heard, and proved the truth of what they faid, not by fine-fpun arguments, or florid declamations, but in a plain unfashionable kind of way, by facrificing all that was dear to them, and laying down their lives in teftimony to their doctrines. As far, indeed, as those doctrines were new, they would be well received. For the Athenians, as we learn from the highest authority," spent their time " in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear "fome new thing *. When therefore St. Paul came to Athens, and preached to that celebrated school of philofophy " Jefus and "the refurrection," they were extremely ready to give him the hearing, and brought him to the Areopagus, faying, " May we know what "this new doctrine whereof thou speakest "is? for thou bringest certain strange things "to our ears." But when they heard what these strange things were, BELIEF IN ONE SUPREME CREATOR AND AND GOVERNOR OF THE WORLD, REPENTANCE, AMENDMENT OF LIFE, CHRIST CRUCIFIED AND RAISED FROM THE DEAD, A GENERAL RESURREC

TION, A FUTURE JUDGEMENT, (frange things indeed to the ears of an Athenian) some + Ib. xvii. 19, 20. "mocked

Acts xvii. 21.

"mocked him," laughed at the seeming incredibility of what he told them; others said, "We will hear thee again of this matter *;' not probably with any view of enquiring into the evidence of facts (the very first and principal enquiry that was neceffary to be made) but of entering into long and learned disquifitions on the nature and the fitnefs of the truths in which they were inftructed. They expected to have all the difficulties relating to JESUS AND THE RESURRECTION, cleared up to them in the most pleasing and fatisfactory manner, to have all the reafons on which God acted laid open before them, and all his proceedings with mankind justified on the principles of human wisdom. Till this were done, the doctrine of CHRIST CRUCIFIED Would always appear "foolishness to the Greeks." The pride of philofophy, and the self-sufficiency of learning, would never fubmit to believe, that a man who suffered like a common malefactor could be a teacher fent from God; that the death of fo excellent and innocent a person could be of any benefit to mankind; that God would make ufe of means to accomplish his ends, so totally different from those which a Greek philofo

pher would have fixed on; and that no better and more credible method of instructing and faving the world could have occurred to Infinite Wisdom. The feeming abfurdity of all this would shock the Pagan, no less than the ignominy of it did the fons of Abraham, Show us the meaning and propriety of this plan, faid the Greek; fhow us the dignity and fplendor of it, faid the Jew; prove to us, faid the one, the confiftency of thefe doctrines with the magnificent defcriptions of the Meffiah, by the prophets; reconcile it, faid the other, to the principles of reafon and common sense.

And in what manner now does St. Paul treat these objections to the doctrine of the cross? Does he go about to accommodate and bring it down to the temper of his opponents? Does he endeavour to palliate and soften, to conceal or pafs flightly over, to explain away or apologize for, this offenfive article? No fuch matter. Notwithstanding these well-known prejudices against a crucified Redeemer, we find him conftantly, and boldly, and in the most express terms, afferting, that the Saviour whom he preached, whose difciple he was, and on whom he wished all mankind to believe, was put to death upon the cross, and gave himself a facrifice for the fins

of

of the whole world. He well knew how fhocking this would found to fome, and how abfurd to others; but he perfifted in his courfe; he felt the truth and importance of the fact, and, regardless of consequences, he declared it every where aloud, and left it to work its own way. "I am not ashamed," fays he," of the Gospel of Chrift; for it is the power of God unto falvation, to every one "that believeth, to the Jew firft, and also to "the Greek *." "God forbid that I should

glory," fays he, in another place, " fave in "the cross of our Lord Jefus Chrift, by "whom the world is crucified unto me, and "I unto the world +." And it is evidently in the fame ftrain of triumph and exultation, that he speaks of this doctrine in the text. "The Jews require a fign, and the Greeks "feek after wisdom; but we" (regardless of both) preach Chrift crucified, to the Jews "a ftumbling-block, and to the Greeks fool"ishness; but unto them which are called, "both Jews and Greeks, Chrift the "God, and the wifdom of God.

power of

* Rom. i. 16.

+ Gal. vi. 14.

The

The inferences I mean to draw from the preceding obfervations, are these two that follow.

I. The firft is, that the friends of Revelation have no need to be disturbed or alarmed at a circumftance which has been fometimes dwelt upon with expreffions of furprize and concern; namely, that all thofe virtuous and learned philofophers, who lived in the first ages of the Gofpel, and " adorned the times in which they flourished, such as Seneca, the elder and the younger Pliny, Tacitus, Plutarch, Galen, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, either overlooked or rejected the evidences of the Gofpel; and that their language or their filence equally discovered their contempt for the Chriftians, who had in their time diffused themfelves over the Roman empire *."

The fimple fact, that thefe eminent men did not embrace Christianity, is admitted ; and concerned, undoubtedly, every compaffionate mind must be at fo unha appy an inftance of perseverance in error; but whoever reflects

* See the Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. p. 516.

on