported by remote antiquity, universal diffusion, and inseparable conjunction with the laws and usages and fancied prosperity of each state. Surely no man can witness the Christian faith marching forth unarmed amidst such foes, and yet victorious over them all-without being constrained to believe that a heavenly, though an invisible guard, watched over its progress; and without exclaiming, after the manner of the Roman soldier who witnessed the mysterious sufferings of its divine Author, "Truly, this religion is from God!"

3. But not only had the Christian religion to meet with these obstacles, but to meet them strengthened and supported by the fiercest persecutions. I refer again to the statements of Tacitus and Pliny adduced above. Weigh every word of those passages, and tell me the amount of fierce and unlimited persecution which raged against Christianity. But these are only specimens of the dreadful scenes which lasted for three hundred years; during which the blood of the Christian martyrs flowed in torrents in almost every part of the Roman empire. The Jew and the Gentile vied in their hatred and cruelty. He who professed this despised religion was exposed to the loss of property and country and liberty and life. The emperors armed the magistrates with authority, the fury of the populace supplied additional means of destruction, and the poison of the most odious calumnies (as we see also in the extracts to which I have just referred) aggravated all. The Christians were tortured with every species of cruelty, and accounted the enemies of the human race. Neither age nor