LECTURE X.

THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

1 COR. i. 19-21, and 27-29.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound things that are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence.

HAVING Considered the arguments for the divine authority of the Christian religion, derived from the performance of undeniable miracles, and the numerous prophecies now fulfilling before our eyes, in the events of the world, we come next to contemplate the manifest interference of Almighty God, in the establishment of Christianity, and its subsequent continuance to the present day.

This subject may be considered in the facts themselves which it embraces, and in the agreement of these facts with the predictions of our Lord, and of the prophets under the preceding dispensation.

The propagation and preservation of Christianity, are in themselves proofs of divine authority; but when considered as the accomplishment of a long train of previous predictions, they have a still more overwhelming force.

The power of God engaged in favor of Christianity, will appear, if we consider THE PROPAGATION ITSELF THE OBSTACLES SURMOUNTED—and the MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CHANGE produced in the converts.

I. Let us call your attention to THE PROPAGATION OF

CHRISTIANITY ITSELF.

1. And here, if we reflect on the singularity of the attempt to propagate any system merely religious, it will lead us to attribute the success of Christianity to a divine interference. For no religion, purely as a religion, was ever propagated, but the Christian. Heathenism was never a matter of dissemination or conversion. It had no creed, no origin distinct from the corrupt traces of a remote and fabulous antiquity. It was a creature of human mould, contrived for the sake of human legislation. The Greeks and Romans imposed it not on their subject nations. Mahometanism was the triumph of the sword. Conquest, not religious faith, was its manifest object; rapine, violence, and bloodshed, were its credentials.

No religion was ever attempted to be spread through the world by the means of instruction and persuasion, with an authority of its own, but Christianity. The idea never came into the mind of man to propagate a religion, having for its set design and exclusive object, the enlightening of mankind, with a doctrine professedly divine, till Christianity said to her disciples, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

2. The rapidity and extent of the propagation of the gospel were such as to prove its divine origin. On the very first day of its promulgation, three thousand were converted; these soon increased to five thousand. Multitudes both of

men and women, were afterwards daily added to the new religion. Before the end of thirty years, the gospel had spread through Judæa, Galilee, Samaria, almost all the numerous districts of Lesser Asia; through Greece and the islands of the Ægean sea, the sea-coast of Africa, and had passed on to the capital of Italy. Great multitudes believed at Antioch in Syria, at Joppa, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Beræa, Iconium, Derbe, Antioch in Pisidia, at Lydda and Saron. Converts also are mentioned at Tyre, Cæsarea, Troas, Athens, Philippi, Lystra, Damascus. Thus far the sacred narrative conducts us. The religion being thus widely diffused, the New Testament carries us no further. But all ecclesiastical and profane history concurs in describing the rapid progress of the new doctrine. Tacitus, Suetonius, Juvenal, Pliny, Martial, Marcus Aurelius, sufficiently testify the propagation of Christianity. To the statements of Tacitus and Pliny, we have already adverted briefly: we must now produce them more at length.

Tacitus thus writes, of transactions which took place just at the time that the history in the acts of the apostles closes, about thirty years after the crucifixion; he is speaking of the suspicions which fell on the emperor Nero, of having caused a fire which had happened at Rome. "But neither these exertions, nor his largesses to the people, nor his offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which Nero lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end therefore to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishments upon a set of people, who were held in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, Christians. The founder of that name was Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under his procurator, Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, thus checked for a while, broke out again; and spread not only over Judea, where the evil originated, but through Rome also, whither every thing bad upon earth finds its way, and is practised. Some who confessed their sect, were first seized; and afterwards, by their information, a vast multitude were apprehended, who were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning Rome, as of hatred

to mankind. Their sufferings at their execution were aggravated by insult and mockery, for some were disguised in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, some were crucified, and others were wrapped in pitched shirts, and set on fire when the days closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own gardens for these executions; and exhibited at the same time a mock Circensian entertainment, being a spectator of the whole, in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacles from his car. This conduct made the sufferers pitied; and though they were criminals, and deserving the severest punishments, yet they were considered as sacrificed, not so much out of regard to the public good, as to gratify the cruelty of one man.”a

This passage proves that Christianity had been rapidly and extensively propagated throughout Judea, and had gained a vast multitude of converts at Rome-so many, as to attract the attention, and excite the jealousy and bitter hatred of the emperor. This is the use I make of the passage now: other uses will arise as we proceed.

The testimony of the younger Pliny, relates to a period about forty years after the preceding passage from Tacitus.b It assures us, that the number of culprits brought before him in that distant province, (Bithynia,) was so great, as to call for serious consultation-that the religion had spread not only through cities, but even villages, and the country -that persons of all ages and ranks, women as well as men, were seized by it as by a contagion-that the temples were almost desolate the sacrifices nearly intermitted, and the victims could scarcely find a purchaser.

(c) I insert the whole letter in the masculine translation of Milner, as affording various important information to which we shall allude as we go on. The reply of Trajan is deserving notice, as recognizing the monstrous principle which Pliny had laid down, that the mere profession of Christianity, without any moral crime, was a sufficient ground of conviction and punishment.

C. Pliny to Trajan, Emperor.

"Health. It is my usual custom, Sir, to refer all things of which I harbor any doubts, to you. For who can better direct my judgment in its hesitation, or in

Tertullian and Origen, (from A. D. 130-230) describe the Christian doctrine, as, "filling the cities, islands, towns, boroughs, the camp, the senate and the forum."—They state, that there was not "a nation, whether Greek or bar

struct my understanding in its ignorance? I never had the fortune to be present at any examination of Christians before I came into this province. I am therefore at a loss to determine what is the usual object either of inquiry or of punishment, and to what length either of them is to be carried. It has also been with me a question very problematical,-whether any distinction should be made between the young and the old, the tender and the robust;-whether any room should be given for repentance, or the guilt of Christianity once incurred is not to be expiated by the most unequivocal retractation;-whether the name itself, abstracted from any fla gitiousness of conduct, or the crimes connected with the name, be the object of punishment. In the mean time, this has been my method, with respect to those who were brought before me as Christians. I asked them, whether they were Christians: if they pleaded guilty, I interrogated them twice afresh, with a menace of capital punishment. In case of obstinate perseverance, I ordered them to be executed. For of this I had no doubt, whatever was the nature of their religion, that à sullen and obstinate inflexibility called for the vengeance of the magistrate. Some were infected with the same madness, whom, on account of their privilege of citizenship, I reserved to be sent to Rome to be referred to your tribunal. In the course of this business, informations pouring in, as is usual when they are encouraged, more cases occurred. An anonymous libel was exhibited, with a catalogue of names of persons, who yet declared, that they were not Christians then, or ever had been; and they repeated after me an invocation of the gods and of your image, which for this purpose I had ordered to be brought with the images of the deities: They performed sacred rites with wine and frankincense, and execrated Christ,-none of which things I am told a real Christian can ever be compelled to do. On this account I dismissed them. Others, named by an informer, first affirmed, and then denied the charge of Christianity; declaring that they had been Christians, but had ceased to be so, some three years ago, others still longer, some even twenty years ago. All of them worshipped your image, and the statutes of the gods, and also execrated Christ. And this was the account which they gave of the nature of the religion they once had professed, whether it deserves the name of crime or error,—namely—that they were accustomed on a stated day to meet before daylight, and to repeat among themselves an hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath, with an obligation of not committing any wickedness; but, on the contrary, of abstaining from thefts, robberies, andadulteries;—also of not violating their promise, or denying a pledge;-after which it was their custom to separate, and meet again at a promiscuous harmless meal, from which last practice they however desisted, after the publication of my edict, in which, agreeably to your orders, I forbad any societies of that sort. On which account, I judged it the more necessary, to inquire, BY TORTURE, from two females, who were said to be deaconesses, what is the real truth. But nothing could I collect, except a depraved and excessive superstition. Deferring therefore any farther investigation, I determined to consult you. For the number of culprits is so great, as to call for serious consultation. Many persons are informed against of every age, and of both sexes; and more still will be in the same situation. The contagion of the superstition hath spread not only through cities, but even villages and the country. Not that I think it impossible to check and to correct it. The success of my endeavors hitherto forbids such desponding thoughts: