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LECTURE X.

THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

1 COR. I. 19—21, and 27—29.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the

scribe ?

Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound things that are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence.

HAVING considered the arguments for the divine authority of the Christian religion, derived from the performance of undeniable miracles, and the numerous prophecies now fulfilling before our eyes, in the events of the world, we come next to contemplate the mani

fest interference of Almighty God, in the establishment of Christianity, and its subsequent continuance to the present day.

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

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

The power of God engaged in favour of Christianity, will appear, if we consider THE PROPAGATION

ITSELF THE OBSTACLES SURMOUNTED-and the MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CHANGE produced in the

converts.

I. Let us call your attention to THE PROPAGATION ITSELF OF CHRISTIANITY.

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

No religion was ever attempted to be spread through the world by the means of instruction and persuasion, with an authority of its own, but Christianity. The idea never came into the mind of man to propagate a

religion, having for its set design and exclusive object, the enlightening of mankind with a doctrine professedly divine, till Christianity said to her disciples, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

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

Tacitus thus writes of transactions which took place just at the time when the history in the Acts of the Apostles closes, about thirty years after the crucifixion; he is speaking of the suspicions which fell on the emperor Nero, of having caused a fire which had happened at Rome. "But neither these exertions, nor his largesses to the people, nor his offerings to the gods, did away the infamous imputation under which

Nero lay, of having ordered the city to be set on fire. To put an end therefore to this report, he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishments upon a set of people, who were held in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar, Christians. The founder of that name was Christ, who suffered death in the reign of Tiberius, under his procurator, Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, thus checked for awhile, broke out again; and spread not only over Judea, where the evil originated, but through Rome also, whither every thing bad upon earth finds its way, and is practised. Some who confessed their sect, were first seized; and afterwards, by their information, a vast multitude were apprehended, who were convicted, not so much of the crime of burning Rome, as of hatred to mankind. Their sufferings at their execution were aggravated by insult and mockery, for some were disguised in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, some were crucified, and others were wrapt in pitched shirts, and set on fire when the days closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own gardens for these executions; and exhibited at the same time a mock Circensian entertainment, being a spectator of the whole, in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacles from his car. This conduct made the sufferers pitied; and though they were criminals, and deserving the severest punishments, yet they were considered as sacrificed, not so much out of regard to the public good, as to gratify the cruelty of one man." 1

This passage proves that Christianity had been rapidly and extensively propagated throughout Judea, and had gained a vast multitude of converts at Rome -so many, as to attract the attention, and excite the

1 Tacitus apud Paley.

jealousy and bitter hatred of the emperor. This is the use I make of the passage now: other uses will arise as we proceed.

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

2 A. D. 106 or 107.

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

C. Pliny to Trajan, Emperor.

"Health.-It is my usual custom, Sir, to refer all things, of which I harbour any doubts, to you. For who can better direct my judgment in its hesitation, or instruct my understanding in its ignorance? I never had the fortune to be present at any examination of Christians before I came into this province. I am therefore at a loss to determine what is the usual object either of inquiry or of punishment, and to what length either of them is to be carried. It has also been with me a question very problematical,-whether any distinction should be made between the young and the old, the tender and the robust ;-whether any room should be given for repentance, or the guilt of Christianity once incurred is not to be expiated by the most unequivocal retractation;— whether the name itself, abstracted from any flagitiousness of conduct, or the crimes connected with the name, be the object of punishment. In the meantime, this has been my method, with respect to those who were brought before me as