to compare the mighty growth of Christianity with the mighty means which were put in force for securing the reception of its doctrines; to compare the rapidity of its progress and the permanence of its conquests with the sublimity of its precepts, and the grandeur of its miracles, would now seem to present itself as a natural conclusion of these arduous labours, and to afford a favourable opportunity, not only for considering whether the success of the Gospel has been commensurate with the strength of its evidences, but also, whether it be possible to account for that success upon any other supposition than that of the truth of the religion itself, and the divine authority of its teachers.-That the positive proofs of Christianity are in their nature so unequivocal and strong, as to justify the deepest prejudices of the Gentile and the Jew, in bowing down beforé their influence, is what, from our previous investigation, we have already seen. If then the history of the triumphs of Christianity be found to correspond with those expectations which the evidences for its divine origin had raised-if we find the philosopher throwing aside the foolishness of man's reasoning to learn the wisdom of God at the lips of the lowly, and the worldly prospects of the pharisee, corrected and subdued by the spiritual consolations of the Gospel; -if we behold these changes taking place

in the opinions and feelings, not of a few isolated individuals, but of multitudes in the most bigoted and the most enlightened nations in the world; and if, after having attentively contem❤ plated the subject, we find it impossible to attri bute such numberless and wonderful conversions to any other cause than the miraculous powers and heavenly commission of the teachers of the religion, then may we safely infer that those mi, raculous powers, and that heavenly commission were indeed the sources of the victory of the Gospel; and by adding the subsequent fact of its success to the former proofs of its divinity, may draw, from the combination of the two arguments, a demonstration which none of our adversaries shall be able to resist.

But it is not merely when viewed in combination with the positive evidences of its truth, that the rapidity of the progress of Christianity assumes so important a character. It has a value alsowhen separately estimated which it would be most unwise to overlook.-I am far from considering it as, in general, either a safe, or a sound method of reasoning, to rest the whole burthen of our proof upon any one particular fact: yet there are times in which the arguments from such particular facts may be urged with much greater effect than a more comprehensive and complicated

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detail of evidence. The human mind is weak often in the wisest; wavering often in the firmest of God's rational creatures. There are moments of despondency and dejection, in which the understanding is averse to the vigorous pursuit of any lengthened chain of reasoning, and almost incapable of appreciating its force and application. In moments like these, the heart turns away from complex and scientific demonstration, and seeks to satisfy its doubts by some single and simple argument. It knows its own wants, its own weakness, its own wilfulness, and desires, like the children of Israel in their Egyptian distress, to have some pillar of never-failing strength to look to in all its dangers—a pillar of fire by night to console and enlighten it in the darkness of its faithless hours, and a pillar of smoke by day to protect it by its friendly shade against the pestilential rays of perverted reason. Now there is no single argument for the divine origin and authority of the Gospel more simple or solid, and therefore no guardian more powerful against the fickleness and feebleness of the human mind, than that which is furnished by the rapid propagation of Christianity. That "mightily grew the word of God, and that mightily it prevailed," are facts to which, above all others, we may always, when assailed by the temptations of sophistry, appeal, and say, this is the rock of my confidence, and

upon this unmoveable foundation do I build the wisdom of the trust which I repose in my Redeemer. Proceed we then to examine into these facts, and to endeavour to draw from the

propagation of the Gospel both a confirmation of the reasonings which we have already advanced in its favour, and a refuge for the weakness of our understanding to flee to, in those seasons of dejection and doubt, which God hath sometimes permitted to fall upon men of the most pious dispositions, and the most reasonable minds.

The progress and perpetuity of Christianity, as an argument for the truth of its claims to a divine authority, may be contemplated in two different points of view; either as a predicted, or merely as an historical fact; and in both it will appear as an evidence of the highest kind. As a predicted fact, I have already detailed its claims to your notice, and pointed out the glorious and irresistible fulfilment which it affords of the wondrous prophecies of Jesus, by growing up to majesty, like the least of all seeds, from the most hopeless of all beginnings, and by impregnating, like leaven, the whole mass of the moral and intellectual world. It only remains for me at present to view the matter in an historical point of view, and I hold, that, regarding the progress of Christianity merely as one amongst the many changes

of the world, it is impossible to refer it to any cause which is inferior to the interposition of the Almighty's arm. I view it in connection with the circumstances of its origin, and the instruments employed in its propagation; and I say, that if we consider the place from which it sprung, the persons by whom it was preached, the dangers to which they were exposed, the difficulties they had to surmount, and the nations, and minds, and prejudices over which they ultimately triupmhed, we cannot fail to acknowledge the divinity of its author; and to allow that, having been first promulgated as the word of God, it owed its future prosperity and progress to his protection and favour.

Of all the various nations which had been successively subjected to the iron sway of Rome, the inhabitants of Judea were held as the most degraded and despised. The contempt under which they labour amongst the Christian king+ doms of modern Europe, is severe to those who suffer, and most disgraceful to those who indulge the tyranny of a sweeping censure, which would condemn a whole people as unworthy to be admitted into a participation of the offices and charities of life. But in all the present sorrows of the Jew he has the unspeakable consolation of knowing, that his religion is regarded with rever+