amazing strength to which Christianity grew up, from so weak an origin, before it received any nurture from the powers of this world. Conduct and motives of the converts to it dilated on, &c. This progress of Christianity, before the time of Constantine, considered in the light of attestation to its truth: various ways of thus considering it. Conclusion.

DISCOURSE X.

OF THE ARGUMENT DRAWN FROM THE SWIFT PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.

MATTHEW, CHAP. XIII.-VERSES 31, 32.

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; which indeed is the least of all seeds, but, when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

THE ancient prophets, having described the Messiah as a mighty prince, the founder of an extensive and lasting dominion; our Saviour, in allusion to these predictions, and to remind men of their accomplishment, often styled the religion he instituted, 'the kingdom of God,' or 'the kingdom of heaven.' This is evidently the meaning of the words in the passage before us. It is the Christian dispensation, which is here compared to a grain of mustard-seed.' The beginnings of it were the smallest that can be conceived; they promised nothing of its future greatness: this minute seed was sown in a field ;' in appearance it was lost, it perished. The sufferings and death of Christ, and the dispersion of his disciples, seemed to have put a final end to all his pretensions. But the religion he preached, revived and florished: it presently became a great tree; and the birds of the air,' men dispersed in every region under heaven, came and lodged in the branches thereof :' found in its doctrines and precepts that peace and security, which they had sought in vain among other systems of religion or philosophy.

The rapid and extensive progress of Christianity,* and the extraordinary changes it produced in the sentiments, and dispositions, and behavior of mankind, have appeared to many unprejudiced inquirers to be miraculous: and, when they are acknowleged to be so, they furnish us with the same arguments for the defence of our religion as other miracles, the force of which has been formerly explained. But these events seem to deserve a distinct examination, as there is something peculiar in the testimonies by which they are conveyed to us, and some variety in the uses to which they are applied by the advocates of Christianity.

All the evidence we are able to offer in support of our religion may be properly called historical. Our arguments are all founded on certain facts, delivered down from remote times, and preserved by written memorials; but, according to the different natures of these facts, the proofs of them are different. The miracles recorded in the gospels were usually the plain objects of the senses, of which the disciples of Christ were the immediate witnesses. They attested these miracles constantly and consistently; and confirmed their attestations, many by the loss, all by the hazard, of their lives: we cannot conceive any fuller testimony. But the progress of Christianity in different countries and for several ages, and the influence of it on the characters and behavior of its converts, could never come to the immediate knowlege of any single witness. He, who alleges facts of this kind, must have collected them from the testimony of many. Nor are these things of so precise a nature, or so easily determined, that they could not be either mistaken or misrepresented. When the preaching of the apostles had converted great multitudes in many distant provinces, it must be difficult to ascertain the numbers, or to compare them with those who had opportunities of learning the truth, and yet rejected it and when the converts, in obedience to the laws of Christ, had forsaken not only their superstition and idolatry, but their vices also, the sudden change would naturally lead men to aggravate their former wickedness, and magnify their

* On the subject of this discourse, consult Lardner's Ancient Testimonies, 4 vols. 4to.

present virtues. The account therefore given by the primitive Christians of the surprising increase of their religion, both in the number of its outward professors, and in its prevalence over the strongest passions and most confirmed habits, ought not to have been received without caution, if it had not been acknowleged without reserve, even by their enemies. The triumphs of the Christians and the complaints of the heathens plainly correspond: and, that we may not assume more of these facts than the most sceptical must admit, we will view them only as they are represented by the Roman historians, or other authentic vouchers, who were so far from being favorable to the Christian cause, that they usually express their zeal for the destruction, whilst their writings contribute to the support of it. What they have recorded concerning the propagation of this new doctrine will suffice for the present occasion; the characters they have given of its professors must be reserved for another.

Some years after the resurrection of Christ, the apostles remained in Judea, preaching the word to the Jews only. At what time they began to disperse themselves among the Gentiles, is not exactly settled: but ecclesiastical writers have generally agreed, that it was about the beginning of the reign of Claudius: and, before the end of it, the Christians of Rome were become so numerous, as to give umbrage to the government. The notice we have of it is from Suetonius.* The emperor, he says, banished from Rome the Jews, who, being excited by Christ, made continual tumults. Christianity passed at first among the heathens for a sect of Judaism: it was scarce possible for them to form any juster notion of it: it sprang up in Judea; the first preachers of it were Jews; the Jews and Christians believed in and worshipped the same God; they received the same Scriptures; they set apart for sacred purposes a like portion of time; and, what was the most peculiar and most striking feature of their religions, they equally refused to be partakers with any of the heathens in their solemn rites or sacrifices : and, though all Jews might be included in Claudius's edict, as appears probable from the passage in the Acts of the Apostles,†

where this edict is mentioned; yet the conduct which offended the emperor, whatever it was, was certainly the conduct of Christians; since the historian tells us that they acted impulsore Chresto. It is observed by some early Christian writers, that the heathens neither understood nor pronounced rightly the name of Christ. They imagined it to be derived from the Greek word xpnoròs, and the passage we are considering contains an instance of this mistake. But what sort of tumults were these, which could occasion, even in the reign of a Claudius, a resolution to banish at once the whole fraternity? The primitive Christians were never accused of any designs against the quiet and good order of the governments under which they lived: the jealous eye of tyranny never discerned in their behavior any thing like ambition or treachery: nor was their private worship opposite to the public laws. Six hundred nations, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells us, had taken up their abode in Rome, and every one observed its own peculiar rites; and the Christians, without question, might have enjoyed the same liberty, had they been content to enjoy it in silence: but they maintained, and that publicly, that all the deities of Greece and Rome were fictitious, and the adoration of them mere superstition. The success with which they preached this doctrine, and their withdrawing men from the established worship, were probably what the writer meant by the "continual tumults" of which he here speaks. The temple of some great goddess, as at Ephesus, or some image that fell down from Jupiter, was in danger of being set at naught: and we may judge of the design of this edict from the execution of it; for Claudius, (thus Dio* relates the same transaction) finding these Jews, as they were called, to be so numerous, that they could not be expelled the city without danger, suffered them to remain, but forbad their assemblies. The public exercise of religion is the surest method of spreading it, and the emperor hoped to prevent the one, by restraining the other: but neither his power nor his art were effectual; for, not many years after, the Christians at Rome are spoken of by Tacitus as ingens multitudo, † when he describes the unexampled cruelties of Nero, who, to remove from

* Lib. lx.

† Ann. lib. xv. c. 44.