CHAPTER X.

First Promulgation of Christianity.

I HAVE shown, in the preceding chapters, the strong internal evidence which supports the divine authority of the Christian Scriptures. And yet a great deal of internal evidence must always remain, which it is not possible to draw out into actual proof. The attentive reader of the New Testament will find this at every turn; and the best use he can make of the arguments which have been urged, would be to employ them as hints according to which he might examine the Gospel for himself.

I come now to consider the first propagation of the religion. We have indisputable proof that it was actively and successfully propagated, and made its way with surprising rapidity, when we know that there were multitudes of Christians of both sexes and of all ages, in Rome, in Greece, and in various parts of Asia, within seventy years of the crucifixion.* This is an historical truth; and when the nature of the religion, its originality, and its demands, are considered, it may well be reckoned an extraordinary fact. We may, indeed, be loosely told, that mankind are

See ch.i. p. 8. At large in Paley, p. ii. c. ix.

naturally fond of the marvellous; that the ignorant are prone to superstition; and that in a barbarous age any idle tale finds a multitude ready to give it their belief. But a reasonable man will not be satisfied with any thing so vague as this. Though the marvellous may be greedily listened to, when it demands nothing further than an idle acquiescence, mankind are more circumspect and incredulous when they are called upon to sacrifice all their former opinions, desires, habits, and prejudices. The cause could not be forwarded by Jewish superstition, since it is abundantly plain, that the Jews were extremely slow and unwilling to receive Christianity, and in fact never did adopt it, as a people; neither can we resort to barbarism, since the nations which furnished the first proselytes, were the most civilized then existing, in an age proverbial for civilization. It becomes, therefore, an interesting object of inquiry, to trace the manner in which the religion first gained ground.

The account which is borne on the face of the history, relates, that at an annual feast at Jerusalem, the attention of certain Jews who had resorted thither, from many different countries, for the purpose of national worship, was attracted by a party of Galileans, who addressed the multitude in their respective languages. We can form some idea of the nature of such an occurrence, by figuring to ourselves a Jewish assembly in any of the European capitals, where Jews of every country are assembled; and supposing twelve persons of the same persuasion, who were known

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never to have travelled, to begin a comment upon Hebrew Scriptures, in the different languages of Europe.

During the inquiry which this circumstance excited, one of these, named Peter, who had been a fisherman in his native province, Galilee, undertook to explain the subject of the general astonishment by referring to a passage in their prophets, whose authority all acknowledged; and which contained a promise of interposition like that which the assembly was now witnessing. And he proceeded to this effect, declaring the purpose of the present miracle.*

Hear my explanation of this visible interposition of Almighty power. Ye, the men of Israel, have crucified Jesus of Nazareth; to whose divine mission God bore witness by the miracles which he enabled him to perform in the sight of you all. God, however, has raised him from the dead, as your great prophet David foretold concerning him, in a passage with which you are familiar; but which, you must be aware, cannot apply to David, whose death and burial are undisputed; but which does, in truth, foretel the resurrection of that expected Messiah whom God had promised from the race of David. We here stand up and testify, that Jesus has risen again, according to the prophecy; and that he has shed forth upon us his disciples the Holy Spirit, the effects of which ye now see and hear. "Therefore let all the house of Israel

* See Acts, ii. 14, &c.

know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."

This was the first public declaration of the divinity or Messiahship of Jesus, after his death; and was so convincing to the hearers, that three thousand from that moment made open profession of their belief in him, and were added to the existing body of his disciples.

Now there must surely have been something very insuperable in the proofs presented to the minds of this assembly, when so large a number pleaded guilty to the charge of having been accessary to the execution of one whom they ought to have distinguished as bearing a divine commission by the works which he performed; and agreed to embrace a religion preached in his name, as the only remaining condition of pardon. They must have been impressed with a very strong conviction, before they consented to acknowledge him as the Son of God, who not two months before had suffered the death of a malefactor. There is no time when men are less likely, without overpowering testimony, to acknowledge a fact, than when it proves themselves guilty. Nor was there any imaginable reason for their making this confession, except the conviction of their understandings and their consciences. There was nothing said to excite their passions; nothing to alarm their fears, nothing to raise their hopes, unless it derived force from undeniable facts. There was no proof that Jesus had been sent from God, unless, as Peter asserts, he had been really

"approved of God among them" by miraculous deeds. There was no weight in the prophecy adduced, and which they had not been accustomed to apply to the expected Messiah, except what it might obtain from the fact affirmed, the resurrection of Jesus. There was no proof of his exercising supernatural power now, more than when he suffered on the cross, unless that power were actually witnessed in the gifts conferred on the apostles. Was there no one in that numerous assembly who could refute the unexpected interpretation of an ancient prophecy given by an uneducated Galilean? No plain man of common sense, who could say, we heard of no "wonders, or signs, or mighty deeds?" No one who could account, in any ordinary way, for the possession of various languages? Peter's speech depended entirely on the coincidence of actual fact with his arguments: here was nothing refined, nothing far-fetched, nothing to perplex the understanding of reasonable men; but his words came home to their consciences; and, instead of putting down the apostles with the hand of power as disturbers of a solemn assembly, they appeal to them as men and brethren, eagerly inquiring how they might expiate the guilt in which they had been concerned. Yet it does not appear to have been one of those simultaneous impressions, which sometimes hurry away a multitude without reflection or in spite of reason. The historian does not say, that the conviction was unanimous. "They that gladly received his word were baptized:" which implies that some resisted argu