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F^^^^^^pt^^^^^^^B^^^ffl - o ^ ~v o <-> Hi o U. %a3AiNnm^ umo/: ^tLIBRARY(9/r IVD-JO 5 ^ %WF1V3-Jtf^ AWEINIVERJ/a I; ^* , O ^/OJIIVOJO^ ^OJIIVJJO^ . ..imAMfFlfr. ...\t.lH>DADV/> .^t.MRDADV/l,. &Aavaain^ y 0Aavaau# ^lOSANGElfjV i^-UBRARYO?. ^UIBRARYfl/ 1^ "^aaAiNiuv^ \wmi^ AWEUNIVERS/a. oc ea ^lOSANCElfj-^ %83AINn3\^ % ^UKMEl&> ^OFCALIF0% Jr ^r ~'sC v o A > c: 1^ V/^JMNnJWV ^0FCA1!F(% ^Auvaan-^ i t?AHVH8n#' AWEUNIVERS/a ^VOSANCElfj> o ^UIBRARY^ ^UIBRARYQ^ B^^ ^ #- "%HVaaiH^ %H3NVS0^ %a3AINfl3tf ^0f CAUFOfy* ^0F CAll FO/?^ ^Aavaaii-^ y 0Aavaan# % ^lOSANGElx> IV^ %a3AINIH\\v' ^l-UBRARYQr <^UIBRARY0/. 1 ir' ^ ^/OJIIVDJO^ AWEUNIVER5"//, ^lOSANCEl^ / \WI!NIVFR.V/a .vtn^ANf.Flfrx ,s\?!IRRARY/9, MfllBRARYrt/ AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY; CONTAINING SELECT PASSAGES FROM SCRIPTURE; WITH A COMMENTARY BY THE LATE EDWARD GIBBON, Esq^ AND NOTES BY THE LATE LORD VISCOUNT BOLING BROKE, MONSIEUR DE VOLTAIRE, AND OTHERS. THERE SHALL COME IN THE LAST DAYS SCOFFERS, WALKING AFTER THEIR OWN LUSTS ; AND SAYING, WHERE IS THE promise of his coming? II Peter, iii. 3. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, IN THE STRAND. 1806. 154048 NOTICE TO THE READER. The Editor has no difficulty in offering to the public the ensuing Commentary as the genuine work of Mr. Gibbon; not confiding, however, so much on the peculiarity of his style, as on the circumstance of the whole of it having been at one period or another, inserted in different parts of The History of the De- cline and Fall of the Roman Empire: a circumstance, which supplies a species of evidence not to be controverted, without imputing to him the most impro- bable and unparalleled plagiarism. In a note to the fifth Chapter, the reader will find a reference to the pages of Mr. Gibbon's" History. The present publica- tion is offered as a specimen of a more extended work, there remaining in the Editor's hands a large part of the Commentary, of which, as well as of the present publication, correct copies will be left with the publishers, for the perusal of the curious. The Notes from Monsieur de Voltaire, Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Hume "and others, are selected for the purpose of shewing where they have been con- sulted by Mr. Gibbon, and how far their writings have contributed to corrobo- rate his Evidence. To those who interest themselves in the character of our great historian, it must be extremely gratifying, to behold him producing the most unequivocal and unexceptionable evidence in support of Revelation. Of the Preface, the Editor does not presume to assert, that it is the composition of Mr. Gibbon. It appears, however, to have been written as an Introduction to his Commentary; and, if not by his pen, was probably the production of some friend, who had as much pleasure in seeing him among the Defenders of Chris- tianity, as the Inhabitants of Naioth had in seeing Saul among the Prophets. Without presuming to assert, or object to, its authenticity, the Editor submits the question entirely to the critical acumen, and superior judgment of the reader. 25th March, 1806. Savage and Easingwood, Printers, James Street, Buckingham Gate. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PREFACE. On the evidence of revelation Previous inquiry Views of immortality Preparation for happiness Powers of reflection As to empires Progress of knowledge Period and process of operation Order of beings Of moral responsibility, and the na- ture of sin Of atonement and mediation Universality of evidence Whether clear and irresistible - Page pa 5c 1 Of practical effects - - 11 ib. Nature of evidence 12 2 Duty of inquiry - - ib. 3 On the Christian doctrine - 13 ib. Heathen mythology - 14 5 Mahometanism - ^ - ib. 6 Spiritual nature of Christianity 15 ib. Authenticity of miracles - ib. 7 Prophecies - - 18 The Mosaic dispensation - 19 8 Promise of the Messiah - 20 9 Dispersion of the Jews - ib. 10 Their observance of the Mosaic law 21 ib. Their numbers - - ib. CHAP. I. On the Progress Progress of Christianity Its rapid progress In the East In Greece In Africa In Gaul Beyond the limits of the Roman Empire Christianity was preached to the poor and ignorant Exceptions as to learning of the Christian Religion. Page 25 And with regard to rank and 26 fortune - - 27 Edict of Milan, A. D. 3 13. 29 The knowledge of the Gospel ex- 30 tended, A. D. 338 ib. Jovian proclaims universal tolera- tion, A. D. 363 3 1 Christianity of the North, A. D. 800, 1 100 ib. Its benefits ib. Page 32 34 35 36 37 39 CONTENTS. CHAP. II. Principles of paganism Opinions of philosophers And of their disciples - 44 Religion of the Germans - 46 And of the Goths - 47 Abhorrence of the Christians to idolatry - - 48 The difficulties to which they were subjected 49 Ignorance of the philosophers as to the immortality of the soul 50 Of Polytheism. Page 41 43 Insufficiency of their doctrine Weakness of polytheism Scepticism of the heathen world Julian writes against Christianity, A. D. 362 His superstition His attempts to restore Polytheism Final extinction of paganism, A. D. 390420 CHAP. III. Liberal zeal of Christianity Origin of sects Virtues of the Christians - 75 Alms and oblations of the Church 79 Distribution of them - 80 Of the Spirit of Christianity. Page - 69 72 Their active charity Use and beauty of Christianity Obedience to civil government The shows of gladiators abolished, A. D. 404 Page 5 59 60 63 64 ib. 66 Page 82 83 85 86 CHAP. IV. Of the Persecution Page Christianity persecuted by the Ro- man emperors - 89 Inquiry into their motives - 90 Character of the Christians aspersed 92 Imperfect notions of the Heathens ib. The fire at Rome under the reign of Nero 94 Popular clamours against the Christians 96 of the Christians. Trials of the Christians Examples of their milder punish- ments Ardour of the first Christians Increased jealousy of the Pagans, A. D. 284303. General persecution of the Chris- tians by Diocletian, A. D. 303. ... Page 98 99 100 102 104 CONTENTS. Page Edict against the Christians ] 05 Its extreme severity - 106 Subsequent edicts against the Christians - - 107 Page Christian spirit of toleration under Constantine - 109 Persecution of the Christians un- der Julian, A. D. 362 - 110 CHAP. V. Of the Jews, and their Dispersion. Page Exclusive zeal of the Jews 1 12 Their aversion to idolatry - 113 Their extraordinary history - 114 The siege of Jerusalem, A. D. 70 116 Wickedness of the Jews - 117 Famine and misery - 118 Great numbers destroyed - 119 Conduct of Titus - 120 The temple is burnt - 121 And the city plundered and burnt 122 Page Slaughter of the Jews - 123 Extended to the whole nation 125 The whole of the city demolished 126 Peculiar spirit of the Jews 127 Julian endeavours to restore pa- ganism - - 128 State of Jerusalem - 131 Julfan attempts to rebuild the tem- ple ib. The enterprize is defeated - 133 PREFACE. 'HE annals of the Roman empire are intimately and indis- On the evi- solubly connected with the history of the Christian Re- veiaUon/*" ligion. They supply evidence in support of revelation, and record facts, which the pagan or infidel historian could have had no inducement to invent or embellish. The object of the present work, is to offer an example of the manner, in which the Scripture might be illustrated and confirmed by reference to profane history : and, whatever observation the reader may be disposed to make on the ensuing commentary, he may be assured it was not written under a peculiar bias or predilection in favour of revelation. In order to appreciate correctly the circumstances which Previous in- will be submitted to the reader, it may be necessary first to qmry ' consider the nature and degree of evidence, which, but with B deference 9 PREFACE. deference and deep humility, we may suppose would be offered by the Creator to his rational and accountable creatures, upon the promulgation of his divine will. When the design of revelation is to produce practical virtue, and not merely to dis- seminate philosophical truth, that degree of evidence will, it should seem, be most useful, which is best calculated to afford exercise to the moral faculties, to impress the doctrines of revelation permanently on the mind, and to form and bring into action virtuous and religious habits. Views of im- Immortality opens an unbounded scope to our hopes and mor a i y. f ears> We f ee ] a capacity of intense misery and happiness ; and we have no means of ascertaining, to what degree that capacity may be extended. We also feel a necessary connec- tion with the past and the future : but how we are, or how we may hereafter be, connected with the distant parts of the universe, is to us unknown. In the gradual unfolding of the mysterious scheme of Providence, from the beginning to the end of things, we have the greatest possible interest. It may well be our desire to know it : but while our faculties cannot even investigate the constitution* of the natural world, we can hardly expect to comprehend fully the mysteries of the * Voltaire. Quelqu'un a-t-il ja- ne connaissons pas plus ^essence de la mais pu dire precisement, comment matiere, que les enfans qui en touchent une buche se change dans son foyer la superficie. Qui nous apprendra par en charbon ardent, et par quelle me- quelle mecanique ce grain de ble que canique la chaux s'enflamme avec de nous jettons en terre se releve pour Peau frafche ? Le premier principe du produire un tuyau charge d'un epi ; et mouvement du cceur dans les animaux comment le meme sol produit une est-il bien connu? Sait-on bien nette- pomme an haut de cet arbre, et un ment comment la generation s'opere ? chataigne a l'arbre voisin ? Questions, A-t-on de\ine ce qui nous donne les fyc. sur les Bornes dc T Esprit Humain. sensations, les idees, la memoire ? Nous invisible PREFACE. 3 invisible works of God, and the plan of redemption by the Christian dispensation. The evidence by which it is proved, and the duties which it enjoins, may be perfectly within our power, and within the comprehension of every man ; and yet the motive, the plan, and the means, may remain an inscru- table mystery. In our progress from one period of life to another, the mind Preparation and body successively acquire the habits and qualifications, or appmesi which are necessary for enjoyment. In instances in which these faculties have not been acquired, or where, by any de- fect of body or intellect, they have been lost, the individual possesses no power of enjoyment ; and has therefore no sphere of action, nor any interest or pleasure in the objects around him. So in a future life, without some faculty, character, or qualification, adapted to the objects of fruition, there must be an absolute incapacity of happiness. If the mind is not purified and ameliorated in its passage through life, if charac- ter is depraved, and talent unimproved, the soul must be inca- pable of moral and spiritual pleasure : It cannot be susceptible of gratification in an intellectual state, where the degree of hap- piness will be proportional to the capacity of enjoyment. Th e present life is a state of sensation and reflection, united Powers of or alternate; that of reflection only, when elevated and un- mixed, being frequently a condition of very great happiness*; and * We are frequently surprised to see worldly circumstances ; but experience persons easy and contented, with con- shows, in a thousand instances, that siderable bodily defects and inconve- its happiness is not entirely go- niences, and sometimes even happier verned by them, or wholly in their than they had been in prosperity and power. The bodily frame is only the health. The soul, indeed, is gratified present residence of the soul ; and if and inconvenienced by corporeal and that residence is incommodious, or in~ B 2 bad 4 PREFACE. and, when embittered by guilt and remorse, a period of such intense and insupportable misery, as to be sometimes the intellectual cause of despair and suicide. When the soul is emancipated improve- / i i n i i , t merit. from the body, it may be presumed that, according to the de- gree in which it has improved its moral and intellectual facul- ties in this life, it will enjoy, in a future state, these and other talents of a spiritual nature, with so great an increase *, and in so exalted a degree, as to constitute the most transcendent happiness. We know that by the cultivation of our intellec- tual faculties, the powers and pleasures of reflection may be greatly increased ; and that, by indolence, and by indulgence in sensuality, the intellect may be so debased, and the heart so depraved, that the sufferer shall be reduced to a state of mere animal appetite, like that of the most abject of the brute creation ; and be driven to the grossest and most disgusting acts of sensuality -f, in the vain attempt to avoid a state of reflection. From this we deduce, that they who by criminal, sinful, or sensual habits, vitiate their moral feelings, and de- base their intellectual powers, will be incapable of enjoyment in a state of reflection ; and that, as the contemplation of mo- ral improvement and happiness will alwa\'s be a source of bad repair, we may say, Animus male f Tacitus has given, with the hand habitat, The habitation of the soul is of a master, a picture of this beastly not convenient. E. and sensual depravity, in the fourth * This is confirmed by the parable, book of his history. At Vitellius Matth. xxv. 14. Those who improved umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut ignava the talents intrusted to them, received animalia, quibus si cibum suggeras,ja- additional endowments ; while they cent, torpentque pr&ttrita, instantia, who neglected their improvement, lost futura, pari oblivione dimiserat. The even what had been originally bestowed sties of Circe could produce nothing on them. E. more brutal and debased. E. pleasure PREFACE. pleasure to the virtuous so, to the wicked, the view of num- bers of their fellow creatures, vicious and wretched in conse- quence of their influence, example, or neglect, must be the cause of great and lasting misery in a future state. The sad effects of their own wilful misconduct, and the extent of vice and misery which they have disseminated in the world, may probably form a part of their punishment; a punishment greatly aggravated by the regret, that they did not actively, and in proportion to the means they enjoyed, contribute to the virtue and happiness of their fellow creatures *. These observations will apply to the feelings of every indi- Its effect oa vidual. They are also applicable to states and empires. The history of the world has shewn, in a succession of great exam- ples, that when sensuality is predominant, states and empires K fall into decay and dissolution ; while, on the contrary, they thrive and flourish in proportion to the cultivation of science, literature, and the higher order of the fine arts, and to the pre- empires. * These considerations will tend to show the expediency of laying in a stock of intellectual improvement, against old age; so that when the powers and enjoyments of sensation hecome enfeebled and diminished, those of reflection may be proportion- ably increased and strengthened. The attention will thus be engaged by new pleasures, while the soul is preparing for the enjoyment of a more elevated and permanent state of existence. With this impression, let us for a mo- ment picture to ourselves the sad con- dition of an old man, earnestly covet- ing objects of sense, in proportion as they recede from him, and as his means of sensual gratification are extinguish- ed ; at the same time neglecting hi* powers of reflection, and the cultiva- tion of those intellectual or moral faculties, which by a kind Providence were destined to supply, in the decline of life, the increasing vacancy of 'animal enjoyment. The cup of Tantalus af- fords but a faint image of the unceas- ing regret and vexation of that wretched man, who thus places all his desires and affections in what he has no capacity to enjoy, and what must be the perpetual source of sorrow and disappointment. E. valence 6 PREFACE. Progress of knowledge. Period and process of operation. valence of elevated and intellectual occupations. A view of the latter part of the Roman history will afford a continued exemplification of this truth, the evidence of which may be traced in the annals of all the preceding empires of the world. Of the causes of the decline and fall of imperial Rome, none was so important, or had so great an effect, as that pernicious error of the pagan mythology, which directed the influence of religion, and the example of their gods, to the promotion of sensuality and licentiousness ; and, instead of a pure and in- tellectual Deity, proposed for their objects of worship, not merely imperfect creatures, of like vices and passions with themselves, but wretches, to whom was imputed every gross and detestable species of lust and immorality. In considering natural objects, we extend our , reasoning from what we know, to that which is unknown ; and, finding that the natural world, as far as our scope of comprehension extends, is subject to general laws, we' infer that the whole universe is so governed. The same analogical inference from what we perceive of God's providence in visible and natural things, may be made to his government of the moral and invi- sible world : and may tend to explain to us (as far as our limited faculties are capable of receiving it) why a period of time, an intervention of means, and a process of operation, should have been adopted for the amendment and restoration of fallen man ; and why there should be shades of uncertainty in the evidence, which God has condescended to afford us respect- ing the Christian dispensation. The progressive operation of various means, takes up, in the natural world, a certain length of time, before the end can be accomplished. Vegetable and animal bodies make a gradual advancement to maturity ; and rational beings form manners and PREFACE. 7 and characters, and acquire knowledge and experience, by a long series of action. Our existence is successive : one stage of life is a preparation for another. Thus, in the revelation of the will of God, as in the course of his natural providence, we may presume that by Him, to whom " a thousand years are " as one day," a progressive series of means, each subservient to and connected with the other, and all tending to promote the ultimate and permanent virtue and happiness * of his crea- tures, may have been extended through a succession of ages, beyond our view, and beyond our comprehension. Again there is a degree of beauty and fitness in the grada- Order of be- tion of ranks and classes in the moral, as well as in the natural lngs * world ; all tending, though at an infinite distance, to the Divine perfection. The power of the Deity is, indeed, un- bounded ! He might have formed man, at first, a pure, en- lightened, and etherial spirit, of the highest order of created beings. But that would not have been analogous to what we see of his government in this visible world : and, as far as our limited perception can extend, it would not have cor- responded with the general system of the universe, that all * Hume. -The most perfect hap- est part of these beauties and perfec- r piness, surely, must arise from the con- tions ; or the shortness of our lives, HTtemplation of the most perfect object, which allows not time sufficient to But what more perfect than beauty instruct us in them. But it is our com- and virtue? And where is beauty to be fort, that if we employ worthily the found equal to that of the universe ? faculties here assigned us, they mil be Or virtue, which can be compared to enlarged in another state of existence, so the benevolence and justice of the as to render us more suitable worship- Deity ? If aught can diminish the ers of our Maker: And that tub pleasure of this contemplation, it must task, which can never be finish- be either the narrowness of our facul- ed in time, will be the business ties, which conceals from us the great- of eternity. The Platonist. rational > 8 PREFACE. s%{j$ rational creatures should possess equal purity, perfection, and power; nor would it have been consistent with Divine justice, to give a superiority or preeminence to any being, except as fhe consequence of improvement in a state of trial. Of moral re- Some theorists, indeed, have applied the antiquated doc- 1 ' y * trine of fatality and necessity to the concerns of religion ; as others have to natural things, and to the occurrences of com- mon life. In the latter, however, we know that by the neglect of our worldly concerns we waste our fortune, and by inatten- tion to health or to personal danger, we bring on disease and immature death. These lessons we are taught by early and daily experience. We constantly act under the conviction, that fatality and necessity will never protect from the conse- quence of negligence or folly. We see misery the attendant on vice, and we trace in a variety of instances, to their original sources of misconduct, indigence, disease, infamy, and an un- timely end. When, therefore, we find that our conduct here influences our present happiness and misery, we may well con- clude that it will govern them in a future state : for it is not only analogous to the constitution of the natural world, but it and the na- 1S con f rmaD l e to every idea which we can conceive of the twre of sin. Deit y, that he should reward virtue and punish vice*. What, * Voltaire. Newton etait in- raisonneur n* pervers. Aussi ce grand timement persuade de l'existence d'un philosophe fait un remarque singuliere Dieu, et il entendait, par ce mot, non a la fin de ses Principes : C'est qu'on settlement un etre infini, tout puissant, ne dit point, Mon eternel, mon irtfini, 6ternel, et createur, mais un maitre parce que ces attributs n'ont rien de qui a mis un relation entre lui et ses relatif a notre nature ; mais on dit, et creatures ; car sans cette relation, la on doit dire, Mon Dieu ; et par la il connaissance d'un Dieu n'est qu'une faut entendre le Maitre et le Con- id6e sterile, qui semblerait inviter au servateur de notre vie, Tobjet de nos crime, par l'espoir de l'impunite, tout pensees. Element de Philosophie. then, PREFACE. 9 then, must we think of rational beings, the accountable crea- tures of God, presumptuously introducing confusion and misery into his created world ; blaspheming their Creator, contemning his authority, and applying the existence and talents which he has bestowed on them, in disseminating vice and misery among their fellow-creatures. Can we suppose it consistent with any principles of moral order, or analogous to the go- vernment of the natural world, that offenders, who have thus voluntarily alienated themselves from truth and virtue, should escape punishment ; much less that they should be ob- jects of favour, except by the intervention of such means, as Divine wisdom and mercy may adopt, to atone for sin, to generate penitence, and to produce amendment of life. The doctrine of atonement for guilt is almost coeval with of atone- the creation. It is to be found in the history of every people, mc " t ^ nd j j r r mediation. and in every religious institution, throughout the world. In a peculiar manner we trace it in every part of the Mosaic dispensation ; and that written evidence is wonderfully con- firmed by the rites and ceremonies, which the Jews ob- serve to this hour, in every part of the globe, over which they are miraculously scattered and dispersed. But this is not alL The visible government which God has exercised over the na-) tural world, has been through the mediation of others. We are brought into existence by the instrumentality of our parents. We are preserved in infancy, and instructed in youth, by them and others ; and they feel, in sickness and old age, the return of that care and attention. The whole creation displays a similar view of God's providence; and such, if we judge by analogy, must be the government of the moral and invisible world. We receive good through the mediation of others; who are, so far, the derivative and mediatory instruments of C the 10 PREFACE. Universality of evidence. Whether clear and ir- resistible. the mercy of God ; adapted to prepare the mind, and direct the contemplation, to that exalted and peculiar character, the Mediator between God and man. It has however been alledged, that " a clear light of reve- " lation, equal and impartial, and spread over the whole world * " at the same moment, with irresistible power, would have pre- " eluded scepticism, and have silenced objection. The infidel " would have submitted to that evidence which he could riot " controvert ; and the pious convert would have rejoiced in " the possession of a faith, calculated to purify the sensual, " to fix the listless, and to soften the obdurate heart." To this it might be enough to answer generally, that such a revela- tion would not have been analogous to what we see of God's government in the visible world. The radiance of solar heat and light is diffused over the earth, and the blessings of health and strength, the capacity of knowledge, the faculty of im- provement, and other temporal advantages, are imparted by the Creator to his creatures, with a boundless and unsearchable variety ; and yet, as far as we can presume to penetrate into the works of creation, all these blessings and advantages are bestowed on the objects of his bounty, with perfect wisdom and propriety. Besides this, it will be obvious, that a revelation, clear and irresistible, would not have been calculated to produce * As to those nations in the world, to which the Christian dispensation has not been published, or where its light has been obscured, we have reason to believe, that they will be judged accord- ing to the advantages they have had. It cannot be presumed, that they will be responsible for the rejection of that evidence, which has never been offered to them. At the same time they may receive through sources impenetrable to us, the benefit of that full and suffi- cient atonement, which was once made for the sins of all mankind. E. AMENDMENT PREFACE. 11 amendment of character ; nor, as far as we can presume to judge, would it have been consistent with the highest no- tions we can form of Divine wisdom. If the evidence of reve- lation had been universal, clear, and irresistible, so as to have forced conviction upon the most incredulous, the reception of it without any act or exertion on our part, would have afford- ed no religious exercise * to the mind, and would have sup- plied no means of moral improvement. To distinguish its truth would have required no attention : to doubt it would have been absolutely impossible. To deny it, would be the same as to have denied the sun's existence, during the bright- est meridian of summer. The probationary state of man, in this sublunary world, is calculated to produce mental and moral improvement ; improvement of the mind by religious and intellectual exercise, and of the heart by moral feelings and habits. An active solicitude about the truth of reli- gion, accompanied by a fair and impartial examination of its evidence, has the same beneficial influence on the mind, as the practice of religion has upon the heart. The same cha- racter and internal disposition, which after conviction will pro- duce obedience to the precepts of revealed religion, will lead to a serious investigation of its evidence, when once offered to consideration. It is not the mere knowledge or belief of the Of practical doctrines of revelation, but the practice of its duties, that is effects * * " Many serious persons seem to spect as well as in many others, desire, and even to expect, assurance, what the Apostle says, " Now we in such a measure and degree, as is " see through a glass darkly, but thenj not suited to the present state. They u face to face: now I know in part, would have faith and hope to be " but then I shall know, even as I the same with sense. They do not " am known." Witherspoon on Rcgc- remember that it is true in this re- iteration. the 1'i PREFACE. the desired object *.- He, who from worldly motives omits or declines the examination of the proofs of revealed religion, might by the same impulse be driven to neglect the practice of it, if the conviction were pressed upon him, and not obtain- ed as the result of his own free inquiry. Instances of this kind frequently occur in sacred history : they are not wanting in our own times. It is indeed obvious, that the same cause (the desire of indulging in vanity or sensuality) which prevents some men from seriously weighing the evidences of religion, diverts others, even when its truth has been forced on the mind, from the practice of its duties. Nature of Tii e general evidence of Christianity has been within the evidence. reach of men, in every rank and situation of life, and of every degree of understanding. It will therefore be proper for those who mean to enter upon the inquiry with a fair and unpreju- diced mind, previously to ascertain whether they have no secret motives, which may bias and pervert their judgments; and whether they are not desirous of evading moral obligation, anel disposed so to live, as to make it adverse to their passions Duty of in- and propensities, that revelation should be true. Our obliga- tions to inquire into the evidence of Christianity, and upon conviction of its truth to embrace it, are of the first order, and moral in the highest and most proper sense of the word. We may find things in Scripture, which we cannot entirely explain; but this is far from being a difficulty peculiar to revelation. The evidence, upon which we conduct ourselves in the common concerns of life, is frequently extremely doubtful * If the mere belief of its doctrines essential proof of good works, what constituted the sum of religion, and shall we say of the claim of evil spi- \\, s intitled the possessor to the palm of rits, who not only believe, but trem- orthodoxy, without the collateral and Me? E. and quiry. PREFACE. 13 and uncertain. But this uncertainty does not prevent our weighing attentively the nature and degree of circumstance and motive ; and from doing that, which upon mature consi- deration, we deem to be most conducive to our personal welfare, or worldly concerns ; and surely it should not pre- vent us from showing the same attention to our greatest and most important interests, that we do to matters of a trivial and temporal nature. The evidence of Christianity * has been ably and fully dis- OntheChris- cussed by several learned and eminent men. I shall not:pre- tiandoctnne suine to enter into a general consideration of the subject. Before, however, I conclude tlus Preface, I shall venture to submit a few cursory observations on the nature of its doc- trines, the authenticity of its miracles, and the confirmation p> L afforded to prophecy by the present state of the civilized world. The pure and spiritual nature of Christi- anity constitutes a striking part of its intrinsic evidence, and distinguishes it from all the diversified systems of error * In Mr. Wilberforce's excel- doctrinal and practical system of Chris- lent work on Christianity, he states tianity, whether considered each in one argument, which has impressed itself, or in their mutual relations to his mind, and must impress every can- each other from other internal evi- did mind, with particular force. " This dence, afforded in the more abundance, is the great variety of the kinds of evi- in proportion as the sacred records dence, which have been adduced in have been scrutinized with greater care proof of Christianity, and the confirm- from the accounts of cotemporary or ation thereby afforded of its truth : the nearly cotemporary writers and from proof from prophecy from miracles the impossibility of accounting, on any from the character of Christ from other supposition than that of the truth that of his apostles from the nature of Christianity, for its promulgation of the doctrines of Christianity from and early prevalence." Practical View, the excellence of her practical precepts pa. 372. sixth edition. V from the accordance between the or 14 PREFACE. or delusion, which have ever been offered to the world. It proves, that it could not have been produced by human Heathen my- fancy, or for worldly objects. The mythology of the Egyp- tians, Phenicians, Greeks, and Romans, is gross and sensual ; and their notions concerning the future destiny of man, , . vague and ridiculous. Their promises and terrors of a future life are all drawn from visible objects; and carry on the face of them the mark of man's invention. The Cimme- rian Shades of Homer, and the Elysian Fields of Virgil, have nothing that is calculated to purify, to elevate, or to interest the mind. The idea of Tartarus might perhaps excite fear, but the description of the fate of the virtuous will never Mahometan- awaken hope. In the religion of Mahomet, indeed, rewards ism. and punishments are strongly inculcated ; but the Paradise of the Mussulman is a mere copy of an earthly garden of plea- sure *, with a boundless indulgence in sensual enjoyment ; the tendency of which has been to debase and enfeeble the human character, and to strengthen and confirm the grossest feelings * In his History of the Decline and " dainties/ numerous attendants, and Fall of the Roman Empire, Mr. Gib- * the whole train of sensual and costly bon has given a lively and picturesque "luxury, which becomes insipid to description of a Mahometan paradise. " the owner, even in the short period a It is natural enough (says this inge- " of this mortal life. Seventy-two u nious writer) that an Arabian pro-, M Houris, or black-eyed girls, of re- " phet should dwell with rapture on the "splendent beauty, blooming youth, u groves, the fountains, and the rivers " virgin purity, and exquisite sensibi- " of paradise ; but, instead of inspiring " lity, will be created for the use of u the blessed inhabitants with a liberal " the meanest believer ; a moment of " taste for harmony and science, con- " pleasure will be prolonged to a thou- " versation and friendship, he idly ce- " sand years, and his faculties will be , " lebrates the pearls and diamonds, the " increased an hundred fold, to render " robes of silk, palaces of marble, " him worthy, of his felicity." Chap. " dishes of gold, rich wines, artificial 50. and PREFACE. ; 15 and most brutal appetites of man. In the Christian dis- Spiritual na- ii ii A i i i tuieoiChris- pensation, the pleasures as well as the pains, the rewards as tianity. well as the punishments of a future life, though magnified in the highest degree, have yet their means and their end concealed in mystery. They have no visible or material reference ; no relation to, or connexion with, our gross and corporeal state. They are purely intellectual : and their obvious and necessary tendency is to restrain the sensual propensities, and to exalt the spiritual faculties. They are indefinite ; and even from that cause they seem to acquire an increase of interest. Their etherial and divine nature is too pure and elevated, to be the object of gross and corporeal senses : " Eye hath not seen, " nor ear heard* neither have entered into the heart of man, "the things which God hath prepared for those that love him." Sublimity is the character of this doctrine ; and it is conse- quently most perfectly adapted to keep awake, and render vivid, the religious hope and fear of a being, whose capacity of mental improvement and degradation, of enjoyment and suffering, is unbounded. Of miracles and prophecies, it has been observed, that the Authenticity first diminish in effect, in proportion as we recede from the period * when they were performed ; and that the latter re* ceive additional weight, from age to age, by the completion * The consequence has been, that the general rules of nature, it is there- ihe discussion of the evidence of those fore absolutely incredible. The evi- miracles, which were generally ad- denee of miracles was then too recent wit ted by the early opponents of and too powerful, to have admitted Christianity, is one of the favou- such an argument, or to have allowed rite topics of modern infidelity. It of the supposition, that miracles never never occurred to Julian, that, be- existed, because we cannot fix the pre- cause a miracle is a variation from cise period when they ceased. E. Of 16 PREFACE. of the events thereby foretold *. On the* preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, the supernatural powers of the Apostles contributed visibly and evidently to the rapid pro- gress of Christianity. At the first great feast of the Jews that occurred after the resurrection, the miraculous gift of tongues -f* * In the series of prophecies which are to be found in the Old and New Testament, it will be obvious, 1st, That there are many, which must as yet remain unfulfilled ; and others, which may have been fulfilled, and the histo- ric evidence of the fact not have reached us. This, however, will not affect the credibility of any other pro- phecies, of which we have clear and distinct evidence. If, indeed, a parti- cular circumstance were to be foretold, and the event were to be contrary to what has been so predicted, it would follow, that the pretended prophecy is not true. But it is otherwise with pro^ phecies which may not have been ful- filled, or as to which, if the period of fulfilment be passed, the circumstances are unknown to us, or the particulars are obscure and unintelligible. They ought to be put entirely out of the question, and not influence the mind either in favour of or again 3 1 the truth of the other prophecies. 2d, Until prophecy is completely fulfilled, and the scheme of God's moral govern- ment unfolded, the veil which hangs over prophecy cannot be entirely re- moved. The prophetic writings were not intended to make us prophets, and to enable us to anticipate future events, but to qualify us to judge of the completion of prophecy by the event, when it happens. 3d, In pra- . prophecies, some parts are more dis- tinct and clear ; others, from local or chronological circumstances, are, and for the present at least must remain, in some degree, obscure and unintel- ligible. In appreciating, therefore, the evidence of Christianity, the weight of the whole should be seriously and attentively considered; and not, as has been done by some writers, the zveaker and more obscure parts selected, as the subjects of repeated observa- tion. E. f It is hardly possible to conceive any thing more exempt from the pos- sibility of imposition, than this miracle of the gift of tongues. During a great and public feast, when Jerusa- lem was frequented by persons of va- rious nations and languages, a few ILLITERATE AND IGNORANT GALILE- ANS take upon them to address these different foreigners, each in their own language, and by this unequivocal and uncontrovertible miracle, convert to the Christian faith several thousand persons. E. to PREFACE. 17 to the illiterate disciples, occasioned the conversion of three thousand persons, all of them impartial witnesses of that wonderful event. A few days after, Jive thousand more converts were added to the church by the public miracle which Peter and John performed at the gate of the Temple, at a time when numbers of the Jews were enter- ing, on account of the evening sacrifice. These and other similar evidences, have not only the concurrent testimony of history, and the confirmation of being referred to in a variety of epistolary correspondence of that and the suc- ceeding age, but they were the known, acknowledged, and immediate causes of myriads of individuals embracing, and publickly professing, in the different parts of the Roman empire, a religion, which offered no temporal honour or ad- vantage ; but on the contrary subjected its members to ignominy, persecution, torture, and death. In fact, these miracles were not then contested or denied * by the ene- mies * Julian, who did not controvert " of Bethsaida and Bethany." We the Scripture account of our Su- do not find that at that time the viour's miracles, affects to treat them performance of our Sayiour's mi- with contempt, as not being dis- racles was contested by the oppo- played in a grand theatre, in the cure nents of Christianity. I t was re - of the great and the opulent, or in served for modern infidelity, after a splendid and ostentatious manner, above seventeen centuries, to disco- " Jesus (says Julian in his work ver that a miracle cannot be true, against the Christians) hat now because " it is an exception to a "been celebrated about 300 years.; "general law;" as if there were not " having done nothing in his life- in the constitution and government " time worthy of remembrance; un- of the natural world, innumerable ** less one, thinks it a mighty mat- things, which are far beyond our " ter to heal lame and blind people, finite comprehension. Every part of " and exorcise demoniacs in the villages the economy of the universe is to 3D 18 PREFACE. fc Prophecies. mics of Christianity, That objection has been reserved for the infidels of the present age ; for at that period even the supernatural power by which these miracles were performed, was conceded and admitted ; but then these mighty effects were imputed to magic *, the nothingness of which we now know how to appreciate ; or to the agency of evil spirits, who, by a peculiar absurdity of imagination, were sup- posed to be thus busily employed, in subverting their own empire, and in promoting the virtue and happiness of man. Among the prophetic evidences of Christianity are those arising from the former and present state of the Jewish nation. The Pentateuch is universally acknowledged to be the most ancient -f history in the world ; anterior even to any accredited us a miracle : and if it be said they are governed by general laws, it will be obvious that the constituting of those laws whereby the natural world is governed, was a more stupendous miracle, than any of those referred to. In the course, however, of the natural world, we see extraordinary phenomena, which do not come with- in any of the known laws of na- ture. So may it be with miracles, whenever the moral government of rational and immortal beings may re- quire them: and for any thing we know, natural phenomena and mira- culous interpositions may be both sub- ject to general laws. E. * Lord Bolingbroke. When John was in prison, he sent to ask Jesus, so little did he know him to be Messiah, " Art thou he that u should come, or do we expect ** another ?" The answer Jesus made was an appeal to his miracles, which proved him to be a very extraordi- nary person indeed, but which did not prove him in those days, and ad homines, to be the Messiah ; for a belief of the powers of magic was not as ridiculous then as it is now, and the Pharisees had prepared the people to believe these very miracles wrought by Beelzebub. Fourth Essay. f The antiquity of sacred history will be most correctly /appreciated by a comparison with the most remote traces of profane history, according 3 to PREFACE. 19 accredited tradition of other countries. It contains an The Mosaic account of the Jewish nation being peculiarly selected by the Almighty, as the depositary of prophecy, and as the object of that ceremonial law, which was to keep the Jews a distinct and separate people. In that, and in the subsequent parts, of the Old Testament, we have the history of God's frequent and miraculous interposition in their temporal concerns; of his giving them the promise, and after a period of 400 years, the possession, of a par- ticular territory ; and of his assuring to them the greatest national prosperity as the reward of obedience ; and, in the event of disobedience, the greatest possible calamities : so that he " would scatter them among all people, from " one end of the earth even unto the other '*;" but that " though he would make a full end of all the nations " whither he had driven them ; yet he would not make to the chronology generally adopted, saic history was written a thousand The siege of Troy was above three years before the time of Herodo- centuries after the age of Moses, and tus, who is generally considered as the Iliad of Homer was written in the father of profane history. Al- the reign of Solomon, or of his sue- lowing for the brevity of the Pen- cessor. The Foundation of Rome tateuch, and its great antiquity, was subsequent by seven centuries to and for the variance of customs and the institution of the Mosaic law, manners in the world during a suc- and was above four hundred years cession of more than 3000 years, it after the Jewish state had reached is surprising that it should be at- its zenith of glory and prosperity, in tended with so little obscurity or the time of King Solomon. The difficulty, and should be even so ob- prophecies of Isaiah were delivered vious as it is to every understand- more than three centuries prior to ing. E. the age of Socrates, and the Mo- * Deut. xxviii. 24. D 2 "a full 20 PREFACE. " a full end of them * ;" for that " the seed of Israel should " not cease from being a nation for ever-f-." Promise of In this book it is also foretold, that God would raise te.essia. ^ tQ t | iem the Messiah, in whom all his promises should be fulfilled ; that he should be rejected by that very people, to whom he had been so long promised, and by whom he was so greatly desired ; and that he should become the Saviour of all nations ; so that the Gentiles should come to his light, and kings to the bright- ness of his rising. With this book before us, let us contemplate the present state of religion in the world. The traces of Paganism, then triumphant throughout the Roman empire, are now only to be found in the ruins of temples, in the annals of history, or in the fic- tions of poetry. In the mean time Christianity has been established throughout all Europe, and its doctrines and influence have been extended over the greater part of the earth; while the dissemination of its moral pre* . i cepts has had the effect of improving the virtue of man- kind, and of raising the standard of morality, even among those who do not recognize its authority. Dispersion of Let us at the same time contemplate the Jews, not the Jews. . . . iiiir carried into captivity by the hand or man, as in former ages, but evidently scattered and dispersed by the breath of the Divine Power, through all the countries and regions of the earth ; become an astonishment, A PROVERB, AND A BYWORD AMONG ALL NATIONS J Let us then notice the minute and scrupulous exactness # Jerem. xlvi. 28. t Jerem. xxxi. 36. $ Deut. xxviii. 27. with PREFACE. 21 with which, after a succession of above three thou- Their obscrv- sand years, the rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic Mosaic law. law (with exception of those from which they are pre- cluded by the want of a temple of worship) are to this hour observed by the Jews, in every nation and in every region of the globe : That it is not merely the consecration of the Sabbath the memorial of the Passover the rite of circumcision the redemption of the first-born the fasts the feasts the new moons the phylacteries the taber- nacles and the great day of atonement, that are the ob- jects of their precise and religious observance; but that every peculiar ceremonial is still minutely and constantly attended to ; whether enjoined by the Pentateuch or Mish- na *, or recordatory of any of the great events of their miraculous history. Let us also observe, that, while suc- cessive nations and empires have existed, and been swept from off the theatre of the world, the Jews are still to be found in considerable numbers -f over the face of the bers. * The Mishna, or oral law, is ing, not only in the coast of Bar- held in great respect by the Jews, bary, in the Levant, in Portugal, It is said to have been received by Germany, &c. but in every part of Moses, and delivered by him to Aa- the world ; and some writers have ex- ron and the 70 elders, and by them pressed an opinion, that they are at in an uninterrupted course of tradi- present as numerous as they were at tion, until it was reduced into writ- any period. One may judge of their ing, not many years before the birth numbers by two examples: There of our Saviour. E. were thirty-six Jewish synagogues in * To make any calculation of the new Cairo, when it was taken by present number of the Jews would the Saracens ; and at a more recent be a work of great difficulty and period, there were forty thousand Jews uncertainty. We find them abound- in Alexandria. E. whole 22 PREFACE. whole earth ; and though they have no national esta- blishment, yet their political and religious institutions are still invariably observed by them, in every country " whither " the Lord hath scattered them :" that they are still look- ing with anxious desire to the Holy Land, and to the restoration of Jerusalem ; with a desire increased, instead of being diminished, by the lapse of above seventeen cen- turies : that they are to this hour offering up prayer * to God, that he would " gather their dispersions from " among the Gentiles, and assemble their scattered from " the extreme parts of the earth -f ; and conduct them unto " Zion his city with songs, and unto Jerusalem the city " of his sanctuary with everlasting joy." Let us weigh all these circumstances, and compare them with the re- cord of the prophecies; and then let us consider whe- ther, instead of ascribing them to the power of blind * The prayer I allude to (though " most singular events in the his- there are several similar prayers in " tory of mankind : but when we use among the Jews) is what they " consider it as the completion use on the great day of atonement. " of prophecy when we consider See Levi's Jewish Ceremonies, pa. 91. " this people dispersed and wander- The reader will find a great deal of *' ing among all the nations upon interesting information in this book; " earth without temple without a reference to which is preferred, as " laws without government, con- being the recent work of a learned " nected with none, but distinct and distinguished Jew, who could " from all as if reserved to corn- have no inducement to warp or mag- " plete future prophecies the whole nify the evidence which his book ** together, I think, form an argu- supplies in favour of Christianity. E. t " ment of sufficient force to weigh f "The dispersion of the Jews (says u against all the cavils of infidelity." the Reverend Mr. Gilpin), independ- Life of Christ. " ent of prophecy, is one of the chance, PREFACE. 23 chance, or to the device of weak man, we are not com- pelled in this wonderful coincidence of events, to acknow- ledge the special interposition of an all-wise and all-ruling Providence. . , 1 1 ., MLUUm. AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF A CHRISTIANITY. CHAP.I. On the Progress of the Christian Religion. ND he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a st. Mark ir. 26. man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the Commentary. While the great body of the Roman empire was invaded by Progress of open violence,or undermined by slow decay, a pure and hum- nsUan,t y- ble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigour from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of E Christianity 26 HISTORICAL VIEW st. Mark iv. earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, 26. ^-v-^ then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he put- teth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God ? or with what comparison shall we compare it ? Commentary. Christianity confined to the period or to the limits of the Roman empire *. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of human kind, in arts and learning, as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa ; and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients, its rapid pro- There is the strongest reason to believe, that before the reigns of Dioclesian and Constantine, the faith of Christ had been preached in every province, and in all the great cities of the empire ; but the foundation of the several congregations, the numbers of the faithful who composed them, and their propor- * Lord Bolingbroke. Christia- immense, perhaps, as Tertullian repre- nity born, if I may say so, in a desert, sents it in his hyperbolical stile : But and educated in a little province of it was great; and Christians under the empire, had spread through the one denomination or another, were whole in the course of three centu- numerous in every part of the east lies. The progress of it was not so and west. Fourth Essay. tion i:rcss OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is su Mark it. sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds which be ^*-v-^^ in the earth : But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches ; so that the fowls of the air may lodge Commentary. tion to the unbelieving multitude, are now buried in obscu- rity, or disguised by fiction and declamation. The rich provinces that extend from the Euphrates to the Ionian sea, in the East were the principal theatre on which the apostle * of the Gen- tiles displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the Gospel, which he had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently culti- vated by his disciples ; and it should seem, that, during the two first centuries, the most considerable body of Christians was contained within those limits. Among the societies which were instituted in Syria, none were more ancient or more illus- * Lord Bolingbroke. The doc- a great traveller, moving from place trines of Christianity, and the facts to place almost continually, the great- that proved the divinity of it, were est part of the time that passed be- published by discourse, not by writing, tween his baptism and his death ; that Christ preached ; he was the great- is, according to the calculation of est of preachers, and he sent his Erasmus, thirty-five years. He went disciples out to preach. They pur- over the countries where Peter sued their mission through different taught, more than once. He had countries ; and as fast as they formed been ill Arabia before. He visited a hurch in one, they hastened to Greece, and most of the islands. He another. At least this was the prac- penetrated beyond Thracia and Ma- tice of St. Paul, who scattered about cedonia, into Illyria. He returned more spiritual seed than all the rest, into Palestine, and was sent from and more widely. Paul, indeed, was thence to Rome. Fourth Essay. E 2 trious 28 HISTORICAL VIEW" St. Luke w. un( j er the shadow of it. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered Commentary. trious than those of Damascus, of Berea, or Aleppo, and of Antioch *. The prophetic introduction of the Apocalypse had described and immortalized the seven churches of Asia; Ephe- sus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Laodicea, and Phi- ladelphia ; and their colonies were soon diffused over that po- pulous country. In a very early period, the islands of Cyprus * St. Paul's journey to Damascus, immediately before his miraculous con- version, and the authority and force he carried with him, show the early prevalence of Christianity in that place. See Acts ix. 2, and 19 25. Antioch is remarkable for being the place where the disciples first assumed the name of Christians. See Acts xi. 26. The honourable testimony as to the converts of Berea is contained in the 17th chapter. " These (it is said) " were more noble than those in " Thessaloaica ; in that they receiv- " ed the word with all readiness of " mind, and searched the Scriptures " daily, whether those things were so. " Therefore many of them believed ; fC aho of honourable women, which " were Greeks, and of men not a t( few." Berea affords a striking in- stance of the superior advantages of rational conviction, grounded on an earnest and serious inquiry into evi- dence. The imperial sophist, Ju- lian, visited the Bereans, with a view of weakening their faith in Christianity; but he had no cause to glory in the effect of his eloquent discourses. In one of his letiers to Libaniiis, he says, " I conversed with " the Senate (of Berea) on the subject " of religion : but though they all " praised my discourse, yet only a few " were convinced by it; and those " were persons, whom I had reason to " consider as men of sense, before I " began my harangue. The others " behaved with a degree of boldness, and seemed to have no diffidence " in their manner of addressing " me." E. and OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when st. Luke w. he had opened the book, he found the place where ^^v^ it was written, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach " the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal / Commentary. and Crete, the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, gave a favourable reception to the new religion ; and Christian socie- ties were soon founded in the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of Athens. The antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches i n Greece, allowed a sufficient space of time for their increase and multi- plication ; and even the swarms of Gnostics and other heretics serve to display the nourishing condition of ftie orthodox Church, since the appellation of heretics has always been applied to the less numerous party. To these domestic testimonies, we may add the confession, the complaints, and the apprehensions of the Gentiles themselves. Prom the writings of Lucian, a phi- losopher who had studied mankind, and who describes their manners in the most lively colours, we may learn, that, under the reign of Commodus, his native country of Pontus was filled with Christians, and those who had quitted the temples of their gods. Within fourscore years after the death of Christ,- the proconsul Pliny laments the magnitude of that which he vainly attempted to eradicate. In his very curious epistle to the emperor Trajan, he affirms, that the temples were almost deserted, that the sacred victims scarcely found any purchasers, and that this new religion not only prevailed in the cities, but had even spread itself into the villages and the 50 HISTORICAL VIEW St. Luke iv. " the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the " captives, and recovering of sight to the blind ; to " set at liberty them that are bruised ; to preach " the acceptable year of the Lord." And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and Commentary. And in Afri- the open country of Pontus and Bitbynia *. The African ca * Christians formed, at an early period, one of the principal members of the primitive Church. The practice introduced into that province, of appointing bishops to the most incon- siderable towns, and very frequently to the most obscure villages, contributed to multiply the splendour and import- ance of their religious societies, which, during the course of the third century, were animated by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the abilities of Cyprian, and adorned by the Its progress eloquence of Lactantius. But if, on the contrary, we turn in Gaul. , . t , . . our eyes towards Gaul, we must content ourselves with discovering, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, the feeble and united congregations of Lyons and Vienna ; and even as late as the reign of Decius, we are assured, that in a few cities only, Aries, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges, Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were * Pliny's description, in this letter, try. " Multi, omnis setatis, utriusque of the Christians in Bithynia, written " sexus etiam neque enim civitates within 70 years after the death of " tantum, sed vicos etiam et agros, Christ, was, that the number was " superstitionis istius contagio perva- great, not only in the cities, but in " gata est." H smaller towns, and in the open coun- supported OF CHRISTIANITY. Si sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in st. Luke iv. the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began ^^v^/ to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Commentary. supported by the devotion of a small number of Christians. The progress of Christianity was not, however, confined Beyond the to the Roman empire ; and according to the primitive Roman em- fathers, the new religion, within a century after the death pire ' of its Divine Author, had already visited every part of the globe. " There exists not," says Justin Martyr, " a " people, whether Greek or barbarian, or any other race " of men, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may " be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, " whether they dwell under tents, or wander about in " covered waggons, among whom prayers are not offered " up in the name of a crucified Jesus, to the Father " and Creator of all things/' Such is the constitution of civil society, that whilst a Christianity .... was preached few persons are distinguished by riches, by honours, and to the poor by knowledge, the body of the people is condemned to and, & norant obscurity, ignorance, and poverty. The Christian reli- gion, which addressed itself to the whole human race, must consequently collect a far greater number of prose- lytes from the lower than from the superior ranks of life. As the humble faith of Christ diffused itself through Exceptions the world, it was embraced by several persons who de- " to lc ' uin " rived some consequence from the advantages of nature or fortune. 32 HISTORICAL VIEW ^Actsji^2. y E men of Israel hear these words; Jesus of Naza- reth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know : Him, Commentary. fortune. Aristides, who presented an eloquent apology to the emperor Hadrian, was an Athenian philosopher. Justin Martyr had sought divine knowledge in the schools of Zeno, of Aristotle, of Pythagoras, and of Plato, before he fortunately was accosted by the old man, or rather the angel, who turned his attention to the Jewish pro- phets. Clemens of Alexandria had acquired much va- rious reading in the Greek, and Tertullian in the Latin, language. Julius Africanus and Origen possess- ed a very considerable share of the learning of their times ; and although the style of Cyprian is very differ- ent from that of Lactantius, we might almost discover that both these writers had been public teachers of rhe- and with re- toric. Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that the advan- and fortune, tages of birth and fortune were always separated from the profession of Christianity. Several Roman citizens were brought before the tribunals of Pliny, and he soon disco- vered that a great number of persons of every order of men in Bithynia had deserted the religion of their ancestors. It appears, however, that about forty years afterwards, the emperor Valerian was persuaded of the truth of this asser- tion, since in one of his rescripts he evidently supposes, that senators^ Roman knights, . and ladies of quality, were engaged * OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore- Acts & 22. knowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain ; whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death : because Commentary. engaged in the Christian sect. And yet these exceptions are either too few in number, or to recent in time, en- tirely to remove the imputation of ignorance and obscurity, which has been so arrogantly cast on the first proselytes of Christianity. Our serious thoughts, however,, will suggest to us, that the apostles themselves were chosen by Pro- vidence among the fishermen of Galilee, and that the lower we depress the temporal condition of the first Christians, the more reason we shall find to admire their merit and suc- cess. It is incumbent on us diligently to remember, that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in spirit, ' : and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of mankind, cheerfully listen to the Divine promise of fu- ture happiness*; while, on the contrary, the fortunate * Lord Bolingbboke. In this in- we are bound to believe that he inspired termediate state of preparation and the same spirit into them by this act,, probation, all that they, who are ap- which descended afterwards more ma- pointed ministers of the Gospel, as nifetly upon them and the disciples, such, can do, is to advise, exhort, ad- under the figure of jiery tongues. The monish, and to separate themselves, gifts of the Spirit were then common, and to persuade the faithful to sepa- and evidenced themselves by sanctity rate, from the impenitent and refrac- of life, and by many other unequl- tory. Chbist breathed on his apostles, vocal signs. Fourth Essay. bid them receive the Holy Ghost, and F / are 34 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts ii. 22. it was not possible that he should be holden of it. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they Commentary. are satisfied with the possession of this world, and the wise abuse in doubt and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge. Edict of Mi- About five months after the conquest of Italy, Con- 3i3 ! A D st ant i ne made a solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments, by the celebrated edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic Church ; and in the per- sonal interview of the two western princes, by the ascendant of genius and power, he obtained the ready concurrence of his colleague Licinius. The union of their names and au- thority, disarmed the fury of Maximin ; and, after the death of the tyrant of the east, the edict of Milan was received as a general and fundamental law of the Roman world. The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of [\ all the civil and religious rights, of which the Christians had been so unjustly deprived. It was enacted, that the places of worship, and public lands, which had been con- fiscated, should be restored to the Church, without dispute, without delay, and without expense : and this severe injunc- tion was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the imperial treasury. The salu- tary regulations which guard the future tranquillity of the faithful, OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said ^v^t unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do ? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye Commentary. faithful, are framed upon the principles of enlarged and equal toleration ; and such an equality must have been interpreted by a recent sect as an advantageous and honourable distinc- tion. The two emperors proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and absolute power to the Christians, and to all others, of following the religion which each in- dividual thinks proper to prefer. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of the Theknow- Gos pel beyond the confines of the Roman provinces; and GofLux* the barbarians, who had disdained an humble and proscribed tended - sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation of the globe. The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and their fierce countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia worshipped the God of their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the name of Chris- tians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of preferring their' religion to F 2 their 36 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts ii. 22. shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the pro- mise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward ge- COMMENTARY. their country ; but as long as peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was ef- fectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. The rays of the Gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethio- pia, opposed the progress of Christianity ; but the labours of the missionaries were in some degree facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation ; and Abys- sinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, who, in the time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conver- sion of those sequestered regions. Jovian pro- Under the reign of Jovian, Christianity obtained an easy versai toie- and lasting victory * ; and the genius of paganism, which had tion. A. D. 36*3. * Lord Bolingbroke. Christia- lumny raised against it. They were nity was fresh and vigorous. The ap- more than sufficient, I mean, to de- parent sanctity of those who professed feat it among all such as finding it this religion, the courage of those to be calumny in some instances, who died for it, and the zeal of those looked no farther, but deemed it to be philosophers and rhetors who were the same in all. Among others, and converted to it and writ for it, Were in general, the very name of Christian more than sufficient to defeat the ca- continued to be odious long. A spirit of OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 neration. Then they that gladly received his word Acts ii. 22. were baptized : and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and Commentary. had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Ju- lian, sunk irrecoverably in the dust. In many cities, the temples were shut or deserted ; the philosophers, who had abused their transient favour, thought it prudent to shave their beards, and disguise their profession; and the Chris- tians rejoiced, that they were now in a condition to for- give the injuries which they had suffered under the pre- ceding reign. The consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and gracious edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly declared, that although he should severely punish the sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with freedom and safety, the cere- monies of the ancient worship. In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries of the Christian Christianity sera, the reign of the Gospel and of the Church was ex- A D ^qqJ. 1100. of enthusiasm prompted many on one cutions. But as soon as the Christian side to revile and disturb the rites of faith and worship, by being tolerated an established religion, to provoke the first, and legally established soon af- heathen, to rejoice in sufferings, and terwards, became better known, the to court martyrdom. A spirit of party, grossest calumnies that had been pro- inflamed by resentment, transported pagated against them began to die the other side to exercise the greatest away even among the vulgar. Fourth cruelties, by sudden popular emotions, Essay. as well as by regular authorised perse- 1.54048 tended 38 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts ii. 22. fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul : and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common ; Commentary. tended over Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Den- mark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, and Russia. A laudable ambition excited the monks, both of Germany and Greece, to visit the tents and huts of the barbarians : poverty, hardships, and dangers, were the lot of the first missiona- ries : their courage was active and patient ; their motive pure and meritorious : their present reward consisted in the testimony of their conscience and the respect of a grateful people ; but the fruitful harvest of their toils was inherited and enjoyed by the prelates of succeeding times. The first conversions were free and spontaneous : an holy life and an eloquent tongue were the only arms of the mis- sionaries. The leaders of nations, who were saluted with the titles of kings and saints, held it lawful and pious to impose the Catholic faith on their subjects and neighbours : the coast of the Baltic, from Holstein to the gulf of Finland, re- ceived the Christian faith ; and the reign of idolatry * was * Lord Bolingbsoke. Pagan- it, and the philosophers explained it ism was worn out in one sense, in away. It lay exposed like an unfor- theory, if not in practice; the impos- tified country, and, as the empire did tures of it were detected ; the absurd soon afterwards, to every incursion, doctrines and rites were exposed to ri- Fourth Essay. dicule. The priests could not defend closed OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them Aetata* to all men, as every man had need. And they, con- tinuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their Commentary. closed by the conversion of Lithuania in the fourteenth cen- tury. Yet truth and candour must ever acknowledge, that its benefits. the conversion of the north imparted many temporal benefits both to the old andthe new Christians*. The rage of war inherent to the human species, could not indeed be entirely healed by the evangelic precepts of charity and peace ; and the am- bition of Catholic princes has renewed in every age the cala- mities of hostile contention. But the admission of the bar- barians into the pale of civil and ecclesiastical society deli- vered Europe from the depredations, by sea and land, of the Normans, the Hungarians, and the Russians, who learned, to spare their brethren, and cultivate their possessions. The establishment of law and order was promoted by the influence of the clergy ; and the rudiments of art and science were intro- duced into the savage countries of the globe. The Sclavonian * Lord Bolingbroke. Christia- simplicity with which it was originally nity, as it stands in the Gospel, con- taught hy Chkist himself. But this tains not only a complete, but a very could not have happened, unless it plain system of religion. It is in truth had pleased the Divine Providence to the system of natural religion, and preserve the purity of it by constant such it might have continued, to the interpositions, and by extraordinary unspeakable advantage of mankind, if means sufficient to alter the ordinary it had been propagated with the same course of things. Fourth Essay. and 40 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts ii. 22. meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved. Commentary. and Scandinavian kingdoms, which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed, it is true, to the spiritual juris- diction and temporal claims of the Popes; but they were united, in language and religious worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free and generous spirit of the Eu- ropean republic, and gradually shared the light of knowledge which ar^pse on the western world. CHAP. OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 CHAP. II. Of Polytheism. ATE shall make you no idols, nor graven image, Levit xxvi. neither rear you a standing image ; neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to Commentary. The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven p r ; nc i p i es oi with various, but not discordant materials. As soon as it was P a g ani sm. allowed that sages and heroes, who had lived, or who had died for the benefit of their country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the reverence of man- kind. The deities of a thousand groves *, and a thousand * Lord Bolingbroke. The poets endeavoured to conceal their ignorance under the veil of allegorical physics, and chimerical metaphysics. Thus gods and diemons, and other hypo- thetical beings, were multiplied. Fes- tivals and public devotions multiplied with them. Superstition spread, and external religion, which was made up of nothing else, flourished. But they who instituted religion, for the sake of government, saw that such religion as this would not be sufficient alone to answer their end, nor enforce effec- tually the obligations of public and private morality. It looked no further than the present system of things, and in this they observed no settled distinction made by their gods, be- tween the religious and the irreligious, the best and the worst of them. Se- cond Essay. G streams 42 HISTORICAL VIEW Levit. xxvi. bow down unto it : for I am the Lord your God. Deut. ii. i4. Ye shall not go after other gods of the gods of the people, which are round about you; lest the Commentary. streams, possessed, in peace, their local and respective influ- ence ; nor could the Roman, who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian, who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements, were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representa- tive ; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods * of such opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and flattery, was gradu- ally invested with the sublime perfections of an eternal parent, and an omnipotent monarch. * Lord Bolingbroke. If igno- ancient divinities. It would be impos- rance and fear were the two first sible to enumerate, not only all the sources from which polytheism and ido- ancient gods, but even all those that latry arose, flattery was in process of were worshipped under the same ap- time another. Man grew fonder of pellation ; for Varro, I think, reckons polytheism by another custom that at least three hundred Jupiters. prevailed. Every sect framed a new Second Essay. list of gods, or gave new names to The OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 . anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, Deut. vi. u. and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent Actsxiv.s. Commentary. The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from Opinions of the nature of man, rather than from that of God. They ^ iloso P hers ' have, however, left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections of the First Cause ; but as it was impossible for them to conceive the creation of mat- ter, the workman in the Stoic philosophy* was not suf- ficiently distinguished from the work ; whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual god of Plato and his disciples, resembled an idea, rather than a substance. The opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the po- sitive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the provi- * Voltaire. La philosophic de tournent en un sens, pluto qu'en un Newton conduit necessairement a la autre, dans un espace nonresistant, connaissance d'un Etre Supreme, la main de leur Createcr a done qui a tout cree, tout arrange libre- dirig leur cours en ce sens avec un ment. Car si lcmonde est fini, s'il y liberte absolue. Je ne sais s'il y a a du vuide, la matiere n'existe done une preuve metaphysique plus frap- pas necessairement ; elle a done regu pante, et qui parle plus fortement a Texistence d'une cause librc. Si la l'homme, que cette ordre admirable matiere gravite, comme cela est de- qui regne dans le monde, et si jamais montre, elle ne parait pas graviter de il y a cu un plus bel argument que sa nature, ainsi quelle est etendue ce verset : Coeli enarrant glorjam de sa nature: elle a done recu de Dei. Element de la Philosophic Dieu la gravitation. Si les planetes . G 2 DENCE 44 HISTORICAL VIEW ^^ his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked : The same heard Paul speak : who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he and of their disciples. Commentary. dence * of a supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry, prompt- ed by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of philosophy -f in a variety of contending sects ; but the ingenuous youth, who from every part resorted to Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman em- pire, were alike instructed in every school to reject and des- pise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it pos- sible that a philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the * Voltaire. L'objet inlerressant pour l'univers entier, est de savoir s'il ne vaut pas mieux pour le bien de tous les hommes admettre un Dieu remu- nerates et vengeur, qui recompense les bonnes actions cachees, et qui punit les crimes secrets, que de n'en ad- mettre aucun. Questions fyc. sur Aiheisme. f LordBolingbroke. Tully con- fesses very frankly, that there is no- thing so absurd which some philoso- pher or other has not said ; and his works would furnish sufficient proofs of the assertion, under the Epicurean, the stoical, and the academical cha- racters particularly, if they were want- ed. Men who might have been giants in the human sphere, have dwindled into pigmies, by going out of it. Had any one of them been wholly founded in real knowledge, and confined to it, as every one of them pretended to be, the certainty and the importance of such a system would have preserved it among the rational part of man- kind. Truth, pure and unmixed, would have given it stability. But error has kept them all in a continual flux ; and to the shame of the human head and heart, the most rational, or the most reasoning part, of mankind has main- tained this flux, by adopting some er- rors, by inventing others, and by cul- tivating both. Second Essay. idle OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand Act**^* upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they Commentary. idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of anti- quity ; or, that he should adore as gods, those imperfect be- ings * whom he must have despised as men ! Viewing, with a smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vul- gar, they diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of their gods ; and some- times condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an Atheist -f- under the sacerdotal robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of worship. It was indifferent to them what shape the folly *The philosophical apostle of the + Voltaire. On peut insister, on Gentiles refers, with great force and peut dire, d'athees, ils vivent en societe, delicacy, to this defect in the heathen et ils sont sans Dieu; done on peut mythology. What I refer to is in vivre en societe sans religion. En ce the beginning of his address to the cas, je repondrai que les loups vivent people of Lystra, who were disposed ainsi ; et que ce n'est pas une societe to pay divine worship to him and his qu'un assemblage de barbares antro- col league ; " We are also men of pophages, tels que vous les supposez. " like passions as you, and preach Unto Et je vous demanderai toujours si, ' ' you that ye should turn from these quand vous avez prete votre argent a "vanities unto the living God:" quelqu'un do votre society, vous vou- intimating thereby the folly of their driez que ni votre debiteur, ni votre religion, which proposed imperfect procureur, ni votre notaire, ni votre beings, governed by human passions, as juge, ne crussent en Dieu. Questions objects of divine worship. E. #c. surJtheisme. 2 of 46 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts*iy.8. lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The Gods are come down to us in the likeness of And they called Barnabas Jupiter ; and Paul, men. Religion of the Germans, CoMMENJARY. of the multitude might choose to assume ; and they approach- ed, with die same inward contempt, and the same external re- vereiice, the altars of the Lybian, the Olympian, or the Capi- toline Jupiter *. The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opi- nions of savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their fears, and their ignorance. They adored the great visible objects and agents of nature, the sun and the moon, the fire and the earth -f ; together with those ima- ginary deities, who were supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human life. They were persuaded * Bayle. Jupiter, the greatest of the heathen gods, was the son of Sa- turn and Cybele. There was no crime, but what he was defiled with ; he committed incest with his sisters, daughters, and aunts, and even at- tempted to ravish tois mother. He de- bauched a great number of maids and wives ; and to compass his designs, he borrowed the shapes of all sorts of beasts. He was guilty of unnatural sins. Treacheries and perjuries, and in general all actions that are punishable by the laws, were familiar to him. Nothing can be more monstrous than the religion of the Pagans, who looked upon such a god, as the SUPREME GOVERNOR OF THE world, and suited to that notion the religious worship that was paid him. Diction, art. Jupiter. *T Tacitus. Angli, et Varini flumi- nibus aut silvis muniuntur. Nee quid- quam notabile in singulis nisi quod in commune Herthum, id est, Ttrram matrem colunt; eamque intervenire re- bus hominum, invehi populis arbitran- tur. De Moribus Germanorum. that OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 MercurhiS) because he was the chief speaker. Then Acts xi*. %. the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and Commentary. that by some ridiculous arts of divination, they could dis- cover the will of the superior beings, and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity, whom they neither confined within the walls of a temple, nor represented by any human figure ; but when we recollect, that the Germans were unskilled in archi- tecture, and totally unacquainted with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples of Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror ; and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions so well suited to their own interest. Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated and of the temple subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of Goths * the Swedes and Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had acquired in their piratical adventures, and 48 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts xiv. s. would have done sacrifice with the people. Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, Commentary, and sanctified by the uncouth representations of the three principal deities; the God of war, the Goddess of generation, and the God of thunder. In the general festival that was solemnized every ninth 3-ear, nine animals of every spe- cies (without excepting the human) were sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred grove adja- cent to the temple. The only traces that now subsist of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, a system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thir- teenth century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the most valuable remains of their ancient traditions. Abhorrence The heathen philosopher, who considered the system of tians for polytheism as a composition of human fraud and error, idolatry. could disguise a smile of contempt under the mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery, or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the established religion of Paganism was seen by the primitive Christian in a much more odious and formidable light. The most trifling mark of respect to the national worship, he considered as a direct homage yielded to the daemon, as an act of rebellion against the majesty op God. In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things ? Acts xiv - 8 - we also are men of like passions with you, and preach Commentary. arduous duty of a Christian, to preserve himself pure, and The diflkui- undefiled by the practice of idolatry. The religion of the ^ y ^ ich nations was not merely a speculative doctrine, professed in subjected. the schools or preached in the temples. The innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with every circumstance of business or pleasure, of pub- lic or of private life ; and it seemed impossible to escape the observance of .them, without, at the same time, renouncing the commerce of mankind, ^ and all the offices and amuse- ments of society. The important transactions of peace and war were prepared and concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which the magistrate, the senator, and the soldier were obliged to preside or to participate. The public spec- tacles were an essential part of the cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that the prince and people celebrated in honour of their peculiar festivals. The Christian, who with pious horror avoided the abomi- nation of the circus or the theatre, found himself en- compassed with infernal snares in every convivial enter- tainment, as often as li is friends, invoking the hospitable deities, poured out libations to each others happiness. When the bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced in hymeneal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, or when the sad procession of the dead slowly II moved 50 HISTORICAL VIEW Ats xiv. 8. unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and Commentary. moved towards the funeral pile; the Christian, on these interesting occasions, was compelled to desert the persons who were the dearest to him, rather than contract the guilt inherent to those impious ceremonies. I j> nor * nce f The writings of Cicero represent in the most lively co- phers as to lours the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the lityofthe ancient philosophers with regard to the immortality * of * ouL the * Upon the subject of the immor- tality of the soul, if I was to at- tempt to collect from the ancient philosophers and poets, all the me- lancholy evidence of their dark and dismal uncertainty, I should write, in- stead of a note, a volume. Plato's notions differ very little from the dreams of Spinosa; his favourite doc- trine being that the Deity is the soul of the universe ; and that all spirits emanate from him, and return to him on death ; a doctrine, that is perpe- tually repeated by Cicero, put by Lu- can in the mouth of Cato, and by Virgil in that of Anchises, as the sa- cred and recondite wisdom of the blessed in Elysium ; a doctrine which destroys every idea of personal identity, and every principle of moral responsi- bility. If we turn from this admired philosopher to his pupil and rival, Aristotle, we shall have a still more melancholy picture to contemplate. " Death (says he in his Nicomachian u Ethics) is of all things most terrible. " For it is the final period of ex-* * istence : and beyond that it ap- ** pears, there is neither good nor evil, ** for the dead man to dread or hope." If we refer next to Cicero, the de- vout admirer of Plato, expressing hii sentiments in a letter to his friend To- ranius, we find that, under worldly troubles, the melancholy and hopeless prospect of annihilation was all the comfort that he could point to : "Cum consilio profici nihil possit, una " ratio videtur^quicquid evenerit, ferre "moderate; presertim cum om- " N1UM RERUM MORS SIT EXTRE- " mum." But it was not merely in his private OF CHRISTIANITY. 51 earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein : J who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their Commentary. the soul. When they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of death, they inculcate, as an obvious, though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the calamities of life; and that those can no longer suffer who no longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who had private and confidential communica- tions, but in his public and forensic harangues also, that he renounced the hopes of immortality. Hear him in his oration for Cluentius. "Nam nunc " quidem quid tandem illi mali mors " attulit ? nisi forte ineptiis ac fa- " bulis ducimur, ut exislemus ilium " apud inferos impiorum supplicia per- "ferre? Quae si falsa sunt, id quod " omnes intelligunt, quid ei tan- " dem aliud mors eripuit, prater sen- " sum doloris ?" This doctrine of an- nihilation was announced with the same ease and freedom by Caesar in the senate, and by Pliny, Plutarch, Seneca, Epictetus, and many others, in their philosophical writings. With examples from these five distinguished characters I shall conclude this long note. The speech 1 refer' to of Cje- sas was delivered in a full senate, in H the debate respecting the punishment of Catiline and his associates. " In " luctu atque miseriis, mortem aerum- " narum requiem non cruciatum esse : " nam cuncta mortalium mala " dissolvere \ ultro neque curae, ne- " que gaudio, locum esse/' The pas- 9 sage from Pliny is in the seventh book (55th chapter) of his Natural His- tory ; in which, after observing on the uncertainty of philosophers as to the future state of the soul, he tells us that they all agreed, that whatever was its condition before birth, the same would it be after death. He then goes on to descant on the vanity of looking for- ward to the hopes of a future existence, as if there was any thing in the breath of man, to distinguish him from " the beasts that perish." He asks how the soul can exist without a material body, and where will be its future residence ; 2 and 52 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts xh. s. own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from Commentary. had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a j uster idea of human nature ; though it must be con- fessed, that in the sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their imagination, and that their imagi- nation had been prompted by their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers, and observes very justly that, in many cases, the pain of dying must be greatly enhanced by the anxiety of WHAT MAY HAPPEN AFTER DEATH. I had made a translation of this pas- sage, but I prefer giving it in the au- thor's own words. " Post sepulturam " aliae atque aliae in an iu in ambages. " Omnibus a suprema die eadem quae " ante primum : nee magis a morte " sensus ullus aut corpori aut animoe, " quam ante natalem. Eadem enim va- u nitas in futuram etiam se propagat, et " in mortis quoque tempora, ipsa sibi vi- " tarn mentitur: alias immortalita- " txm ajumje, alias transfigurationem, ** alias sensum inferis dando, et manes " colendo, deumque faciendo, qui jam " etiam homo esse desierat : Ceu vero f*. ullo modo spirandi ratio homini a " caeteris animalibus distet, aut non " diuterniora in vita multa reperiantur, ** quibus nemo similem divinat immor- u talitatem. Quod autem corpus ani- " mas persequitur materiam? ubi cogi- ff tatio illi ? -quomodo visus, auditus, f aut quid agit, qui usus ejus, aut quod. " sine his bonum ? Quae deinde sedes, " quantave multitudo tot seculis ani- " marum velut umbrarum ? Puerilium " ista deliramentorum, avidaque nun- " quam desinere mortalitatis commenta " sunt. Quae (malum) ista dementia " est, iterari vitam morte I quseve ge- w nitis quies unquam, si in sublimi " sensus animae manet, inter inferos f umbrae? Perdit profecto ista dulcedo u credulitasque praeeipuum naturae bo- " num mortem, ac duplicat obitus, si * dolere etiam post futi/ri estima- " tione evenit." Plutarch tells us (in his tract on Superstition), Death is " THE FINAL PERIOD OF OUR BEING. " But Superstition says no. She stretches OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our heart with Acts m 8. food and gladness. And with these sayings scarce Commentary. . powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound specula- tions, or the most important labours, and when they re- flected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave ; they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field, or to suppose, that a Being for whose dig- nity they entertained the most sincere admiration, could be a stretches out life beyond life itself. " Her fears extend further than our " existence. She joins to the idea of " death, the inconsistent idea of eler- " nal life." In his consolatory letter to Marcia (Daughter of Cremutius Cord us), Seneca observes, " Cogita, w nullis defunctum malis affici : ilia " quae nobis inferos faciunt terribiles, " fabulam esse: nullas imminere " mortuis tenebras, nee carcerem, nee " flumina flagrantia igne, nee obli- " vionis amnem. Mors omnium do- " LORUM ET SOLUTIO EST, ET FINIS." And to conclude, the stoic Epictetus, on the subject of death and annihila- tion, thus expresses himself: " But " whither do you go ? no where to your " hurt. You return from whence you " came : to zfriaidly consociation with " your kindred elements. What there " was of the nature of fire in your com- " position, returns to the element of " fire ; what there was of earth, to f* earth ; what of air, to air ; what of " water, to water. There is no " Hell, nor Acheron, Cocytus, ":nor Pyriphlegethon." Such are the reveries of the heathen phi- losophers and statesmen, on the future state of the soul : Men, who, to repeat Lord Bolingbroke's expression, were giants in human knowledge, but pigmies when they attempted to rise beyond it. How different is this dark and miserable uncertainty from that Divine Wisdom which * hath " brought life and immortality "to light througji the gos- " PEL." E. limited 54 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts xiv. s. restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them. Then Paul stood in the midst xvii. 22. Commentary. limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this favourable prepossession they summoned to their aid the science, or rather the language of metaphysics. They soon discovered, that a* none of the properties of matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the hu- man soul must consequently be a substance distinct from the body, pure, simple,, and spiritual, incapable of disso- lution *,. and susceptible of a much higher degree of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal prison. From these specious and noble principles, the philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato, deduced a very unjusti- fiable opinion, since they asserted, not only the future J* We may wonder that philosophers made no practical use. of this argument. We find the human frame composed of materials which are perpetually chang- ing, dissolving, and separating; and we thence infer its entire dissolution : But the soul is not composed of such materials, being, endued with primitive and individual identitv ; and therefore, as far as the analogy can apply, not liable to be involved in the dissolution of the body which it animates. We may likewise observe, that the senses and limbs are only the instruments by which the soul perceives and acts ; and not essential to her existence ; as appears in many instances, when limbs and organs of sense have been lost, without affecting the vitality of the soul, and in some instances, where the loss of one of the senses has been attended even with an improvement of the intel- lectual and reflective faculties. Such was the case of Milton ; whose reflec- tive powers, during blindness, were so augmented, as to have placed the visi- ble objects of creation before his mind, more luminously and distinctly, than they are displayed to the keenest eye, en- dowed with perfect organs of vision. E, immortality, OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 of Mars Hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive Actsxvu.22. that in all things yc are too superstitious. For as I Commentary. immortality, but the past eternity of the human soul, which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite and self-existent spirit*, which pervades and sus- tains the universe. ' A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the Inefficac y of * t their doc- experience of mankind, might serve to amuse the leisure of trine. a philosophic mind ; or, in the silence of solitude, it might sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue but the faint impression which had been received in the schools, was soon obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are sufficiently acquainted with the * Warburton. As to the cele- brated argument of Plato for the im- mortality of the soul, explained and inforced by Cicero, it is so big with impiety and nonsense, that one would wonder how any Christian divine could have the indiscretion to recom- mend it, as doing credit to ancient phi- losophy ; or to extol the inventors or espousers of it, as having delivered and entertained very just, rational, and proper notions concerning the immor- tality of the human soul. If we exa- mine this philosophy, as it is delivered by Plato in hit Phaedrus, or it is trans- lated by Cicero in his first Tusculan, we shall find that it gives the human soul the attributes of the Divine Being, and supposes it to have been from eter- nity, uncreated and self-existent. Speaking of the principle of motion, or the soul, it says (1 Tusc. cap. 2, 3.), " Principii autem nulla est origo: nam " a principio oriuntur omnia. Ipsum " autem nulla ex re nasci potest : ncc " enim esset id principium, quod gig- " neretur aliunde. Id autem nee tuzsci " potest nee mori. Hajc est propria " natura animi atque vis; quae si est " una ex omnibus, qua? se ipsa semper " moveat, neque nato certe est, et eter- " na est," Divine Legation. eminent 56 HISTORICAL VIEW Af**&3& passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown god. Commentary. eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first' Caesars, and their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was 7iever regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards and punishments fyf a future state * '. At the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers, b} r exposing that doctrine -f as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected with contempt by every man of a liberal education and understanding. Since, therefore, the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing except * Lord Bolingbroke. -What ef- fects the motive of rezcards and punish- ments had in remote antiquity, we cannot say ; but it had lost its force long before the institution of Christianity. The fear of hell particularly was ridi- culed by some of the greatest mora- lists; and to shew how little it was kept up in the minds of the vulgar, we may observe thatTuLLY treated it in some of his public pleadings as he- would have avoided scrupulously to do, whatever he thought of it himself, if this fear had been at that time prevalent even among the vulgar. Fourth E f Voltaire. Le plus grand bien- fait dont nous soyons redevables an Nouveau Testament, e'est de nous avoir rcveie l'immortalite de l'ame. II faut d'autant plus benir la revelation dc l'immortalite de l'ame, et des peines et des recompenses apres-la moi t, que la vaine philosophic des homines en a toujours doutc. Les homines les plus vcrtucux meine, ct les plus persuades de - l'existcnce d'un DiEU,n'esperaientalors aucune recompense, et ne craignaient aucune peine. Questions fyc. sur CAmc. a DIVINE OF CHRISTIANITY. $ Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare Actsxvii.22. I unto you. God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; Commentary. a divine revelation that can ascertain the existence, and describe the condition, of the invisible country which is des- tined to receive the souls of men after their separation from the body. We may perceive several defects inherent to the popular religions of Greece and Rome, which rendered them very unequal to so arduous a task. 1. The general system of their mythology was unsupported by any solid proofs ; and the wisest among the Pagans had already disclaimed its usurped authority. 2. The description of the infernal regions had been abandoned to the fancy of painters and of poets, Avho peopled them with so many phantoms and monsters *, who dispersed their rewards and punishments with so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most congenial to the human heart, was oppressed and disgraced by the absurd mixture of the * Hume. It is observable, that most barbarous and detestable. When Herodotus in particular scruples not, Timotheus, the poet, recited a hymn to in many passages, to ascribe envy to Diana, in which he enumerated, with the gods ; a sentiment, of all others, the greatest eulogies, all the actions the most suitable to a mean and devilish and attributes of that cruel, capricious nature. The pagan hymns, however, goddess : " May your daughter," said sung in public worship, contained no- one present, " become such as the thing but epithets of praise ; even while " deity whom you celebrate." Natural the actions ascribed to the gods were the History of Religion. I wildest 58 HISTORICAL VIEW Actsxvii.22. neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the Commentary, wildest fictions *. 3. The doctrine of a future state was scarcely considered among the devout poly theists of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith. The providence of the gods, as it related to public communities rather than to private individuals, was principally displayed on the visible theatre of the present world. The petitions which were offered on the altars of Jupiter or Apollo expressed the anxiety of their worshippers for temporal happiness, * It is not very easy to ascertain what was the happy immortality of Plato. He says in the Gorgias, that the dead retain not only the passions a?id infir- mities, hut also the defects and injuries of the body. Virgil, his disciple, has exemplified his doctrine, by describing the mangled phantom of Deiphobus in strict conformity to the principles of his masters school. Priamiden laniatum corpora toto Deiphobum vidit, laccrum crudelitcr ora ; Ora, manusque ambas, populataque tempora raptis . Auribus, ct truncas inhonesto vulnere nares. Vix adeo ignovit pavitantem, et dira tegentem Supplicia; At the same time Virgil tells us that all the petty propensities of this life attend our course in a future state : quae cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadem sequitur Tellure rcpostos. If this son of King Priamus, like other princes, had been fond of racing and riding, it is not easy to see how his mangled and miserable trunk, u trem- " bling and endeavouring to escape ob- " servation," could have enjoyed his fa- shionable amusements, deprived of both arms, of ears and nose, and cruelly lacerated in every part of his body, Elysium could offer little enter- tainment to him, however green her fields might be, or however brilliant the atmosphere. E. and OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 earth, and hath determined the times before appoint- Acts xvii. 22. ed, and the bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek trie Lord, if haply they might feel after Commentary. and their ignorance or indifference concerning a future life. The ministers of polytheism, both in Rome and in the Weakness of provinces, were, for the most part, men of a noble birth, P ol y theisin - and of an affluent fortune, who received, as an honourable distinction, the care of a celebrated temple, or of a public sacrifice, exhibited, very frequently at their own expense, the sacred games, and with cold indifference performed the ancient rites, according to the laws and fashion of their country. As they were engaged in the ordinary occupa- tions of life, their zeal and devotion were seldom animated by a sense of interest, or by the habits of an ecclesiastical character. Confined to their respective temples and cities, they remained without any connection of discipline or go- vernment ; and whilst they acknowledged the supreme juris- diction of the senate, of the college of pontifs, and of the em- peror, those civil magistrates contented themselves with the easy task of maintaining, in peace and dignity, the general worship of mankind. We have already seen how various, how loose, and how uncertain, were the religious sentiments of poly- theists. They were abandoned, almost without controul, to the natural workings of a superstitious fancy. The acci- dental circumstances of their life and situation determined the object as well as the degree of their devotion ; and as 1 2 long 60 HISTORICAL VIEW Acts*.**, him, and find him, though he be not far from every v ^ v "*^ one of us : For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have Commentary. long as their adoration was successively prostituted to a thousand deities, it was scarcely possible that their hearts could be susceptible of a very sincere or lively passion for any of them *. scepticism of When Christianity appeared in the world, even these world* en faint and imperfect impressions had lost much of their ori- ginal power. Human reason, which by its unassisted * Paganism possessed no religious sanctions competent to give weight to evidence upon oath : and consequently recourse was had in every ordinary case, to torture and scourging, as the means of verifying facts. I avoid stating the variety of cruel examples which Tacitus has supplied. I shall only remind the reader of two facts 1st, That when Lysias, the chief cap- tain, wished to examine St. Paul, "that " he might know wherefore the Jews " cried so much against him," he ordered, as a matter of course, that " St. Paul should be examined by " scourging," as the usual means (we may infer) of obtaining proper evi- dence. 2d, That when the humane Puny received an information against the Christians, the first and obvious method that occurred to him, was to examine the attendants, by putting them to the rack. Nor was this inhu- man method of extracting truth, drop by drop, through the alembick of tor- ture, peculiar to the Romans : the same barbarous custom prevailed among the Greeks. Among other examples, we may refer to the well-known circum- stance, alluded to by Demosthenes in his first Olynthiac ; of public slaves being ordered to attend the Athenian generals in the field ; so that, as the annotator observes, U if there was oc- * casion for evidence on any public * inquiry into their conduct of the " war, these attendants might be put ft to the torture.." E, strength GF CHRISTIANITY. 61 said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then Acuxmrn* as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, Commentary. strength * is incapable of perceiving the mysteries of faith, had already obtained an easy triumph over the folly of paganism ; and when Tertullian or Lactantius employ their labours in exposing its falsehood and extravagance, they are obliged to transcribe the eloquence of Cicero or the wit of Lucian. The contagion of these sceptical writings had been diffused far beyond the number of their readers. The fashion of incredulity was communicated from the philo- sopher to the man of pleasure or business, from the noble to the plebeian, and from the master to the menial slave who waited at his table, and who eagerly listened to the freedom of his conversation. On public occasions the phi- losophic part of mankind affected to treat with respect and decency the religious institutions of their country : but their secret contempt penetrated through the thin and awkward dis- guise ; and even the people, when they discovered that their * Voltaire, Deja convaincu que ou non dans l'etendue, pourvu que je ne connaissant pas ce que je suis, je ne fasse rien contre la conscience ne peux connaitre ce qu'est mon au- qu'il m'a donnee. De tous les syi- teur. Mon ignorance m'accable a temes que les hommes ont inventus chaque instant, et je me console en sur la DivinitS, quel sera done cehii refieehissant sans cease qu'il n'importe que j'embrasserai ? Celii de l'ado- pas que je sache si mon Maitre, la reb. Lc Philosophy Ignorant. PUISSANCE UNIQUE, ETF.BNELLE, est deities 62 HISTORICAL VIEW Actsxviij22. or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent : Because Commentary. deities were rejected and derided by those whose rank or understanding they were accustomed to reverence, were rilled with doubts and apprehensions concerning the truth of those doctrines, to which they had yielded the most implicit belief. The decline of ancient prejudice exposed a very numerous portion of human kind to the danger of a painful and comfortless situation. The introduction of some other mode of superstition might soon have occupied the deserted temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if the wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation*; fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction, whilst, at * Rousseau. La majeste* des ecri- ses maximes ! quelle profonde sagesse tures m'etonne, la saintete de Fevan- dans ses discours ! quelle presence gile parle a mon cceur. Voyez les d'esprit, quelle finesse et quelle justesse livres des philosophes avec toute leur dans ses reponses ! quel empire sur ses pompe ; qu'ils sont petits pres de celui- passions ! Ou est l'homme, ou est le sage la ! Se peut-il qu'un livre, a la fois si qui sait agir, souffrir, et mourir sans sublime et si simple, soit l'ouvrage des foiblesse et sans ostentation ? Quand hommes? Se peut-il que celui, dont il Platon peint son juste imaginaire cou- fait l'histoire, ne soit qu'un homme lui- vert de tort, d'opprobre, du crime, et meme ? Est-ce-la. le ton d'un enthou- digne de tous les prix de la vertu, il sriaste ou d'un ambitieux sectaire ? peint trait pour trait Jesus Christ : Quelle douceur, quelle purete dans ses la ressemblance est si frappante, que mceurs ! quelle grace touchante dans tous les peres l'ont senti, et qu'il n'est ses instructions ! quelle Elevation dans pas possible de s'y troihper. Emile. the OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge Actsxvii.22. the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained : whereof, he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Commentary. the same time, it was adorned with all that could attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the people. Christianity was supported by the number of its Julian wriles converts, by the chain of prophecy, the splendour of miracles, wnst . m \ Christianity. and the weight of evidence. The elaborate work which A. D. 362. Julian * composed amidst the preparations of the Persian war, contained the substance of those arguments, which he had long revolved in his mind. The insidious design of undermining the foundation of Christianity -f was insepa- * No persons have done more real injury to the cause of Christianity, than those who have endeavoured to add to its evidence by fraud or fiction. On the contrary, its most virulent ene- mies have done it very essential ser- vice. If I was to select the person who, after St. Paul, had by his writ- ings most contributed to establish and confirm the evidence of the Christian religion, I should without hesitation name the emperor Julian. There are very few difficulties about the authen- ticity of the Scripture and the Gospel history, but may be solved by reference to his hostile invectives. Dr. Lardner, in his 46th chapter of Heathen Testi- monies, with his usual industry and ac- curacy, has selected these evidences from the works of Julian; and he has so arranged them, as to make the se- lection one of the most curious and interesting parts of that valuable work. E. t Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem was made with the avowed object of weakening the evidence of revelation. The detail of this unsuccessful attempt will make part of the fifth chapter of this work. E. rably 64 HISTORICAL VIEW Rom. i. 21. The Gentiles, when they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful ; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was dark- COMMENTARY. His supersti- raD ly connected with the zeal which Julian professed, to tion* restore the ancient religion of the empire. Instead of main- taining the lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendour of his purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards, Julian solicited, with respectful eager- ness, the meanest offices which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the sacred but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of female dancers, who were de- dicated to the service of the temple, it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the consummate skill of an haruspex, the imaginary signs of future events. His attempt But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to restore the the enterprise of restoring a religion, which was destitute of S n reh theological principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiasti- cal discipline ; which rapidly hastened to decay and disso- lution, and was not susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after that office had been united with the imperial dignity, comprehended the whole extent of the Roman em- pire. Julian named for his vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers, whom he esteemed the best 2 qualified gion OF CHRISTIANITY. & ened. Professing themselves to be wise, they be- . I m pame fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible COMMENTARY. qualified to co-operate in the execution of his groat design.; and his pastoral letters, if we may use that/ianic, still repie* sent a very curious sketch of his wishes and intentions. The imperial pontiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties of benevolence and hospitality ; exhorts his inferior clergy to recommend the universal practice of those virtues; promises to assist their indigence from the public treasury \ and declares his resolution of establishing hospitals * in every city, where the poor should be+received without any invidious distinclfoh of country or of \ % religion. Julian be- held with envy the wise and humane regulations of the Church ; and he very frankly confesses his intention to de- prive the Christians of the applause, as well as advan- J -Julian. Have no comrrmnica- have ordered Galatia to supply you lion even with the servants, children, with 30,000 bushels of wheat annually or wives, of the GALiL*ANs.-Admo- one fifth of which is to be given to the n,sh your pnests not to frequent the poor who attend on your priests, and theatre nor to drink in taverns. Erect the rest among the strangers and our hos p ual S m each of your cities, so that own beggars. When none of the Jews strangers may partake of our benevo- are obliged to beg, and the Galil*, lence; and not only those of our reli- m helieve both their own pooe g on, but, if they are indigent, others and ours, it is shameful that our poor also. How these expences are to be should receive no assistance from us . defrayed, must now be considered. I To Arsacius, high priest of Galatia. K tage, 66 HISTORICAL VIEW Rom. i. 21. God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them, up to un- COMMENTARY. tage, which they had acquired by the exclusive practice ofcha rity and beneficence. The same spirit of imitation might dis- pose the emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical institutions, the use and importance of which, were approved by the success of his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of re- formation had been realised, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less beneficial to paganism, than honour- able to Christianity. The Gentiles, who peaceably followed the customs of their ancestors, were rather surprised than pleased with the introduction of foreign manners ; and, in the short period of his reign, Julian had frequent occasions to complain of the want of fervour of his own party. Final extinc- The experience of ages had betrayed the weakness, as g^nfem.Ju). wen * as folly* of paganism *; the light of reason and of faith 390-420. ' had * Hume. The stones of the gods on many occasions, directly opposite ; were numberless; and though every and no reason could be assigned for one, almost, believed a part of these preferring one to the other. And as stories, yet no one could believe or there was an infinite number of stories, know the whole : While, at the same with regard to which tradition was no- time, all must have acknowledged, that wise positive; the gradation was in- no one part stood on a better founda- sensible, from the most fundamental tion than the rest. The traditions of articles of faith, to those loose and pre- differeut cities and nations were also, carious fictions. The pagan religion, therefore, OF CHRISTIANITY. (57 cleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves : Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and Commentary. had already exposed, to the greatest part of mankind, the vanity of idols ; and the declining sect, which still adhered to their worship, was permitted to enjoy, in peace and obscurity, the religious customs of their ancestors, The eloquent Liba- nius has praised the moderation of Theodosius, who never enacted, by any positive law, that all his subjects should immediately embrace and practise the religion of their sove- reign. The profession of Christianity was not made an essential qualification for the enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar hardships imposed on the sec- taries, who credulously received the fables of Ovid, and ob- stinately rejected the miracles of the Gospel. The palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, were filled with declared and devout Pagans ; they obtained, without distinction, the civil and military honours of the empire. Theodosius dis- tinguished his liberal regard for virtue and genius, by the therefore, seemed to vanish like a yet it made them faulter and hesitate cloud, whenever one approached to it, more in maintaining their principles, and examined it piecemeal. It could and was even apt to produce, in certain never be ascertained by any fixed dispositions of mind, some practices dogmas and principles. And though and opinions, which had the appeal - this did not convert the generality of ance of determined infidelity. Natural mankind from so absurd a faith; for History of Religion. when will the people be reasonable? * consulai Rom. i. 21. 68 HISTORICAL VIEW nom.^1. worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. Commentary. consular dignity, which he bestowed on Symmachus ; and by the personal friendship which he expressed to Libanius : and the two eloquent apologists of paganism were never required either to change, or to dissemble, their religious opinions. The Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and writing. The generation, however, that arose in the world after the promulgation of the imperial laws, was- attracted within the pale of the Catholic Church : and so rapid, yet so gentle, was the fall of paganism, that only twenty -eight years after the death of Theodosius, the faint and minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the;: legislator. CHAP, OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 CHAP. III. Of the Spirit of Christianity. T OVE your enemies, do good to them which hate Luke '* v- you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the Commentary. Christianity offered itself to the world, armed with the Liberal zeal strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight of its j t Chnstia - fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth of religion and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in the new as in the ancient system : and whatever was now revealed to mankind con- cerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being, was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious doc- trine *. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets * Lorb Bolingbroke. The sys- who proved his assertions at the same tern of religion, which Chkist pub- time by his miracles ; and it enforces lished, and his evangelists recorded, the whole law of faith, by promising is a complete system to all the purposes rewards, and threatening punishments, of true religion, natural and re- which he declares he will distribute vealed. It contains all the .duties of when he comes to judge the world, the former, it enforces them by assert- Fourth Essay. ing the divine mission of the publisher, was 70 HISTORICAL VIEW Luke vi. 27. other ; and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee ; and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to yoU) do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye ? for Commentary. was admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted series of predictions had announced and pre- pared the long expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the gross apprehensions of the Jews^ had been more frequently represented under the character of a king, and conqueror*, than under that of a prophet, a martyr, and the Son of God. By his expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were at once consummated and abo- lished. The ceremonial law, which consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and spiritual worship, equally adapted to all climates, as well as to every condition of mankind ; and to the initiation of blood, was substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of Divine favour, instead of being partially confined to the posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and the * Voltaire. Les Juifs ont tou- rendra les Juifs maitres des Chretiens, jours attendu un liberateur ; mais leur Et nous esperons, que le Messie re- Hberateur est pour eux, et non pour unira un jour les Juifs aux Chretiens, nous; ils attendent un Messie, qui Remarques sur Pascal. slave, OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do Luke^uj^. good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye ? for sinners also do even the sajne. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye ? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, Commentary. slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile *. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his happiness, or even gratify that secret pride, which, under the semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart, was still reserved for the members of the Christian Church ; but at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited, to accept the glorious distinction, which * Lord Bolingbroke. Whilst principle Christianity was propa- the Christians were confounded with gated : and one of the first edicts, that the Jews, or passed for a sect of that Constantine published in favour of religion, they shared the hatred and Christianity, was a very severe one contempt which that nation had con- against the Jews, who should insult tracted. But they distinguished them- Christians, and Christians who should selves soon, in a manner that took off turn to Judaism. The Jews were no all prejudice of this kind from them, longer a chosen people : their nation and showed the wisdom and policy of was rejected ; and all the nations St. Paul's conduct in declaring himself of the earth were invited to the apostle of the Gentiles, to whom partake of the same privileges, the kingdom of Christ was opened, the same graces, and the same and who were heirs of the promises as salvation. Fourth Essay. well as the Jews. On this popular was sects. 72 HISTORICAL VIEW Luke vi. 27. and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again r , and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest : for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not Commentary. was not only proffered as a favour, but imposed as an ob- ligation. It became the most sacred duty of a new convert, to diffuse among his friends and relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a criminal diso- bedience to the will of a benevolent but all-powerful Deity. Origin of It has been remarked, with more ingenuity than truth, that the virgin purity of the Church was never violated by schism or heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred years after the death of Christ. We may observe with much more propriety, that, during that period, the dis- ciple^ of the Messiah were indulged in a freer latitude both of faith and practice, than has ever been allowed in suc- ceeding ages. As the terms of communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority of the prevailing party * was exercised with increasing severity, many of its most re- spectable adherents, who were called upon to renounce, were * Voltaire. S'il n'y avait en An- deux, elles se couperaient la gorge; gleterre qu'une religion, le despotism mais il y en a trente, elles vivent en serait a craindre. S'il n'y en avait que paix et heureuses. Des Presbyttrient. provoked OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 be condemned: forgive and ye shall be forgiven: Luke vi. 27. Give, and it shall be given unto ye ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to Commentary. provoked to assert their private opinions, to pursue the con- sequences of their mistaken principles, and openly to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the church. But whatever difference of opinion might subsist *, all were animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same ab- horrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from the 1 # The difference that has existed in the religious opinions and modes of worship of Christians, constituted one of the earliest objections to the Gospel : and it has had considerable weight with many, who have not con- sidered whether the points upon which they differ, are of importance, or not; and whether the difference between the several denominations of Chris- tians (or of Protestants at least) does not apply to subjects, upon which God has not thought fit to make an express revelation ; and which may, therefore, be presumed not to be essential. All Christians believe in the perfection and moral government of God ; in the degradation of human nature by trans- gression; in the life, death, and suf- ferings of Jesus Christ ; in the as- surance of Divine aid ; in the necessity of repentance and a good life ; in a resurrection from the dead, and in a state of rewards and punishments. If, therefore, we would but consider, how well we agree in fundamentals, we should cherish a more friendly inter- course between all sects ; and instead of devoting our time to controversial tracts, and the tactics of the church mi- litant, we should unite in promoting, both at home and abroad, the cause of true religion. We should then find that a variety of sects, like a variety of L men 74 HISTORICAL VIEW John xv. 12. you again. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants ; Commentary. the other nations of the ancient world. The most anxious diligence indeed was required, to guard the chastity of the Gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry. The supersti- tious observances of public or private rites were carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the followers of the established religion. But as often as they occurred, they afforded the Christians an opportunity of declaring and con- firming men, may dwell together in harmony and brotherly love; and that, while Christian zeal and Christian charity are promoted, the collision of opinion may tend to produce a more perfect understanding of the spirit and doc- trines of revealed religion. " The mo- " desty of Christians (says Archbishop Tillotson) " is contented in divine {' mysteries to know what God has '* thought fit to reveal concerning them ; " and hath no curiosity to he wise above " that which is written. It is enough f< to believe what God says concerning "these matters: and if 'any man will '* venture to say more, every other man " surely is at liberty to believe as he " sees reason." "And" (he a HO HISTORICAL VIEW iiev. vii.p. them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple : and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither Commentary. . to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. After the example of the wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination ; which excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of those who were dis*- contented with their present condition. An ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood ; the effeminate priests of the Nile were abolished ; and Constantine discharged the duties of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demo- lition of several temples of Phoenicia, in which every mode of prostitution was practised in the face of day, and to the ho- nour of Venus. p f er ? eC c? on In the thirty-second year of his age, Julian acquired the tians under undisputed possession of the Roman empire. The Chris- 362. n ' ' ' tians, who beheld with horror and indignation, his apos- tacy, had much more to fear from his power, than from his arguments. The Pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of persecution should be immediately kindled. Under the administration of their enemies, the Christians had OF CHRISTIANITY. Ill shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Rev. rii 9. Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them ; and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Commentary. had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. When the father of his country declares himself the leader of a faction, the licence of popular fury cannot easily be re- strained, nor consistently punished. Julian, in a public com- position, applauds the devotion and loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had destroyed at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galileans ; and faintly complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the gods with less mo- deration than he should have recommended. This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the eccle- siastical narratives ; that in the cities ot Gasa, Ascalon, Cae- sarea, Heliopolis, &c. the Pagans abused, without prudence or remorse, the moment of their prosperity ; that the un- happy objects of their cruelty were released from torture only by death ; that, as their mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were pierced (such was the universal rage) b} 7 the spits of cooks, and the distaffs of enraged women; and that the entrails of Christian priests and virgins, after they had been tasted by those bloody fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously thrown to the unclean ani- mals of the city. CHAP. 112 HISTORICAL VIEW CHAP. V. Of the Jews, and their Dispersion. ^^r^j IVpOW the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee : And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a blessing : and I will bless them that bless Commentary. Exclusive We have already described the religious harmony of the zeal of the ancient world, and the facility with which the most distant and even hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's superstition. A single people refused to join in the com- mon intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves *, emerged from obscurity under the successors of Alexander; and as * Tacitus. Magna pars Judaeae rios penes Medosque et Persas oriens vicis dispergitur. Habent et oppida. fuir, dispectissima pabs servien- Hienosolyma genti caput. DumAssy- tium. Histor. lib. v. they OF CHRISTIANITY. 113 thee, and curse him that curseththee; and in thee Gen.. 1. shall all families of the earth be blessed. And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, Gen.xvii. 1. the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God ; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee ; and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face : and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, Commentary. they multiplied to a surprising degree in the East, and after- wards in the West, they soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. The obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and manners, seemed to mark them out a distinct species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their hatred to the rest of human kind. Neither Their aver- the violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the ^" t0 l * example of the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the ele- gant mythology * of the Greeks. According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be offered for his prosperity * For Mr. Gibbon's account of this tue in the present life, the reader is elegant mythology, of its dark uncer- referred to the second chapter of this tainty as to futurity, and of its ineffi- Historical View. cacy as to the production of moral vir- Q in 114 HISTORICAL VIEW Gen. xvii. i. and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham ; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee ex- ceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. Commentary. in the temple of Jerusalem ; while the meanest of the poste- rity of Abraham, who should have paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren. But the modera- tion of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and scan- dalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily intro- duced themselves into a Roman province. The mad attempt of Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jeru- salem, was defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people, who dreaded death much less than such an idolatrous pro- fanation. Their attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of foreign religions ; and the current of zeal and devotion, as it was contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. Their extra- fj; HE contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with ordinary his- * tory. careless OF CHRISTIANITY. 115 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, Ge* xv ii. i, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession ; and I will be their God. And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you, and thy seed after thee ; every man child among you shall be circum- cised. And Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all - Commentary. n careless indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the Jews of a later period from the universal conta- gion of idolatry * ; and in contradiction to every known prin- ciple of the human mind, that singula?' people seems to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses. Even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of court- ing, the society of strangers. They still insisted with inflex- ible rigour, on those parts of the law which it was in their * Tacitus. Judaii Mente Sola, que mutabile, neque interiturum. Igi- unumque Numen intelligunt. Profa- , tur nulla simulacra urbibussuis, nedum nos qui deum imagines, mortalibus templis sunt. Non regibus haec adu- materiis, iu species hominum effin- latio, non Caesaribus honor. Ilistor. gunt. Summum illud et eternum, ne- lib. v. Q 2 power 116 HISTORICAL VIEW Gen. xvii. i. that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abra- ham's house ; and circumcised the flesh of their fore- skin in the self same day, as God had said unto him. And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, Commentary. power to practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observ- ances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were dia- metrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing prose- lyte from the door of the synagogue. The siege of Titus was adored by the eastern legions, which, under his Jerusalem. , .. .... * 1 * a. d. 70. command, achieved the conquest of Judea. Jbor the fulfil- ment of the predictions concerning the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the Jewish people, the most unexceptionable reference may be made to the testimony of Joseph us; a Jew, of the race of the Jewish priests, and of the first course of the Four- and-twenty ; by his mother descended from the Asmonean family, which for a considerable time had the supreme government of the Jewish nation. He was with Titus during the whole of the 'siege of Jerusalem. The following extract is OF CHRISTIANITY. li? And when Jesus was come near, he beheld the Lukexix.4i: city, and wept over jt, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy. day, the things which Commentary. is taken from his account of the circumstances which at- tended this extraordinary event. * It is impossible to enumerate every instance of the ini- wickedness quity of those men : but, iu a word, never did any city ol Jcws * suffer so great calamities as Jerusalem, nor was there ever, from the beginning of the world, any time more fruitful of wickedness than that *. These were the men, who overthrew the city, and compelled the Romans unwillingly to gain a disagreeable victory. They did little less than throw fire upon the temple, and seemed to think it came too slowly. * Many came out of the city to seek for food, or with a Many of tht view of making an escape, who were apprehended by the j! " s crucl " Romans, and crucified before the walls ; and^ many of them were scourged before they were crucified. This seemed to Titus very grievous ; for five hundred Jews were taken in a day, and sometimes more; nevertheless he allowed of it. To dismiss them, and let them go off, would not have been safe ; nor could he spare men enough to keep guard upon so many. Moreover he hoped that the sight of these mise- rable objects might dispose them in the city to think of . * This, with the account which fol- salem, appears to be a translation Iowa, of the siege and taking of J eru- from Josephus. E. 1 surrendering. 118 HISTORICAL VIEW : >;kexix.4.i. belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and com- Famine and misery. Commentary. surrendering. The soldiers, out of anger, and hatred of the Jews, hung them upon the crosses, some one way some another, as it were in jest ; and so great was the number, that room was wanting for crosses, and crosses were wanting for bodies. ' The famine now increasing, it devoured whole houses. For a while, they who had no relations to take care of them, were buried at the public expence: afterwards the dead were thrown over the wall, into the ditch. When Titus, in going his rounds near the vallies below the walls, saw the dead bodies, and the putrefaction issuing from them, he fetched a deep sigh ; and, lifting up his hands to heaven, called God to witness, that this was not his doing. Many did still find means to get out of the city: some leaped down from the wall, others went out of the city with stones in their hands, as if they were going to fight with the Ro- mans : but most of them died miserably. Some perished by excessive eating upon empty stomachs. Moreover some of them had swallowed gold, and were detected afterwards in searching for it in their excrements. This having been observed in a few instances, excited the avarice of the soldiers, who concluded that all the deserters were full of gold ; they therefore cut up their bellies, and searched their entrails. In this way there perished two thousand in one * night. OF CHRISTIANITY. 119 pass thee round, and keep thee in on every side. And Lukexix.4i. shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children ' within thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one Commentary. ' night. Nor does it seem that any misery befel the Jews * more terrible than this. When Titus heard of it, he was ' greatly displeased ; especially when he found that not only * the Syrians and Arabians had practised this cruelty, but the * Romans likewise : he therefore gave orders that all who for * the future acted in that manner, should be put to death. * But the love of money prevailed against the dread of punish- * ment; and indeed it was God who had condemned the * whole nation, and defeated every method taken for their * preservation. * But why do I stay to relate particularly these several Great num- 1 calamities ? for at this time Mannaeus, son of Lazarus, fled j. j!|j" 4 out of the city, and came to Titus ; and told him that * through the one gate, which had been intrusted to his care, ' there had been carried no fewer than one hundred and ; fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty dead bodies, from ' the day that the Romans encamped near the city, the four- ' teenth day of the month of April, to the first day of July. * That was a prodigious number ! The man was not a gover- 4 nor at the gate, but he was appointed to pay the public * allowance for carrying the bodies out, and therefore was * obliged to number them. Others were buried by their rela- < tions, though their burial was no other than to bring them * and cast them out of the city. After that man, there cama 1 to 120 HISTORICAL VIEW Lukexix^i. stone upon another ; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. Conduct of Tifus. Commentary. to Titus several other deserters of good condition, who told him that the whole number of the poor, who had been thrown out at the gates, was not less than six hundred thou- sand : the number of the rest could not be exactly known. They farther told him that, when they were no longer able to carry out the dead bodies of the poor, they laid them in heaps, in large houses, and then shut them up. They like- wise said that a measure of wheat had been sold for a talent : and that afterwards, when it had been impossible to come out to gather herbs, because the city was encompassed with a wall, some were driven to such distress, as to search the common sewers and old dunghills of cattle, and to eat the dung which they found there ; and that what they could not before endure to see, they now made use of for food. When the Romans heard of these things, they commiserated their case : but the seditious, who saw them, did not repent till the same distress reached themselves ; for they were blinded by that fate which was coming upon the city and themselves. * Titus was much affected with the present state of things, and reproached John and those with him ; reminding them of the regard which had been shewn to the temple by the Romans, who had allowed them to erect in the courts of it a partition wall, with inscriptions in Greek, forbidding all foreigners to enter within those limits, and allowing them to kill OF CHRISTIANITY. 121 And as some spake of the temple, how it was Luke xxi. 5. adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for v "^ v- ^ ,/ Commentary. 4 kill such as did so, though they were Romans. " I call to " witness," says he, " the gods of the country, and every god, " who ever had a regard to this place (for I do not now sup- " pose it to be regarded by any of them) ; I also call to " witness my own army, and the Jews who are with me, " and your own selves, that I do not compel you to pollute " your sanctuary : and if you will change the place of com- " bat, no Roman shall come near it ; for I will endeavour to " preserve your temple, whether you will or not.-' f Titus retired to the tower of Antonia, and resolved the The temple ' next day early in the morning to storm the temple with * his whole army, and to encamp about it. But certainly the ' Divine sentence had long since condemned it to the fire : ' and now the fatal day was come, according to the revolution 1 of ages : it was the same day, and the same month, 1 upon which it had been formerly burnt by Nebuchadnezzar, ' king of Babylon. The temple was now on fire. Never- * theless Titus, still desirous to save it, if possible, came near ' and went into the sanctuary of the temple with his com- * manders, and saw it, with what was in it, which he ' found to be far superior to the accounts of strangers, and * not inferior to the report of the Jews themselves. At 4 the same time the treasury chambers were burnt, where 1 there was an immense quantity of money, and a great 4 number of garments and other precious things ; for * there it was that the riches of the Jews were heaped up. R * The 122 HISTORICAL VIEW Luke xxi. 5. these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon an- and the city plundered and burnt. Commentary. The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloister in the outer court, where there were women and children, and a mixed multitude of people, to the number of six thousand ; and before Caesar had given any orders about it, the soldiers in a rage set fire to the cloister. Nor did any one of that multitude escape with life. 8 At length, after great labour, and against a furious oppo- sition, the Romans became masters of the rest of the city, and set their ensigns upon the walls in triumph, and with great joy. They then plundered the houses, and killed every one whom they met with in the streets. They set fire to the city, and made the streets run with blood to such a degree, that the fire of many houses was quenched with men's blood. However, it so happened that, when the slayers had left off in the evening, the fire greatly pre- vailed in the night. As all was burning, the eighth day of the month of September came on at Jerusalem ; a city which had suffered so many calamities during the siege, of which it was upon no account so deserving, as upon account of its producing such a generation of men as occasioned its over- throw. 6 When Titus was come into this upper city, he ad- mired some places of strength in it, and particularly those strong towers which the tyrants in their madness had relinquished. And he expressed himself in the follow- ing manner : " We have certainly had God for our helper " in OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 other, that shall not be thrown down. And they asked Luke *xi. 5. him, saying, Master, but when shall these tilings be ? Commentary. in this war *. It is God who has ejected the Jews out of these fortifications. For what could the hands of men, or any machines do, towards throwing down such fortifica- tions ?" At which time he had many like discourses with his friends. He also set at liberty such as had been bound by the tyrants, and were still in the prisons. And when he entirely demolished the rest of the city, and overthrew its walls, he left those towers to be monuments of his fortune, which had fought with him, and had enabled him to take what otherwise would have been impregnable. 1 The soldiers were weary of killing. But there were many Slaughter of still alive. Titus therefore gave orders that none should be * essi ' killed but such as were in arms, or made resistance, and to * To other prophecies respecting the destruction of Jerusalem, may be added that in Matt. x. 34, erroneously translated, "Think not that I am come " to send peace upon earth ; I came ** not to send peace, but a sword." This verse (on Mr. Bryant's autho- rity) ought to have been translated thus : " Think not that I am come to " send peace upon this LAND(Judea); " I came not to send peace, but a " sword." That the word yr t y may bear that construction, will be evident R upon reference to the New Testament ; where it is more frequently applied to Judea, or a particular district, than to the whole earth ; and also by reference to the Septuagint, several examples of which Mr. Bryant (in his treatise upon the Authenticity of the Scriptures) has noticed : that it ought to be so ren- dered in this instance, will appear by the context; the whole of this chap- ter having a reference to the apostles, and to the age and country in which they lived. E. 2 take 124 HISTORICAL VIEW Luke xxi. 5. and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass ? And he said, Take heed that ye be not Commentary. take the rest captive. Nevertheless the soldiers slew the aged and the infirm : but for those who were in their flou- rishing age, and might be useful to them, they drove them together into the temple, and shut them up within the walls of the court of the women ; over whom Titus set one of his freed men, and Fronto, one of his friends, who was to deter- mine the fate of each one according to his desert. Many were ordered to be slain. But of the young men he chose out the tallest, and the most beautiful, and reserved them for the triumph. Such as were above seventeen years of age, he bound, and sent them to work in the mines in Egypt. Titus also sent a great many into the provinces, as presents to them, that they might be destroyed in their theatres, either by the sword or by wild beasts. They who were under seventeen years of age were sold for slaves *.. And during the time that Fronto was determining the fate of these men, there perished eleven thousand for want of food. Some of them had no food through the ill-will of those who guarded them. Others would not take what was given them. And indeed there were so many that there was not food for them. * Voltaire. Vespasien et Titus Juifs massacres. Ce qui resta, fiit firent ce siege memorable, qui finit par expose dana les marches publiques, la destruction de la ville de Jerusalem. et chaque Juif fut vendu a-peu-pres au Joseph pretend que dans cette courte mme prix que ranimarimmonde dent guerre il y eut plus d'un million de ils n'osent manger. Des Juifs. ' The OF CHRISTIANITY. US deceived : for many shall come in my name, saying, I Luiu xxi.5. am Christ ; and the time draweth near : go ye not Commentary. The number of those who were taken captive during the Extended t whole war was computed to be ninety and seven thousand : J^^ 01 * and the number of those who perished during the siege, eleven hundred thousand. The greater part of them were indeed of the same nation, but not inhabitants of the city. For they were come up from all the country to the festival of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut in by the army; which occasioned, so great a straitness that there came on a pestilential disorder, aud then a famine, which was more severe.. This great multitude was collected from other places. The whole nation was shut up as in a prison.: and the Roman army encompassed the city when it was crowded, with inhabitants. Accordingly,, the multitude of those who perished therein exceeded all the destructions that men or God ever brought on the world. As many were hid in caverns, the Romans made searches after them. If any were found alive, they were presently slain. But beside them, they found there more than two thousand ; some killed by themselves, and by one another, and more de- stroyed by famine. The ill savour of the dead bodies was offensive : nevertheless, for the sake of gain, many of the soldiers ventured into the caverns, where was found much treasure. John and his brethren, who were with him in a cavern, wanted food. Now therefore he begged that the Ro- mans would give him the right hand for security, which he had often rejected before. But Simon struggled hard with 1 the 126 HISTORICAL VIEW Lufcj"-J. therefore after them. But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified : for these things The whole of the city demolished. Commentary. the distress he was in, till he was forced to surrender him- self, as we shall relate hereafter. So he was reserved for the triumph, and to be then slain. John was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The Romans then set fire to the extreme parts of the city, and burnt them down, and demo- lished the walls to the foundation. And now when no more were left to be slain, nor any more plunder remained for the soldiers, Caesar gave orders that they should demolish the foundation of the whole city and temple, leaving only the forementioned towers Phasaslus, Hippicus, and Mariamne, and so much of the wall as was of the west side ot the city : that was spared in order to afford a camp for those who were to lie in garrison ; but as for all the rest of the whole circum- ference of the city, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground *, by those who dug it up to the foundation, that there was nothing left to make those who came thither, be- lieve it has ever been inhabited f" ' The * Tillotson. We hare this mat- ter related, not by a Christian (who might be suspected of partiality, and a design to have paralleled the event with our Saviour's prediction), but by a Jew, both by nation and religion, who seems designedly to have avoided as much as possibly he could, the very mention of the Christian name, and all particulars relating to our Savi- our, though no historian was ever more punctual in other things. Serm. 186. f Thus far is extracted from Jose- phus. What follows is a continua- tion of the commentary by Mr. Gib- bon ; the whole of which, (with some casual and trifling variations, and with the exception before stated,) has been inserted by him, in his History of the Decline OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 must first come to pass ; but the end is not by and Luke kj&a by. Then said he unto them, nation shall rise against Commentary. The destruction of the temple and city had been accom- Peculiar pi- panied and followed by every circumstance that could exas- j^/ e perate the minds of the conquerors, and authorise religious persecution by the most specious arguments of political jus- tice and the public safety. From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews had discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. The numerous re- mains of that people, though they were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, had been permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments * both in Italy and in the _ Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- pire. That in the first chapter is to be found in vol. 2 (8vo. ed. of 1802) pages 265, 358, 366, 868, and 371; in vol. 3, pages 244, ami 278 ; in vol. 4, page 230 ; and in vol. 10, page 242. That in the second chapter of this His- torical View, is given by Mr. Gibbon in vol. 1, pages 46, 50, 370, and 389 ; in vol. 2, pages 287, 294, and 354; in vol. 4, pages 81, 87, and 90; and in vol. 5, page 118. The part of the commentary in the third chapter, is to be found in vol. 2, pages 273, 284, 293, 315, 318, 341, and 345; in vol. 3, page 246; and in vol. 5, page 205. That in chapter 4, is placed by Mr. Gibbon in vol. 2, pages 381, 389, 392, 402, 420, 426, 428, 459, and 476 ; in vol. 3, page 405 ; and in vol. 4, page 124 : And lastly, the com- mentary of the fifth chapter will be found in Mr. Gibbon's second volume, pages 267, 270, and 278 ; and in the fourth volume, pages 97, 100, 103, and 108. E. * Aodison. The Jews are looked upon by many to be as uumerous at present as they were formerly in the land of Canaan. They swarm over all the East, and are settled in the remot- est parts of China : they are spread through most of the nations of Europe and Africa, and many families of them are established in the West Indies. Their numbers, dispersion, and adher- ; - ence 128 HISTORICAL VIEW Luke xxi. 5. nation, and kingdom against kingdom : and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, Julian en- deavours to ret to re Pa- ganism. A. D. 361. Commentary, the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to enjoy muni- cipal honours, and to obtain at the same time an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of society. New synagogues were frequently erected in the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts, and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by the traditions of the rabbis, were celebrated in the most solemn and public manner. At the time when Julian was labouring to restore and propagate the religion of the Heathens -f, he embraced the ex- traordinary design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a public epistle to the nation or community of the Jews, dis- persed through the provinces, he pities their misfortunes, con- demns their oppressors, praises their constancy ; declares him- self their gracious protector, and expresses an earnest hope, ence to their religion, have furnished every age, and every nation of the world with the strongest arguments for the Christian faith, not only as these very particulars are foretold of them, but as they themselves are the deposi- taries of these and all the other pro- phecies, which tend to their own con- fusion. Their number furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses, that attest the truth of the whole Bible. Their dispersion spreads these witnesses through all parts of the world. Their adherence to their religion makes their testimony unquestionable. Had the whole body of Jews been converted to Christianity, we should certainly have thought all the prophecies of the Old Testament, that relate to the coming and history of our blessed Saviour, forged by Christians, and have looked upon them, with the prophecies of the sibyls, as made many years after the events they pretend to foretel. Spec- tator, 495. + Vide ante, p. 64. that OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 and pestilences ; and fearful sights and great signs # Luk^xxi. 5. shall there be from heaven. And when ye shall Commentary. that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permit- ted to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of Jerusalem. The condition of those unfortunate exiles -f might * Tacitus has taken notice of the wars, commotions, earthquakes, and signs, which preceded the pe- riod of the destruction of Jerusalem. " Atrox prceliis, discors seditio- " nibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum. " Quatuor principes ferro interempti. * Tria bella civilia, plura extrema, u ac plerumque permixta. Turbatum * Illyricum, Galliae nutantes, perdo- " mita Britannia, et statim missa : " coortae in nos Sarmatarum ac Sue- '* vorum gentes : nobilitatus cladibus * mutuis Dacus. Jam vero Italia no- u vis cladibus, vel post longam se- u culorum seriem repetitis, afflicta. " Haustje aut obrut.e Urbes. Fe- " cundissima Campaniae ora : et urbs, " incendiis vastata. Praeter multipli- ** ces rerum humanarum casus, ccelo u terraque prodigia, et fulminum ** monitus, et futurorum prjesagia, " JjMTA, tristia, ambigua, mani- " festa." Histor. lib. 1. If the hi- story and character of Tacitus had not been well known,, it might have been supposed that this had been the commen- tary of some zealous Christian on the ninth, tenth, and eleventh verses of the twenty-first chapter of St. Luke. E. f Ben Mordecai. Is it possible that so much tenderness as is every where expressed through the sacred volume, towards our once happy na- tion, should on a sudden, and for no apparent cause, entirely desert us ? And we should be thus cast off from His favour, as we now are, and subjected to such unspeakable ruin, as hath be- fallen the whole nation from the days of Vespasian and Titus? Such as never any other nation under the sun has undergone : and suffered in our sieges, and battles, by seditions, and famines, and pestilence, and captivity, and massacres, and dispersions. Surely if some amazing act of wickedness has not been perpetrated by our whole na- tion, beyond what other nations have committed, our present state and con- dition, for so many ages, is unaccount- able, and our scriptures incredible. In this 130 HISTORICAL VIEW Lafcj*3j. 5. see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which Commentary might have excited the compassion of a philosophic emperor; but they obtained the friendship of Julian, by their impla- cable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagoo-ue abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious Church ; the power of the Jews was not equal to their malice ; but their gravest rabbis approved the private murder of an apostate ; and their seditious clamours had often awakened the indolence of the pagan magistrates. The Jewish patri- arch, who was still permitted to exercise a precarious juris- diction, held his residence at Tiberias ; and the neighbouring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a people, who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of Hadrian was renewed and enforced ; and they viewed from afar the walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the triumph of the cross, and the devotion of the Christians. this .dejected and forlorn state, sifted may expect a deliverance from our into all nations, and become the scorn evils. He will return to us also, in of all mankind, there yet remains one mercy and loving kindness, and will hope. If Jesus be indeed the visible save us, if we turn to him with sorrow Jehovah, and Angel of the Cove- and repentance, as to the Angel of nant, whom our fathers, by an act of the Covenant whom we delight in, the whole nation, have slain, we want and be obedient to his voice. Fourth no further explanation how we have Letter. offended him, or in what manner we In OF CHRISTIANITY. 131 are in Judea flee to the mountains ; and let them Luke xxi. $ which are in the midst of it depart out ; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For Commentary. In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of state of Jc Jerusalem inclosed the two mountains of Sion -and. Acra, rusa em " within an oval figure of about three English miles. Towards the south, the upper town, and the fortress of David, were erected on the lofty ascent of Mount Sion : on the north side, the buildings of the lower towa covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra ; and a part of the hill> distinguished by the name of Moriah, and levelled by human industry, was crown- ed with the stately, temple of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple, by the arms of Titus and Ha- drian, a plough-share was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted ; and the vacant space of the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices of the ^Elian colony, which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. - i The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to Julian at- restore the ancient glory of Jerusalem*. As the Christians buSS the r were tem P le - # Addison. The great preparations the substance of the story testified which were made by Julian for re- both by pagan and Jewish writers, as building the temple, with the hurri- Ammianus Marccllinus and Zemath cane, earthquake, and eruptions of David. The learned Chrysostom, fire, that destroyed the work, and ter- in a sermon against the Jews, tells rifled those employed in the attempt them this fact was then fresh in the from proceeding in it, are related, by memories even of their young men; many historians of the same age, and that it happened but twenty years ago, - and* 132 HISTORICAL VIEW 5 ; these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in Commentary. were firmly persuaded that sentence had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law, the imperial sophist would have converted the success of his undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of prophecy, and the truth of revelation. The prospect of an immediate and important advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He re- solved to erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a stately temple, which might eclipse the splendour of the church of the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Cal- vary ; to establish an order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts, and resist the ambition, of their Chris- tian rivals ; and to invite a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures of the pagan government. and that it was attested by all the in- it, the temple could not be preserved habitants of Jerusalem, where they from the plough passing oner it, by all might still see the marks of it in the the care of Titus, who would fain have rubbish of that work, from which the prevented its destruction ; and that Jews desisted in so great a fright, and instead of being re-edified by Julian^ which even Julian had not the cou- all his endeavours towards it'did but still rage to carry on. This fact, which is more literally accomplish our Saviour's in itself so miraculous and so indisput- prediction, that not one stone should able, brought over many Jews to be left upon another. Evidence*, Christianity ; and shews us, that sect. 8. after our Saviour's prophecy against At OF CHRISTIANITY. m those days ! for there shall be great distress in the Lukc xxi ^ land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall v, -^ v ^ ht/ fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away Commentary. At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, from all the pro- vinces of the empire, assembled on the holy mountain of their fathers ; and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of re- building the temple has, in every age, been the ruling pas- sion of the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy ; spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contributions ; every hand claimed a share in the pious labour; and the com- mands of a great monarch were executed by the enthu- siasm of a whole people. Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthu- Theenter- siasm were unsuccessful * ; and the ground of the Jewish tem- f e ated. pie, which is now covered by a Mahometan mosque, still con- tinues to exhibit the same spectacle of ruin and desola- tion. * This fact is unquestionable, that the attempt. The supernatural impe- the Emperor Julian, possessed of diments which thwarted and at length the undivided power of the Roman put an end to Julian's attempt, are empire, impelled by hatred to the related by Ammianus Marcellinus, Christian religion, and seconded by an old pagan soldier, then personally the enthusiastic zeal of the Jewish na- attending upon Julian. If this histo- tion, earnestly attempted to rebuild rian had been converted by these ex- the temple of Jerusalem, and failed in traordinary circumstances, the objec- tion 1S4 HISTORICAL VIEW Luke xxi. 5. captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trod- den down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gen- tiles be fulfilled. Verily I say unto you, this gena- Commentary. tion. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested, with some variations, by contem- porary and respectable evidence. This public event is de- scribed by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in an epistle to the Emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of the Jews ; by the eloquent Chrysos- tom, who might appeal to the memory of the elder tion to his evidence would have been of the same nature as the objection to the evidence of the myriads of per- sons, who were converted by the mi- racles performed at the first preaching of the Gospel ; that being converts, they were not disinterested witnesses. But as this rough old soldier was not converted by these miraculous events, the infidel's objection is that if he had really believed what he wrote, he would have become a Christian. It is, however, to be observed, that he only relates simple facts, most proba- bly entirely ignorant of the prophecies with which they were connected. E. * The Editor having now con- cluded the selection of his notes, from Authors some of whom have been considered as hostile to revealed reli- gion, may be asked whether, in adopt- ing the evidence which has been given by them in favour of Christianity, he means to admit the authority of all that they have said or insinuated against it. He answers, "No, by no means. " Where persons have attempted * TO IMPOSE upon the world, and " UPON CROSS examination their * FALLACIESCAN BEDETECTED,THEIR " TESTIMONY EXTORTED, ANDTRUTH u established ; the world may well f admit such involuntary evidence, and " receive the benefit of that truth, " without being infested by any of the " contradictory and abominable false- " hoods, which they have endeavoured *< to propagate." E. part OF CHRISTIANITY. 135 ration shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled, Hea- Pjj^i^ ven and earth shall pass away : but my words shall not pass away. Commentary. part of his congregation at Antioch ; and by Gregory Nazianzen, who published his account of the miracle, before the expiration of the same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels ; and his assertion, strange as it may seem, is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. This philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues without adopting the prejudices of his master, has in his judicious and candid history of his own times, given the following account of the extraordinary obstacles, which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jeru- salem. " Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor " of the province, urged, with VIGOUR AND DILI- " GENCE, THE EXECUTION OF THE WORK, HORRIBLE BALLS M OF FIRE BREAKING OUT NEAR THE FOUNDATIONS, WITH M FREQUENT AND REITERATED ATTACKS, RENDERED THE " PLACE, FROM TIME TO TIME, INACCESSIBLE TO THE " SCORCHED AND BLASTED WORKMEN ; AND THE VICTO- " RIOUS ELEMENT, CONTINUING IN THIS MANNER OBSTI- " NATELY AND RESOLUTELY BENT, AS IT WERE, TO DRIVE 44 THEM TO A DISTANCE, THE UNDERTAKING WAS ABAN- " DONED." INDEX. Addison ; On the conduct of the Christian martyrs, 100. On the number of the Jews, 127- On Julian's attempt to rebuild the temple, 131. Atheists ; Voltaire's opinion about them, 45. Atonement for Sin ; Antiquity of this doctrine, 9. Augustus ; Mr. Gibbon's instance of his polite condescemion, 1 13. Bayle ; His account of the heathen god, Jupiter, 46. Berea ; Visit of Julian to the Christians there, 28. Bolingbrokej On miracles, 18. On the progress of Christianity, 26. On thejournies and labours of St. Paul, 27- On the duties of the clergy, 33. On the character of Christianity, 36. On the weakness of polytheism, 38. On the ignorance of the philo- sophers, 41. On the Christian dispensation, 39, 69. On the number of the heathen gods, 42. On the errors of phi- losophy, 44. On the inefficacy of polytheism, 56. On the spirit of Christianity, 70. On Christian virtues, 83. Christians; Their abhorrence of Idolatry, 48. Difficulties to which tlu-y were subjected, 48. Their moral virtues, 75, 83. Pliny's ac- count of the primitive Christians, 77- Their charity, and the distribution of their alms, 79. Their active benevolence, 82. Their obedience to civil government, 85. They abolish the shows of gladiators, 86. Persecuted by the Roman Emperors* 89. Their characters aspersed, 92. Persecution of them un- der Nero, 94. Juvenal's description of the cruelties exercised on them, 95. Popular clamours against them, 96. Terms on which pardon was offered them, 97. Zeal and ardour of the first martyrs, 100. Persecution under Diocletian, 104. Under. Julian, 110. T INDEX. Christianity; Nature of its evidence, 12. Its pure and spiritual doctrine, 13. Its progress foretold, 25. Rapidity of that progress in the East, in Greece, in Africa, and beyond the limits of the Ro- man Empire, 26. Preached to the poor, SI. Edict of Constantine in favour of it, 34. Extended throughout the world, 35. Its beneficial effects, 39. Julian writes against it, 63. Liberal zeal of Christianity, 69. It contains a com- plete system of religion, ib. Its series of prophecies, 70. Its benefits, stated by Rousseau, 89. Example of its tolerat- ing spirit, 109. Clergy ; Their duties stated by Lord Bolingbroke, 33. Diocletian ; His cruelty to the Christians, 107. Evidence of Revelation; Whether it should be universal, 10. Whether clear and irresistible, ib. Duty of examining it, 12. Future State; A distinct view of its happiness incompatible with the functions and duties of the present life, 101. Happiness; Progressive preparation for it, 3. Heathen Mythology ; Its pernicious defects, 14. Heathen World ; Its scepticism, 60. Heathens ; Their imperfect notions of the Deity, 92. Human Knowledge; Its confined limits, 2. Hume; On our progress to perfection, 7. On the gods of the heathens, 57. On the gross absurdity of polytheism, 66. Idolatry ; Held in abhorrence by the Christians, 48. Jerusalem ; The siege of it by Titus, 116. Plundered and burnt, 122. Jews ; Their observance of the Mosaic law, 21. Their present numbers, 21, 127. Their dispersion, and hope of restoration, 22, 127. Their exclusive zeal, 112. Their aversion to idolatry, 113. Their extraordinary his- tory, 114. Spiritual nature of their religion, 115. Besieged in Je- rusalem, 117. Great numbers of Jews crucified, ib. Their sufferings during the siege, 118. The temple burnt, 121. Excluded from Je- rusalem, 127. Immortality op the Soul; Views of it, 2. Ignorance of philosophers on this subject, 50. Plato's doctrine respecting it, 55. Intellectual Improvement; Its use in old age, 5. Its beneficial effect on empires, ib. INDEX. Josephus; His account of the siege of Jerusalem, 116. Julian admits the miracles of Christ, 17. His visit to the Christians at Berea, 28- He writes against Christianity, 63. His extreme superstition, 64. His instructions to the heathen priests, 65. His persecution of the Christians, 110. He endeavours to restore paganism, 128. And to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem, 131. His enterprize defeated by a miracle, 133. Jupiter ; Bayle's character of Jupiter, 46. Juvenal ; His description of the cruelties exercised on the Christians, 95. Limits of human knowledge, 2, 6l. Luc i an on Christian charity, 79. Mahomedan Superstition ; Its defects, 14. Paradise described, ib; Martyrs ; Their zeal and ardour, 100. Effect of their sufferings in the conver- sion of the heathens, 1 02. Mediatory Scheme displayed in every part of God's providence, 9- Messiah ; The Jews' notion respecting him, 18. Miracles ; Their authenticity, 15. Admitted by the early opponents of Chris- tianity, ib. The great effects produced by them, \6. Julian's acknowledgment of them, 17. Imputed to magic, 18. Mishna ; or the oral law, now observed, 21. Pagan Mythology; Injurious to ancient Rome, 6. Paganism ; Its final extinction, 66. Hume's remarks on its gross absurdity, ib. Pagans; Their imperfect notions of the Deity, 92. Their jealousy of the Christians, 103. Persecution under Nero, 94. Under Diocletian, 104. Under Julian, 110. Philosophers; Their religious opinions, 43. Their ignorance as to the im- mortality of the soul, 50. The inefficacy of their doctrine, 55. Plato ; Absurdity of one of his doctrines, 58. Pliny's account of the principles of the Christians, 77. Polytheism ; Its origin and defects, 41. Its weakness, 59- Its extinction, 66. Its absurdity, ib. Preparation for intellectual happiness, 3. Prophecies as to the Jewish dispensation, 18. Reflection ; Its powers and effects, 3. Rousseau's observations on the scriptures, 62. On the benefits of Chris- tianity, 89- Sects ; Their origin and use, 71. Observations upon them, 73. INDEX. Sin ; Its nature, and the antiquity of the doctrine of atonemant, 8. Soul ; Its future enjoyments, 4. Of a moral and Intellectual nature, 4. Bene- fit of intellectual improvement in old age, 5. St. Paul ; Lord Bolingbroke's account of his journies and labours, 27. Tacitus on the period preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, 129. Temple of Jerusalem burnt, 121. Tertullian ; On the innocence of the Christians, 78. Titus besieges Jerusalem, 116. Voltaire on the limits of human knowledge, 2. 6l. On Newton's religious sentiments, 8. On the effect of Newton's philosophy, and the power of the Deity, 43. On God's moral government, and on the mischiefs of atheism, 44. On the immortality of the soul, 56. On the Jews, 71. On the benevolence of the Christians, 81. On their active charity, 82. On the effect of Christian virtue, 85. On the hatred of the Pagans to the Christians, Ql. On the cha- racter of our Saviour, 93. On Diocletian's persecution, 108. Warburton on Plato's doctrine as to the immortality of the soul, 55. r rv Savage and Easingwood, Printers, James Street, Buckingham Gate. STOW-SO^ %a3AINfl-3^ *omMV$> ^nv-sov^ <33aiih$ i i $UIBRARY0/ ^MLIBRARYp^ ^lOSANGElfr* o t OfCAilF0% ^UIBRARYQ^ c5? UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. #Awaan-# y o \\Mm\ms/A MAY 06 1991 DEC 2 7 WO "REN Mil* o -fJUDNVSOl^ \\AE INIVERS//) ftwsoi^ $. 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