the religion of Christians. By Christianity is here meant,
not that religious system as it may be understood and set forth in any
particular society calling itself Christian; but as it is contained in
the sacred books acknowledged by all these societies, or churches, and
which contained the only authorized rule of faith and practice.
2. The lofty profession which Christianity makes as a religion, and the
promises it holds forth to mankind, entitle it to the most serious
consideration of all. For it may in truth be said, that no other
religion presents itself under aspects so sublime, or such as are
calculated to awaken desires and hopes so enlarged and magnificent. It
not only professes to be from God, but to have been taught to men by the
Son of God incarnate in our nature, the Second Person in the adorable
trinity of divine Persons, “the same in substance, equal in power and
glory.” It declares that this divine personage is the appointed Redeemer
of mankind from sin, death, and misery; that he was announced as such to
our first parents upon their lapse from the innocence and blessedness of
their primeval state; that he was exhibited to the faith and hope of the
patriarchs in express promises; and, by the institution of sacrifices,
as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, so that man
might be reconciled to God through Him, and restored to his forfeited
inheritance of eternal life. It represents all former dispensations of
true religion, all revelations of God’s will, and all promises of grace
from God to man, as emanating from the anticipated sacrifice and
sacerdotal intercession of its Author, and as all preparatory to the
introduction of his perfect religion; and that as to the great political
movements among the nations of antiquity, the rise and fall of empires
were all either remotely or proximately connected with the designs of
his advent among men. It professes to have completed the former
revelations of God’s will and purposes; to have accomplished ancient
prophecies; fulfilled ancient types; and taken up the glory of the
Mosaic religion into its own “glory that excelleth;” and to contain
within itself a perfect system of faith, morals, and acceptable worship.
It not only exhibits so effectual a sacrifice for sin, that remission of
all offences against God flows from its merits to all who heartily
confide in it; but it proclaims itself to be a remedy for all the moral
disorders of our fallen nature; it casts out every vice, implants every
virtue, and restores man to “the image of God in which he was created,”
even to “righteousness and true holiness.”
3. Its promises both to individuals and to society are of the largest
kind. It represents its Founder as now exercising the office of the High
Priest of the human race before God, and as having sat down at his right
hand, a mediatorial and reconciling government being committed to him,
until he shall come to judge all nations, and distribute the rewards of
eternity to his followers, and inflict its never-terminating punishments
upon those who reject him. By virtue of this constitution of things, it
promises pardon to the guilty, of every age and country, who seek it in
penitence and prayer, comfort to the afflicted and troubled, victory
over the fear of death, a happy intermediate state to the disembodied
spirit, and finally the resurrection of the body from the dead, and
honour and immortality to be conferred upon the whole man glorified in
the immediate presence of God. It holds out the loftiest hopes also as
to the world at large. It promises to introduce harmony among families
and nations, to terminate all wars and all oppressions, and ultimately
to fill the world with truth, order, and purity. It represents the
present and past state of society, as in contest with its own principles
of justice, mercy, and truth; but teaches the final triumph of the
latter over every thing contrary to itself. It exhibits the ambition,
the policy, and the restlessness of statesmen and warriors, as but the
overruled instruments by which it is working out its own purposes of
wisdom and benevolence; and it not only defies the proudest array of
human power, but professes to subordinate it by a secret and
irresistible working to its own designs. Finally, it exhibits itself as
enlarging its plans, and completing its designs, by moral suasion, the
evidence of its truth, and the secret divine influence which accompanies
it. Such are the professions and promises of Christianity, a religion
which enters into no compromise with other systems; which represents
itself as the only religion now in the world having God for its author;
and in his name; and by the hope of his mercy, and the terrors of his
frown, it commands the obedience of faith to all people to whom it is
published upon the solemn sanction, “He that believeth shall be saved,
and he that believeth not shall be damned.”
4. Corresponding with these professions, which throw every other
religion that pretends to offer hope to man into utter insignificance,
it is allowed that the evidences of its truth ought to be adequate to
sustain the weight of so vast a fabric, and that men have a right to
know that they are not deluded with a grand and impressive theory, but
are receiving from this professed system of truth and salvation “the
true sayings of God.” Such evidence it has afforded in its splendid
train of miracles; in its numerous appeals to the fulfilment of ancient
PROPHECIES; in its own powerful INTERNAL EVIDENCE; in the INFLUENCE
which it has always exercised, and continues to exert, upon the
happiness of mankind; and in various collateral circumstances. Under the
heads of _Miracles_ and _Prophecy_, those important branches of evidence
will be discussed, and to them the reader is referred. It is only
necessary here to say, that the miracles to which Christianity appeals
as proofs of its divine authority, are not only those which were wrought
by Christ and his Apostles, but also those which took place among the
patriarchs, under the law of Moses, and by the ministry of the Prophets;
for the religion of those ancient times was but Christianity in its
antecedent revelations. All these miracles, therefore, must be taken
collectively, and present attestations of the loftiest kind, as being
manifestly the work of the “finger of God,” wrought under circumstances
which precluded mistake, and exhibiting an immense variety, from the
staying of the very wheels of the planetary system,--as when the sun and
moon paused in their course, and the shadow on the dial of Ahaz went
backward,--to the supernatural changes wrought upon the elements of
matter, the healing of incurable diseases, the expulsion of tormenting
demons, and the raising of the dead. Magnificent as this array of
miracles is, it is equalled by the prophetic evidence, founded upon the
acknowledged principle, that future and distant contingencies can only
be known to that Being, one of whose attributes is an absolute
prescience. And here, too, the variety and the grandeur presented by the
prophetic scheme exhibit attestations to the truth of Christianity
suited to its great claims and its elevated character. Within the range
of prophetic vision all time is included, to the final consummation of
all things; and the greatest as well as the smallest events are seen
with equal distinctness, from the subversion of mighty empires and
gigantic cities, to the parting of the raiment of our Lord, and the
casting of the lot for his robe by the Roman guard stationed at his
cross.
5. These subjects are discussed under the articles assigned to them; as
also the INTERNAL EVIDENCE of the truth of Christianity, which arises
from the excellence and beneficial tendency of its doctrines. Of its
just and sublime conceptions and exhibitions of the divine character; of
the truth of that view of the moral state of man upon which its
disciplinary treatment is founded; of the correspondence that there is
between its views of man’s mixed relation to God as a sinful creature,
and yet pitied and cared for, and that actual mixture of good and evil,
penalty and forbearance, which the condition of the world presents; of
the connection of its doctrine of atonement with hope; of the adaptation
of its doctrine of divine influence to the moral condition of mankind
when rightly understood, and the affecting benevolence and condescension
which it implies; and of its noble and sanctifying revelations of the
blessedness of a future life, much might be said:--they are subjects
indeed on which volumes have been written, and they can never be
exhausted. But we confine ourselves to the MORAL TENDENCY, and the
consequent BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE, of Christianity. No where except in the
Scriptures have we a perfect system of morals; and the deficiencies of
Pagan morality only exalt the purity, the comprehensiveness, the
practicability of ours. The character of the Being acknowledged as
supreme must always impress itself upon moral feeling and practice; the
obligation of which rests upon his will. The God of the Bible is “holy,”
without spot; “just,” without partiality; “good,” boundlessly benevolent
and beneficent; and his law is the image of himself, “holy, just, and
good.” These great moral qualities are not made known to us merely in
the abstract, so as to be comparatively feeble in their influence: but
in the person of Christ, our God, incarnate, they are seen exemplified
in action, displaying themselves amidst human relations, and the actual
circumstances of human life. With Pagans the authority of moral rules
was either the opinion of the wise, or the tradition of the ancient,
confirmed, it is true, in some degree, by observation and experience;
but to us, they are given as commands immediately issuing from the
supreme Governor, and ratified as his by the most solemn and explicit
attestations. With them many great moral principles, being indistinctly
apprehended, were matters of doubt and debate; to us, the explicit
manner in which they are given excludes both: for it cannot be
questioned, whether we are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves;
to do to others as we would that they should do to us, a precept which
comprehends almost all relative morality in one plain principle; to
forgive our enemies; to love all mankind; to live righteously and
soberly, as well as godly; that magistrates must be a terror only to
evil doers, and a praise to them that do well; that subjects are to
render honour to whom honour, and tribute to whom tribute, is due; that
masters are to be just and merciful, and servants faithful and obedient.
These, and many other familiar precepts, are too explicit to be
mistaken, and too authoritative to be disputed; two of the most powerful
means of rendering law effectual. Those who never enjoyed the benefit of
revelation, never conceived justly and comprehensively of that moral
state of the heart from which right and beneficent conduct alone can
flow; and therefore when they speak of the same virtues as those
enjoined by Christianity, they are to be understood as attaching to them
a lower idea. In this the infinite superiority of Christianity displays
itself. The principle of obedience is not only a sense of duty to God,
and the fear of his displeasure; but a tender love, excited by his
infinite compassions to us in the gift of his Son, which shrinks from
offending. To this influential motive as a _reason_ of obedience, is
added another, drawn from its _end_: one not less influential, but which
Heathen moralists never knew,--the testimony that we please God,
manifested in the acceptance of our prayers, and in spiritual and
felicitous communion with him. By Christianity, impurity of thought and
desire is restrained in an equal degree as are their overt acts in the
lips and conduct. Humanity, meekness, gentleness, placability,
disinterestedness, and charity are all as clearly and solemnly enjoined
as the grosser vices are prohibited; and on the unruly tongue itself is
impressed “the law of kindness.” Nor are the injunctions feeble; they
are strictly LAW, and not mere advice and recommendations: “Without
holiness no man shall see the Lord;” and thus our entrance into heaven,
and our escape from perdition, are made to depend upon this preparation
of mind. To all this is added possibility, nay certainty, of attainment,
if we use the appointed means. A Pagan could draw, though not with lines
so perfect, a _beau ideal_ of virtue, which he never thought attainable;
but the “full assurance of hope” is given by the religion of Christ to
all who are seeking the moral renovation of their nature; because “it is
God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
6. When such is the moral nature of Christianity, how obvious is it that
its tendency both as to individuals and to society must be in the
highest sense beneficial! From every passion which wastes, and burns,
and frets, and enfeebles the spirit, the individual is set free, and his
inward peace renders his obedience cheerful and voluntary: and we might
appeal to infidels themselves, whether, if the moral principles of the
Gospel were wrought into the hearts, and embodied in the conduct, of all
men, the world would not be happy; whether if governments ruled, and
subjects obeyed, by the laws of Christ; whether if the rules of strict
justice which are enjoined upon us regulated all the transactions of
men, and all that mercy to the distressed which we are taught to feel
and to practise came into operation; and whether, if the precepts which
delineate and enforce the duties of husbands, wives, masters, servants,
parents, children, did, in fact, fully and generally govern all these
relations,--whether a better age than that called _golden_ by the poets,
would not then be realized, and Virgil’s
_Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna_,
[Now Astraea returns, and the Saturnian reign,]
be far too weak to express the mighty change? [It was in the reign of
Saturn that the Heathen poets fixed the golden age. At that period,
according to them, Astraea, (the goddess of justice,) and many other
deities lived on earth; but being offended with the wickedness of men,
they successively fled to heaven. Astraea staid longest, but at last
retired to her native seat, and was translated into the sign Virgo, next
to Libra, who holds her balance. Such is the tendency of Christianity.
On immense numbers of individuals it has superinduced these moral
changes; all nations, where it has been fully and faithfully exhibited,
bear, amidst their remaining vices, the impress of its hallowing and
benevolent influence: it is now in active exertion in many of the
darkest and worst parts of the earth, to convey the same blessings; and
he who would arrest its progress, were he able, would quench the only
hope which remains to our world, and prove himself an enemy, not only to
himself, but to all mankind. What then, we ask, does all this prove, but
that the Scriptures are worthy of God, and propose the very ends which
rendered a revelation necessary? Of the whole system of practical
religion which it contains we may say, as of that which is embodied in
our Lord’s sermon on the mount, in the words of one, who, in a course of
sermons on that divine composition, has entered most deeply into its
spirit, and presented a most instructive delineation of the character
which it was intended to form: “Behold Christianity in its native form,
as delivered by its great Author. See a picture of God, as far as he is
imitable by man, drawn by God’s own hand. What beauty appears in the
whole! How just a symmetry! What exact proportion in every part! How
desirable is the happiness here described! How venerable, how lovely is
the holiness!” “If,” says Bishop Taylor, “wisdom, and mercy, and
justice, and simplicity, and holiness, and purity, and meekness, and
contentedness, and charity, be images of God, and rays of divinity, then
that doctrine, in which all these shine so gloriously, and in which
nothing else is ingredient, must needs be from God. If the holy Jesus
had come into the world with less splendour of power and mighty
demonstrations, yet the excellency of what he taught makes him alone fit
to be the Master of the world;” and agreeable to all this, has been its
actual influence upon mankind. Although, says Bishop Porteus,
Christianity has not always been so well understood, or so honestly
practised, as it ought to have been; although its spirit has been often
mistaken, and its precepts misapplied, yet, under all these
disadvantages, it has gradually produced a visible change in those
points which most materially concern the peace and quiet of the world.
Its beneficent spirit has spread itself through all the different
relations and modifications of life, and communicated its kindly
influence to almost every public and private concern of mankind. It has
insensibly worked itself into the inmost frame and constitution of civil
states. It has given a tinge to the complexion of their governments, to
the temper and administration of their laws. It has restrained the
spirit of the prince, and the madness of the people. It has softened the
rigours of despotism, and tamed the insolence of conquest. It has, in
some degree, taken away the edge of the sword, and thrown even over the
horrors of war a veil of mercy. It has descended into families; has
diminished the pressure of private tyranny; improved every domestic
endearment; given tenderness to the parent, humanity to the master,
respect to superiors, to inferiors ease; so that mankind are, upon the
whole, even in a temporal view, under infinite obligations to the mild
and pacific temper of the Gospel, and have reaped from it more
substantial worldly benefits than from any other institution upon earth.
As one proof of this, among many others, consider only the shocking
carnage made in the human species by the exposure of infants, the
gladiatorial shows, which sometimes cost Rome twenty or thirty lives in
a month; and the exceedingly cruel usage of slaves allowed and practised
by the ancient Pagans. These were not the accidental and temporary
excesses of a sudden fury, but were legal and established, and constant
methods of murdering and tormenting mankind. Had Christianity done
nothing more than brought into disuse, as it confessedly has done, the
two former of these inhuman customs entirely, and the latter to a very
great degree, it has justly merited the title of the benevolent
religion. But this is far from being all. Throughout the more
enlightened parts of Christendom there prevails a gentleness of manners
widely different from the ferocity of the most civilized nations of
antiquity; and that liberality with which every species of distress is
relieved, is a virtue peculiar to the Christian name. But we may ask
farther, What success has it had on the mind of man, as it respects his
eternal welfare? How many thousands have felt its power, rejoiced in its
benign influence, and under its dictates been constrained to devote
themselves to the glory and praise of God! Burdened with guilt,
incapable of finding relief from human resources, the mind has here
found peace unspeakable in beholding that sacrifice which alone could
atone for transgression. Here the hard and impenitent heart has been
softened, the impetuous passions restrained, the ferocious temper
subdued, powerful prejudices conquered, ignorance dispelled, and the
obstacles to real happiness removed. Here the Christian, looking round
on the glories and blandishments of this world, has been enabled, with a
noble contempt, to despise all. Here death itself, the king of terrors,
has lost his sting; and the soul, with a holy magnanimity, has borne up
in the agonies of a dying hour, and sweetly sung itself away to
everlasting bliss. In respect to its future spread, we have reason to
believe that all nations shall feel its happy effects. The prophecies
are pregnant with matter as to this belief. It seems that not only a
nation, or a country, but the whole habitable globe, shall become the
kingdom of our God, and of his Christ. And who is there that has ever
known the excellency of this system; who is there that has ever
experienced its happy efficacy; who is there that has ever been
convinced of its divine origin, its delightful nature and peaceful
tendency, but must join the benevolent and royal poet in saying, “Let
the whole earth be filled with its glory? Amen and amen!”
7. Among the collateral proofs of the truth and divine origin of
Christianity, its rapid and wonderful success justly holds an important
place. Of its early triumphs, the history of the Acts of the Apostles is
a splendid record; and in process of time it made a wonderful progress
through Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the third century there were
Christians in the camp, in the senate, and in the palace; in short,
every where, as we are informed, except in the temples and the theatres:
they filled the towns, the country, and the islands. Men and women of
all ages and ranks, and even those of the first dignity, embraced the
Christian faith; insomuch that the Pagans complained that the revenues
of their temples were ruined. They were in such great numbers in the
empire, that, as Tertullian expresses it, if they had retired into
another country, they would have left the Romans only a frightful
solitude. (See the next article.) For the illustration of this argument,
we may observe, that the Christian religion was introduced every where
in opposition to the sword of the magistrate, the craft and interest of
the priests, the pride of the philosophers, the passions and prejudices
of the people, all closely combined in support of the national worship,
and to crush the Christian faith, which aimed at the subversion of
Heathenism and idolatry. Moreover, this religion was not propagated in
the dark, by persons who tacitly endeavoured to deceive the credulous;
nor delivered out by little and little, so that one doctrine might
prepare the way for the reception of another; but it was fully and
without disguise laid before men all at once, that they might judge of
the whole under one view. Consequently mankind were not deluded into the
belief of it, but received it upon proper examination and conviction.
Beside, the Gospel was first preached and first believed by multitudes
in Judea, where Jesus exercised his ministry, and where every individual
had the means of knowing whether the things that were told him were
matters of fact; and in this country, the scene of the principal
transactions on which its credibility depended, the history of Christ
could never have been received, unless it had been true, and known to
all as truth. Again: the doctrine and history of Jesus were preached and
believed in the most noted countries and cities of the world, in the
very age when he is said to have lived. On the fiftieth day after our
Lord’s crucifixion, three thousand persons were converted in Jerusalem
by a single sermon of the Apostles; and a few weeks after this, five
thousand who believed were present at another sermon preached also in
Jerusalem, Acts ii, 41; iv, 4; vi, 7; viii, 1; ix, 1, 20. About eight or
ten years after our Lord’s death, the disciples were become so numerous
at Jerusalem and in the adjacent country, that they were objects of
jealousy and alarm to Herod himself, Acts xii, 1. In the twenty-second
year after the crucifixion, the disciples in Judea are said to have been
many myriads, Acts xxi, 20. The age in which Christianity was introduced
and received, was famous for men whose faculties were improved by the
most perfect state of social life, but who were good judges of the
evidence offered in support of the facts recorded in the Gospel history.
For it should be recollected, that the success of the Gospel was not
restricted to Judea; but it was preached in all the different provinces
of the Roman empire. The first triumphs of Christianity were in the
heart of Greece itself, the nursery of learning and the polite arts; for
churches were planted at a very early period at Corinth, Ephesus, Beræa,
Thessalonica, and Philippi. Even Rome herself, the seat of wealth and
empire, was not able to resist the force of truth at a time when the
facts related were recent, and when they might, if they had been false,
have easily been disproved. From Greece and Rome, at a period of
cultivation and refinement, of general peace, and extensive intercourse,
when one great empire united different nations and distant people, the
confutation of these facts would very soon have passed from one country
to another, to the utter confusion of the persons who endeavoured to
propagate the belief of them. Nor ought it to be forgotten that the
religion to which such numbers were proselyted, was an exclusive one. It
denied, without reserve, the truth of every article of Heathen
mythology, and the existence of every object of their worship. It
accepted no compromise; it admitted of no comprehension. If it prevailed
at all, it must prevail by the overthrow of every statue, altar, and
temple in the world. It pronounced all other gods to be false, and all
other worship vain. These are considerations which must have
strengthened the opposition to it; augmented the hostility which it must
encounter; and enhanced the difficulty of gaining proselytes: and more
especially when we recollect, that among the converts to Christianity in
the earliest age, a number of persons remarkable for their station,
office, genius, education, and fortune, and who were personally
interested by their emoluments and honours in either Judaism or
Heathenism, appeared among the Christian proselytes. Its evidences
approved themselves, not only to the multitude, but to men of the most
refined sense and most distinguished abilities; and it dissolved the
attachments which all powerful interest and authority created and
upheld. Among the proselytes to Christianity we find Nicodemus, and
Joseph of Arimathea, members of the senate of Israel; Jairus, a ruler of
the synagogue; Zaccheus, the chief of the publicans at Jericho; Apollos,
distinguished for eloquence; Paul, learned in the Jewish law; Sergius
Paulus, governor of the island of Cyprus; Cornelius, a Roman captain;
Dionysius, a judge and senator of the Athenian areopagus; Erastus,
treasurer of Corinth; Tyrannus, a teacher of grammar and rhetoric at
Corinth; Publius, governor of Malta; Philemon, a person of considerable
rank at Colosse; Simon, a noted sophist in Samaria; Zenas, a lawyer; and
even the domestics of the emperor himself. These are noticed in the
sacred writings; and the Heathen historians also mention some persons of
great note who were converted at an early period. To all the preceding
circumstances we may add a consideration of peculiar moment, which is,
that the profession of Christianity led all, without exception, to
renounce the pleasures and honours of the world, and to expose
themselves to the most ignominious sufferings. And now, without adding
any more to this argument, we may ask, How could the Christian religion
have thus prevailed had it not been introduced by the power of God and
of truth? And it has been supported in the world by the same power
through a course of many ages, amidst the treachery of its friends, the
opposition of its enemies, the dangers of prosperous periods, and the
persecutions and violence of adverse circumstances; all which must have
destroyed it, if it had not been founded in truth, and guarded by the
protection of an almighty Providence.
CHRISTIANITY: _Sketch of its History_. The Christian religion was
published by its great Author in Judea, a short time before the death of
Herod the Great, and toward the conclusion of the long reign of
Augustus. While other religions had been accommodated to the peculiar
countries in which they had taken their origin, and had indeed generally
grown out of incidents connected with the history of those to whom they
were addressed, Christianity was so framed as to be adapted to the whole
human race; and although, for the wisest reasons, it was first announced
to the Jews, who had peculiar advantages for forming an accurate
judgment with regard to it, it was early declared that, in conformity to
predictions which had long been known, and long interpreted, as
referring to a new communication of the divine will, it was to be a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and was to carry salvation to the ends of
the earth. Although Christianity originated in Judea, it was not long
confined within the narrow limits of the Holy Land. The open manner in
which it was announced, the length of time during which its Author
publicly addressed his countrymen, the innumerable miracles which he
performed, and, above all, the report of the resurrection under
circumstances which must have been communicated to the imperial
government at Rome, excited the deep attention of the numerous Jews and
proselytes who, from surrounding nations, regularly went up to
Jerusalem, and of whom vast numbers were actually in that city when the
resurrection must have been the subject of universal discussion. They
very naturally carried to the different countries in which they usually
resided, the astonishing intelligence with which they had been
furnished; and provision was soon made for fulfilling the prediction
which Jesus had uttered, that his Gospel would, before the destruction
of Jerusalem, be circulated and embraced by many through the wide extent
of the Roman empire. The Apostle Peter, in consequence of what he knew
to be a solemn injunction from Heaven, communicated to a Gentile the
truths of Christianity. St. Paul, who had distinguished himself by his
enmity to the Christians, and by the cruelty with which he had
persecuted them, having been converted, devoted himself to lay the
foundations of the Gospel through a large portion of the most
enlightened part of the world; and the miraculous gift of tongues, by
which humble and illiterate men found themselves at once able to speak
the languages of different nations, left no doubt that they were bound
to preach their faith as extensively as had been marked out to them by
the last instructions which they had received from their Master. They
had to struggle with the most formidable difficulties in prosecuting
this undertaking; for which, had they trusted merely to their own
strength, and their own natural endowments, they were wholly
unqualified.
2. The Roman empire at the period of their commencing the attempt,
comprehended almost the whole of the civilized world, and thus included
within it nations whose habits, customs, and sentiments essentially
differed, and whom it required the most dexterous policy to unite in one
community, or to subject to one government. The most effectual method by
which, during the commonwealth, and at the rise of the empire, this had
been accomplished, was a politic respect to the religious opinions which
all these nations entertained. Not only were their modes of worship
treated with scrupulous reverence, but their gods, in conformity with
the genius of Paganism, were incorporated or associated with the deities
of Rome, and they were thus joined to their conquerors by the strongest
ties by which the affections can be secured. At all times religion had
been an object of prominent interest with the Romans: at the foundation
of the city, Romulus had professed to be directed by Heaven: during the
whole period of the republic, the most sacred attention had been paid to
the rites and ceremonies sanctioned by the prevailing superstition, the
prosperity of the state was invariably ascribed to the protection of the
gods, and the most impressive solemnities, combined with the richest
splendour and magnificence, cast around polytheism a mysterious
sanctity, which even the philosophers affected to revere. Precautions
accordingly had been early taken to prevent innovations upon the
established ritual; foreign rites were prohibited till they had obtained
the sanction of the senate; and when the solicitation of this sanction
was neglected, the persons guilty of the neglect were frequently
punished. From the nature of Paganism, it was perfectly consistent with
its spirit to conjoin, with any particular mode of it, the forms which
elsewhere prevailed. These additions left all which had been previously
honoured in unimpaired vigour and influence, and, in fact, only
increased the appearance of profound regard for religion, which the
Romans so long assumed. But this part of the political constitution,
lightly as it affected other religions, at once struck at the root of
Christianity, which, unlike the prevailing modifications of idolatry,
prohibited the worship of all the deities before whose altars mankind
had for ages bent, and required, as essential for obtaining the divine
favour, that they who believed in it should pay undivided homage to the
one God, whose existence it revealed. The extension of the Gospel thus
necessarily carried with it opposition to the most ancient and most
revered law of the empire, and it was impossible for those who judged of
it merely from this circumstance, without investigating its nature and
tendency, to hesitate in directing against it the statutes which the
zeal of their fathers had provided, to prevent such a revolution as
would be produced by so thorough and so alarming a change in their
religious principles. No sooner, however, had the message of salvation
been addressed indiscriminately to all men, and, from the evidence by
which it was accompanied, had brought numbers to acknowledge the
heavenly source from which it is derived, than the detestation of it
previously entertained burst forth in all its violence; and it is
apparent that this had been widely and openly expressed before any
imperial edicts were directed against the Christians. Tacitus, in the
celebrated passage in which he mentions the disciples of Jesus, and
which refers to a period not more than thirty years distant from the
ascension, represents it as notorious in Rome, that Christ, during the
reign of Tiberius, had been put to death as a criminal; he asserts that
his adherents had long been odious on account of their enormities; he
laments that their destructive superstition had found its way to the
capital of the empire; and he attributes the melancholy fate to which
they were condemned to the general persuasion, that they were actuated
by hatred to the whole human race. It is necessary to keep this fact
steadily in view, to form an accurate idea of that opposition which
Christianity had to encounter. This opposition is not to be estimated
merely by reference to particular statutes, or even to be considered as
fully exhibited when we have gathered together the public proceedings
which have been recorded in history, or deplored in the writings of
those who sought to avert them. It is to be remembered that even when
the laws which the frantic zeal of some of the emperors had enacted were
repealed, the general law of the empire was still in force; that it was
competent for every one who had the cruelty to do so, to turn it against
the Christians; and that the firm, though mistaken, conviction that the
Christian profession involved in it the most revolting impiety, the most
tremendous guilt, and the most dangerous hostility to the best interests
of the state, would lead numbers to indulge their antipathy, when little
notice was taken of the sufferers, and would keep the disciples of the
hated faith in a state of unceasing alarm. (See _Persecution_.) What was
the effect of this depressing situation? Did it check the dissemination
of the Gospel, or confine it to the men by whom it was preached? So far
was this from being the case, that from the period of the death, and, as
it must here he termed, the alleged resurrection of Jesus, it was
embraced by immense numbers in all the countries to which it was
conveyed; and even while they were contemplating the sacrifices and the
trials to which, by attaching themselves to it, they would be exposed,
they did not hesitate to relinquish the religion in which they had been
educated, and to exchange for misery and death all the comforts which
the strongest feelings and propensities of our nature lead men to value
and to pursue. Finally, imperial Rome bowed to the religion it had
persecuted, and the emperor Constantine became a Christian.
3. The propagation of Christianity assumes a new aspect after it became
the religion of the empire, and was guarded by the protection and
surrounded by the munificence of imperial power. The causes which, in
the first stage of its existence, had most powerfully acted against it,
were now turned to its support; and all the motives by which men are
usually guided led them to enter with, at least, apparent conviction
into its sanctuaries. Not only was persecution, after the reign of
Constantine, at an end, but with the exception of the short reign of
Julian, who, having apostatized from Christianity, and become
intoxicated with the fascinating speculations of the Platonic
philosophy, was eager to raise the temples which his predecessor had
laid in ruins, promotion and wealth and honour could be most effectually
secured by transferring to the Gospel the zeal which had been in vain
exhausted to preserve the sinking fabric of Paganism and idolatry. The
emperors, who had displayed their zeal and their attachment to the
religion of Jesus, by forcing their own subjects to profess it,
conceived it to be their duty to communicate so great a blessing to all
the nations which they could influence; and when they found it necessary
to declare war against the savage tribes which pressed upon the
frontiers, or forced themselves within the precincts of the empire, they
carried on hostilities with the view of rendering these instrumental no
less to the diffusion of their religious tenets, than to the vindication
of their authority, and the security of their dominions. The vanquished
invaders felt little reluctance to purchase the forbearance or the
clemency of their conquerors, by submitting to receive their religion;
and this species of conversion, so little connected with the great
objects which revelation was designed to accomplish, leaving, in fact,
all the gross superstitious practices and all the immoral abominations
which had previously existed, was boastfully held forth as a decisive
proof of the triumph of the Gospel.
4. The foundation of the empire, not long after the days of Constantine,
began to be shaken: and it experienced numberless assaults and
convulsions, till it was finally divided into the eastern and western
empires. The luxury and wealth which had enervated their possessors, and
destroyed the heroism and intrepidity by which their ancestors had been
distinguished, presented the most powerful temptations to the lawless
bands which, driven from the sterile regions of the north of Europe, had
pressed forward to seek for new and more favoured habitations. The
feeble attempts to turn aside, by bribery, these ferocious barbarians
increased the danger which they were intended to remove; and the history
of Europe presents, for several ages, the disgusting spectacle of war,
conducted with an atrocity eclipsing the stern virtues which sometimes
were strikingly displayed. But although the insubordination of this
turbulent and sanguinary period was little favourable to the mild
influence of genuine Christianity, it did not prove so fatal to it as
might have been apprehended; and it was even instrumental in extending
its nominal dominion. Mankind, when scarcely emerged from barbarism, and
attached to no particular country, but seeking wherever it can be found
the food necessary for themselves and the flocks upon which they in a
great measure depend, although they entertain those sentiments with
regard to religion which seem almost interwoven with our nature, feel
little attachment to any one system of superstition, and are open to the
reception of new doctrines, which an association with what they value
may have led them to venerate. When, accordingly, the tribes which
finally overran the Roman empire had ceased from the destructive
contests by which they got possession of the regions that had long been
blessed with civilization and enlightened by science, they surveyed with
amazement and with admiration the people whom they had conquered; they
were delighted with the luxuries which abounded among them; they were
charmed with their manners and customs; and they eagerly conformed to
institutions from which they hoped that they should reap what the
original inhabitants of their settlement had enjoyed. The religion of
the vanquished they contemplated with reverence; they connected it with
the wealth, the refinement, and the power which they saw spread around
them; and they easily exchanged the rude and careless worship of their
native deities, for the polished and splendid devotional rites, which,
with the most imposing solemnity, were celebrated by the Christians.
Hence, they soon embraced the religion by which it was believed that
these rites were prescribed; and they communicated it to the nations
with whom they still maintained an alliance. There is no doubt that
motives very little connected with the conviction of the understanding
led to the progress of Christianity now described; and, in fact, that
progress was occasioned by causes so different from those which should
have produced it, that, had circumstances been changed, and had the
religion of Jesus been continued to be persecuted by the most powerful
states, multitudes who affected to revere it would, upon the same ground
on which their veneration rested, have exerted themselves to deride its
tenets, and to exterminate its professors.
5. But it was not the secular arm alone that was stretched forth to lead
men to the reception of Christianity. The church, after it had been
firmly established, and had, amidst the riches and honours with which it
was endowed, forgotten that it should not have been of this world,
conceived it incumbent, as an evidence of its zeal, or, as was too often
the case, for extending its power and its influence, to make attempts to
substitute the cross of Christ for the emblems of Paganism. In
accomplishing this object, it employed different means. But although the
conversions which took place, from the establishment of Christianity
till the restoration of learning, or the reformation, which forms a new
æra in the dissemination of the Gospel, were often unfortunately very
far from planting the word of life in the hearts of those to whom it was
conveyed, they were very extensive. They reached to almost every country
in Europe; to Arabia, China, Judea, and many other parts of Asia; and
the obscure tribes, to whom no missionaries were despatched, gradually
conformed to the religion of those more powerful states upon which they
depended, or to which they looked with respect or veneration.
6. Mohammedanism, however, arrested the progress of Christianity in some
of these countries, and humbled it and oppressed it in others; but since
the reformation, and especially within the last century, it has been
extended, not so much by conquest, as by the legitimate means of
colonization, and by missions and education, to the most distant and
important parts of the world, to China, India, Africa, the American
Islands, and those of the Pacific Ocean. The zeal, self-denial, and
successes, of those missionaries, who have been sent forth within a few
years by various Protestant societies, and their great successes form,
indeed, a splendid section in the modern history of the church. They
have sown the seed in almost every land, and the fruit has spread itself
throughout the world.
not that religious system as it may be understood and set forth in any
particular society calling itself Christian; but as it is contained in
the sacred books acknowledged by all these societies, or churches, and
which contained the only authorized rule of faith and practice.
2. The lofty profession which Christianity makes as a religion, and the
promises it holds forth to mankind, entitle it to the most serious
consideration of all. For it may in truth be said, that no other
religion presents itself under aspects so sublime, or such as are
calculated to awaken desires and hopes so enlarged and magnificent. It
not only professes to be from God, but to have been taught to men by the
Son of God incarnate in our nature, the Second Person in the adorable
trinity of divine Persons, “the same in substance, equal in power and
glory.” It declares that this divine personage is the appointed Redeemer
of mankind from sin, death, and misery; that he was announced as such to
our first parents upon their lapse from the innocence and blessedness of
their primeval state; that he was exhibited to the faith and hope of the
patriarchs in express promises; and, by the institution of sacrifices,
as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, so that man
might be reconciled to God through Him, and restored to his forfeited
inheritance of eternal life. It represents all former dispensations of
true religion, all revelations of God’s will, and all promises of grace
from God to man, as emanating from the anticipated sacrifice and
sacerdotal intercession of its Author, and as all preparatory to the
introduction of his perfect religion; and that as to the great political
movements among the nations of antiquity, the rise and fall of empires
were all either remotely or proximately connected with the designs of
his advent among men. It professes to have completed the former
revelations of God’s will and purposes; to have accomplished ancient
prophecies; fulfilled ancient types; and taken up the glory of the
Mosaic religion into its own “glory that excelleth;” and to contain
within itself a perfect system of faith, morals, and acceptable worship.
It not only exhibits so effectual a sacrifice for sin, that remission of
all offences against God flows from its merits to all who heartily
confide in it; but it proclaims itself to be a remedy for all the moral
disorders of our fallen nature; it casts out every vice, implants every
virtue, and restores man to “the image of God in which he was created,”
even to “righteousness and true holiness.”
3. Its promises both to individuals and to society are of the largest
kind. It represents its Founder as now exercising the office of the High
Priest of the human race before God, and as having sat down at his right
hand, a mediatorial and reconciling government being committed to him,
until he shall come to judge all nations, and distribute the rewards of
eternity to his followers, and inflict its never-terminating punishments
upon those who reject him. By virtue of this constitution of things, it
promises pardon to the guilty, of every age and country, who seek it in
penitence and prayer, comfort to the afflicted and troubled, victory
over the fear of death, a happy intermediate state to the disembodied
spirit, and finally the resurrection of the body from the dead, and
honour and immortality to be conferred upon the whole man glorified in
the immediate presence of God. It holds out the loftiest hopes also as
to the world at large. It promises to introduce harmony among families
and nations, to terminate all wars and all oppressions, and ultimately
to fill the world with truth, order, and purity. It represents the
present and past state of society, as in contest with its own principles
of justice, mercy, and truth; but teaches the final triumph of the
latter over every thing contrary to itself. It exhibits the ambition,
the policy, and the restlessness of statesmen and warriors, as but the
overruled instruments by which it is working out its own purposes of
wisdom and benevolence; and it not only defies the proudest array of
human power, but professes to subordinate it by a secret and
irresistible working to its own designs. Finally, it exhibits itself as
enlarging its plans, and completing its designs, by moral suasion, the
evidence of its truth, and the secret divine influence which accompanies
it. Such are the professions and promises of Christianity, a religion
which enters into no compromise with other systems; which represents
itself as the only religion now in the world having God for its author;
and in his name; and by the hope of his mercy, and the terrors of his
frown, it commands the obedience of faith to all people to whom it is
published upon the solemn sanction, “He that believeth shall be saved,
and he that believeth not shall be damned.”
4. Corresponding with these professions, which throw every other
religion that pretends to offer hope to man into utter insignificance,
it is allowed that the evidences of its truth ought to be adequate to
sustain the weight of so vast a fabric, and that men have a right to
know that they are not deluded with a grand and impressive theory, but
are receiving from this professed system of truth and salvation “the
true sayings of God.” Such evidence it has afforded in its splendid
train of miracles; in its numerous appeals to the fulfilment of ancient
PROPHECIES; in its own powerful INTERNAL EVIDENCE; in the INFLUENCE
which it has always exercised, and continues to exert, upon the
happiness of mankind; and in various collateral circumstances. Under the
heads of _Miracles_ and _Prophecy_, those important branches of evidence
will be discussed, and to them the reader is referred. It is only
necessary here to say, that the miracles to which Christianity appeals
as proofs of its divine authority, are not only those which were wrought
by Christ and his Apostles, but also those which took place among the
patriarchs, under the law of Moses, and by the ministry of the Prophets;
for the religion of those ancient times was but Christianity in its
antecedent revelations. All these miracles, therefore, must be taken
collectively, and present attestations of the loftiest kind, as being
manifestly the work of the “finger of God,” wrought under circumstances
which precluded mistake, and exhibiting an immense variety, from the
staying of the very wheels of the planetary system,--as when the sun and
moon paused in their course, and the shadow on the dial of Ahaz went
backward,--to the supernatural changes wrought upon the elements of
matter, the healing of incurable diseases, the expulsion of tormenting
demons, and the raising of the dead. Magnificent as this array of
miracles is, it is equalled by the prophetic evidence, founded upon the
acknowledged principle, that future and distant contingencies can only
be known to that Being, one of whose attributes is an absolute
prescience. And here, too, the variety and the grandeur presented by the
prophetic scheme exhibit attestations to the truth of Christianity
suited to its great claims and its elevated character. Within the range
of prophetic vision all time is included, to the final consummation of
all things; and the greatest as well as the smallest events are seen
with equal distinctness, from the subversion of mighty empires and
gigantic cities, to the parting of the raiment of our Lord, and the
casting of the lot for his robe by the Roman guard stationed at his
cross.
5. These subjects are discussed under the articles assigned to them; as
also the INTERNAL EVIDENCE of the truth of Christianity, which arises
from the excellence and beneficial tendency of its doctrines. Of its
just and sublime conceptions and exhibitions of the divine character; of
the truth of that view of the moral state of man upon which its
disciplinary treatment is founded; of the correspondence that there is
between its views of man’s mixed relation to God as a sinful creature,
and yet pitied and cared for, and that actual mixture of good and evil,
penalty and forbearance, which the condition of the world presents; of
the connection of its doctrine of atonement with hope; of the adaptation
of its doctrine of divine influence to the moral condition of mankind
when rightly understood, and the affecting benevolence and condescension
which it implies; and of its noble and sanctifying revelations of the
blessedness of a future life, much might be said:--they are subjects
indeed on which volumes have been written, and they can never be
exhausted. But we confine ourselves to the MORAL TENDENCY, and the
consequent BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE, of Christianity. No where except in the
Scriptures have we a perfect system of morals; and the deficiencies of
Pagan morality only exalt the purity, the comprehensiveness, the
practicability of ours. The character of the Being acknowledged as
supreme must always impress itself upon moral feeling and practice; the
obligation of which rests upon his will. The God of the Bible is “holy,”
without spot; “just,” without partiality; “good,” boundlessly benevolent
and beneficent; and his law is the image of himself, “holy, just, and
good.” These great moral qualities are not made known to us merely in
the abstract, so as to be comparatively feeble in their influence: but
in the person of Christ, our God, incarnate, they are seen exemplified
in action, displaying themselves amidst human relations, and the actual
circumstances of human life. With Pagans the authority of moral rules
was either the opinion of the wise, or the tradition of the ancient,
confirmed, it is true, in some degree, by observation and experience;
but to us, they are given as commands immediately issuing from the
supreme Governor, and ratified as his by the most solemn and explicit
attestations. With them many great moral principles, being indistinctly
apprehended, were matters of doubt and debate; to us, the explicit
manner in which they are given excludes both: for it cannot be
questioned, whether we are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves;
to do to others as we would that they should do to us, a precept which
comprehends almost all relative morality in one plain principle; to
forgive our enemies; to love all mankind; to live righteously and
soberly, as well as godly; that magistrates must be a terror only to
evil doers, and a praise to them that do well; that subjects are to
render honour to whom honour, and tribute to whom tribute, is due; that
masters are to be just and merciful, and servants faithful and obedient.
These, and many other familiar precepts, are too explicit to be
mistaken, and too authoritative to be disputed; two of the most powerful
means of rendering law effectual. Those who never enjoyed the benefit of
revelation, never conceived justly and comprehensively of that moral
state of the heart from which right and beneficent conduct alone can
flow; and therefore when they speak of the same virtues as those
enjoined by Christianity, they are to be understood as attaching to them
a lower idea. In this the infinite superiority of Christianity displays
itself. The principle of obedience is not only a sense of duty to God,
and the fear of his displeasure; but a tender love, excited by his
infinite compassions to us in the gift of his Son, which shrinks from
offending. To this influential motive as a _reason_ of obedience, is
added another, drawn from its _end_: one not less influential, but which
Heathen moralists never knew,--the testimony that we please God,
manifested in the acceptance of our prayers, and in spiritual and
felicitous communion with him. By Christianity, impurity of thought and
desire is restrained in an equal degree as are their overt acts in the
lips and conduct. Humanity, meekness, gentleness, placability,
disinterestedness, and charity are all as clearly and solemnly enjoined
as the grosser vices are prohibited; and on the unruly tongue itself is
impressed “the law of kindness.” Nor are the injunctions feeble; they
are strictly LAW, and not mere advice and recommendations: “Without
holiness no man shall see the Lord;” and thus our entrance into heaven,
and our escape from perdition, are made to depend upon this preparation
of mind. To all this is added possibility, nay certainty, of attainment,
if we use the appointed means. A Pagan could draw, though not with lines
so perfect, a _beau ideal_ of virtue, which he never thought attainable;
but the “full assurance of hope” is given by the religion of Christ to
all who are seeking the moral renovation of their nature; because “it is
God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
6. When such is the moral nature of Christianity, how obvious is it that
its tendency both as to individuals and to society must be in the
highest sense beneficial! From every passion which wastes, and burns,
and frets, and enfeebles the spirit, the individual is set free, and his
inward peace renders his obedience cheerful and voluntary: and we might
appeal to infidels themselves, whether, if the moral principles of the
Gospel were wrought into the hearts, and embodied in the conduct, of all
men, the world would not be happy; whether if governments ruled, and
subjects obeyed, by the laws of Christ; whether if the rules of strict
justice which are enjoined upon us regulated all the transactions of
men, and all that mercy to the distressed which we are taught to feel
and to practise came into operation; and whether, if the precepts which
delineate and enforce the duties of husbands, wives, masters, servants,
parents, children, did, in fact, fully and generally govern all these
relations,--whether a better age than that called _golden_ by the poets,
would not then be realized, and Virgil’s
_Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna_,
[Now Astraea returns, and the Saturnian reign,]
be far too weak to express the mighty change? [It was in the reign of
Saturn that the Heathen poets fixed the golden age. At that period,
according to them, Astraea, (the goddess of justice,) and many other
deities lived on earth; but being offended with the wickedness of men,
they successively fled to heaven. Astraea staid longest, but at last
retired to her native seat, and was translated into the sign Virgo, next
to Libra, who holds her balance. Such is the tendency of Christianity.
On immense numbers of individuals it has superinduced these moral
changes; all nations, where it has been fully and faithfully exhibited,
bear, amidst their remaining vices, the impress of its hallowing and
benevolent influence: it is now in active exertion in many of the
darkest and worst parts of the earth, to convey the same blessings; and
he who would arrest its progress, were he able, would quench the only
hope which remains to our world, and prove himself an enemy, not only to
himself, but to all mankind. What then, we ask, does all this prove, but
that the Scriptures are worthy of God, and propose the very ends which
rendered a revelation necessary? Of the whole system of practical
religion which it contains we may say, as of that which is embodied in
our Lord’s sermon on the mount, in the words of one, who, in a course of
sermons on that divine composition, has entered most deeply into its
spirit, and presented a most instructive delineation of the character
which it was intended to form: “Behold Christianity in its native form,
as delivered by its great Author. See a picture of God, as far as he is
imitable by man, drawn by God’s own hand. What beauty appears in the
whole! How just a symmetry! What exact proportion in every part! How
desirable is the happiness here described! How venerable, how lovely is
the holiness!” “If,” says Bishop Taylor, “wisdom, and mercy, and
justice, and simplicity, and holiness, and purity, and meekness, and
contentedness, and charity, be images of God, and rays of divinity, then
that doctrine, in which all these shine so gloriously, and in which
nothing else is ingredient, must needs be from God. If the holy Jesus
had come into the world with less splendour of power and mighty
demonstrations, yet the excellency of what he taught makes him alone fit
to be the Master of the world;” and agreeable to all this, has been its
actual influence upon mankind. Although, says Bishop Porteus,
Christianity has not always been so well understood, or so honestly
practised, as it ought to have been; although its spirit has been often
mistaken, and its precepts misapplied, yet, under all these
disadvantages, it has gradually produced a visible change in those
points which most materially concern the peace and quiet of the world.
Its beneficent spirit has spread itself through all the different
relations and modifications of life, and communicated its kindly
influence to almost every public and private concern of mankind. It has
insensibly worked itself into the inmost frame and constitution of civil
states. It has given a tinge to the complexion of their governments, to
the temper and administration of their laws. It has restrained the
spirit of the prince, and the madness of the people. It has softened the
rigours of despotism, and tamed the insolence of conquest. It has, in
some degree, taken away the edge of the sword, and thrown even over the
horrors of war a veil of mercy. It has descended into families; has
diminished the pressure of private tyranny; improved every domestic
endearment; given tenderness to the parent, humanity to the master,
respect to superiors, to inferiors ease; so that mankind are, upon the
whole, even in a temporal view, under infinite obligations to the mild
and pacific temper of the Gospel, and have reaped from it more
substantial worldly benefits than from any other institution upon earth.
As one proof of this, among many others, consider only the shocking
carnage made in the human species by the exposure of infants, the
gladiatorial shows, which sometimes cost Rome twenty or thirty lives in
a month; and the exceedingly cruel usage of slaves allowed and practised
by the ancient Pagans. These were not the accidental and temporary
excesses of a sudden fury, but were legal and established, and constant
methods of murdering and tormenting mankind. Had Christianity done
nothing more than brought into disuse, as it confessedly has done, the
two former of these inhuman customs entirely, and the latter to a very
great degree, it has justly merited the title of the benevolent
religion. But this is far from being all. Throughout the more
enlightened parts of Christendom there prevails a gentleness of manners
widely different from the ferocity of the most civilized nations of
antiquity; and that liberality with which every species of distress is
relieved, is a virtue peculiar to the Christian name. But we may ask
farther, What success has it had on the mind of man, as it respects his
eternal welfare? How many thousands have felt its power, rejoiced in its
benign influence, and under its dictates been constrained to devote
themselves to the glory and praise of God! Burdened with guilt,
incapable of finding relief from human resources, the mind has here
found peace unspeakable in beholding that sacrifice which alone could
atone for transgression. Here the hard and impenitent heart has been
softened, the impetuous passions restrained, the ferocious temper
subdued, powerful prejudices conquered, ignorance dispelled, and the
obstacles to real happiness removed. Here the Christian, looking round
on the glories and blandishments of this world, has been enabled, with a
noble contempt, to despise all. Here death itself, the king of terrors,
has lost his sting; and the soul, with a holy magnanimity, has borne up
in the agonies of a dying hour, and sweetly sung itself away to
everlasting bliss. In respect to its future spread, we have reason to
believe that all nations shall feel its happy effects. The prophecies
are pregnant with matter as to this belief. It seems that not only a
nation, or a country, but the whole habitable globe, shall become the
kingdom of our God, and of his Christ. And who is there that has ever
known the excellency of this system; who is there that has ever
experienced its happy efficacy; who is there that has ever been
convinced of its divine origin, its delightful nature and peaceful
tendency, but must join the benevolent and royal poet in saying, “Let
the whole earth be filled with its glory? Amen and amen!”
7. Among the collateral proofs of the truth and divine origin of
Christianity, its rapid and wonderful success justly holds an important
place. Of its early triumphs, the history of the Acts of the Apostles is
a splendid record; and in process of time it made a wonderful progress
through Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the third century there were
Christians in the camp, in the senate, and in the palace; in short,
every where, as we are informed, except in the temples and the theatres:
they filled the towns, the country, and the islands. Men and women of
all ages and ranks, and even those of the first dignity, embraced the
Christian faith; insomuch that the Pagans complained that the revenues
of their temples were ruined. They were in such great numbers in the
empire, that, as Tertullian expresses it, if they had retired into
another country, they would have left the Romans only a frightful
solitude. (See the next article.) For the illustration of this argument,
we may observe, that the Christian religion was introduced every where
in opposition to the sword of the magistrate, the craft and interest of
the priests, the pride of the philosophers, the passions and prejudices
of the people, all closely combined in support of the national worship,
and to crush the Christian faith, which aimed at the subversion of
Heathenism and idolatry. Moreover, this religion was not propagated in
the dark, by persons who tacitly endeavoured to deceive the credulous;
nor delivered out by little and little, so that one doctrine might
prepare the way for the reception of another; but it was fully and
without disguise laid before men all at once, that they might judge of
the whole under one view. Consequently mankind were not deluded into the
belief of it, but received it upon proper examination and conviction.
Beside, the Gospel was first preached and first believed by multitudes
in Judea, where Jesus exercised his ministry, and where every individual
had the means of knowing whether the things that were told him were
matters of fact; and in this country, the scene of the principal
transactions on which its credibility depended, the history of Christ
could never have been received, unless it had been true, and known to
all as truth. Again: the doctrine and history of Jesus were preached and
believed in the most noted countries and cities of the world, in the
very age when he is said to have lived. On the fiftieth day after our
Lord’s crucifixion, three thousand persons were converted in Jerusalem
by a single sermon of the Apostles; and a few weeks after this, five
thousand who believed were present at another sermon preached also in
Jerusalem, Acts ii, 41; iv, 4; vi, 7; viii, 1; ix, 1, 20. About eight or
ten years after our Lord’s death, the disciples were become so numerous
at Jerusalem and in the adjacent country, that they were objects of
jealousy and alarm to Herod himself, Acts xii, 1. In the twenty-second
year after the crucifixion, the disciples in Judea are said to have been
many myriads, Acts xxi, 20. The age in which Christianity was introduced
and received, was famous for men whose faculties were improved by the
most perfect state of social life, but who were good judges of the
evidence offered in support of the facts recorded in the Gospel history.
For it should be recollected, that the success of the Gospel was not
restricted to Judea; but it was preached in all the different provinces
of the Roman empire. The first triumphs of Christianity were in the
heart of Greece itself, the nursery of learning and the polite arts; for
churches were planted at a very early period at Corinth, Ephesus, Beræa,
Thessalonica, and Philippi. Even Rome herself, the seat of wealth and
empire, was not able to resist the force of truth at a time when the
facts related were recent, and when they might, if they had been false,
have easily been disproved. From Greece and Rome, at a period of
cultivation and refinement, of general peace, and extensive intercourse,
when one great empire united different nations and distant people, the
confutation of these facts would very soon have passed from one country
to another, to the utter confusion of the persons who endeavoured to
propagate the belief of them. Nor ought it to be forgotten that the
religion to which such numbers were proselyted, was an exclusive one. It
denied, without reserve, the truth of every article of Heathen
mythology, and the existence of every object of their worship. It
accepted no compromise; it admitted of no comprehension. If it prevailed
at all, it must prevail by the overthrow of every statue, altar, and
temple in the world. It pronounced all other gods to be false, and all
other worship vain. These are considerations which must have
strengthened the opposition to it; augmented the hostility which it must
encounter; and enhanced the difficulty of gaining proselytes: and more
especially when we recollect, that among the converts to Christianity in
the earliest age, a number of persons remarkable for their station,
office, genius, education, and fortune, and who were personally
interested by their emoluments and honours in either Judaism or
Heathenism, appeared among the Christian proselytes. Its evidences
approved themselves, not only to the multitude, but to men of the most
refined sense and most distinguished abilities; and it dissolved the
attachments which all powerful interest and authority created and
upheld. Among the proselytes to Christianity we find Nicodemus, and
Joseph of Arimathea, members of the senate of Israel; Jairus, a ruler of
the synagogue; Zaccheus, the chief of the publicans at Jericho; Apollos,
distinguished for eloquence; Paul, learned in the Jewish law; Sergius
Paulus, governor of the island of Cyprus; Cornelius, a Roman captain;
Dionysius, a judge and senator of the Athenian areopagus; Erastus,
treasurer of Corinth; Tyrannus, a teacher of grammar and rhetoric at
Corinth; Publius, governor of Malta; Philemon, a person of considerable
rank at Colosse; Simon, a noted sophist in Samaria; Zenas, a lawyer; and
even the domestics of the emperor himself. These are noticed in the
sacred writings; and the Heathen historians also mention some persons of
great note who were converted at an early period. To all the preceding
circumstances we may add a consideration of peculiar moment, which is,
that the profession of Christianity led all, without exception, to
renounce the pleasures and honours of the world, and to expose
themselves to the most ignominious sufferings. And now, without adding
any more to this argument, we may ask, How could the Christian religion
have thus prevailed had it not been introduced by the power of God and
of truth? And it has been supported in the world by the same power
through a course of many ages, amidst the treachery of its friends, the
opposition of its enemies, the dangers of prosperous periods, and the
persecutions and violence of adverse circumstances; all which must have
destroyed it, if it had not been founded in truth, and guarded by the
protection of an almighty Providence.
CHRISTIANITY: _Sketch of its History_. The Christian religion was
published by its great Author in Judea, a short time before the death of
Herod the Great, and toward the conclusion of the long reign of
Augustus. While other religions had been accommodated to the peculiar
countries in which they had taken their origin, and had indeed generally
grown out of incidents connected with the history of those to whom they
were addressed, Christianity was so framed as to be adapted to the whole
human race; and although, for the wisest reasons, it was first announced
to the Jews, who had peculiar advantages for forming an accurate
judgment with regard to it, it was early declared that, in conformity to
predictions which had long been known, and long interpreted, as
referring to a new communication of the divine will, it was to be a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and was to carry salvation to the ends of
the earth. Although Christianity originated in Judea, it was not long
confined within the narrow limits of the Holy Land. The open manner in
which it was announced, the length of time during which its Author
publicly addressed his countrymen, the innumerable miracles which he
performed, and, above all, the report of the resurrection under
circumstances which must have been communicated to the imperial
government at Rome, excited the deep attention of the numerous Jews and
proselytes who, from surrounding nations, regularly went up to
Jerusalem, and of whom vast numbers were actually in that city when the
resurrection must have been the subject of universal discussion. They
very naturally carried to the different countries in which they usually
resided, the astonishing intelligence with which they had been
furnished; and provision was soon made for fulfilling the prediction
which Jesus had uttered, that his Gospel would, before the destruction
of Jerusalem, be circulated and embraced by many through the wide extent
of the Roman empire. The Apostle Peter, in consequence of what he knew
to be a solemn injunction from Heaven, communicated to a Gentile the
truths of Christianity. St. Paul, who had distinguished himself by his
enmity to the Christians, and by the cruelty with which he had
persecuted them, having been converted, devoted himself to lay the
foundations of the Gospel through a large portion of the most
enlightened part of the world; and the miraculous gift of tongues, by
which humble and illiterate men found themselves at once able to speak
the languages of different nations, left no doubt that they were bound
to preach their faith as extensively as had been marked out to them by
the last instructions which they had received from their Master. They
had to struggle with the most formidable difficulties in prosecuting
this undertaking; for which, had they trusted merely to their own
strength, and their own natural endowments, they were wholly
unqualified.
2. The Roman empire at the period of their commencing the attempt,
comprehended almost the whole of the civilized world, and thus included
within it nations whose habits, customs, and sentiments essentially
differed, and whom it required the most dexterous policy to unite in one
community, or to subject to one government. The most effectual method by
which, during the commonwealth, and at the rise of the empire, this had
been accomplished, was a politic respect to the religious opinions which
all these nations entertained. Not only were their modes of worship
treated with scrupulous reverence, but their gods, in conformity with
the genius of Paganism, were incorporated or associated with the deities
of Rome, and they were thus joined to their conquerors by the strongest
ties by which the affections can be secured. At all times religion had
been an object of prominent interest with the Romans: at the foundation
of the city, Romulus had professed to be directed by Heaven: during the
whole period of the republic, the most sacred attention had been paid to
the rites and ceremonies sanctioned by the prevailing superstition, the
prosperity of the state was invariably ascribed to the protection of the
gods, and the most impressive solemnities, combined with the richest
splendour and magnificence, cast around polytheism a mysterious
sanctity, which even the philosophers affected to revere. Precautions
accordingly had been early taken to prevent innovations upon the
established ritual; foreign rites were prohibited till they had obtained
the sanction of the senate; and when the solicitation of this sanction
was neglected, the persons guilty of the neglect were frequently
punished. From the nature of Paganism, it was perfectly consistent with
its spirit to conjoin, with any particular mode of it, the forms which
elsewhere prevailed. These additions left all which had been previously
honoured in unimpaired vigour and influence, and, in fact, only
increased the appearance of profound regard for religion, which the
Romans so long assumed. But this part of the political constitution,
lightly as it affected other religions, at once struck at the root of
Christianity, which, unlike the prevailing modifications of idolatry,
prohibited the worship of all the deities before whose altars mankind
had for ages bent, and required, as essential for obtaining the divine
favour, that they who believed in it should pay undivided homage to the
one God, whose existence it revealed. The extension of the Gospel thus
necessarily carried with it opposition to the most ancient and most
revered law of the empire, and it was impossible for those who judged of
it merely from this circumstance, without investigating its nature and
tendency, to hesitate in directing against it the statutes which the
zeal of their fathers had provided, to prevent such a revolution as
would be produced by so thorough and so alarming a change in their
religious principles. No sooner, however, had the message of salvation
been addressed indiscriminately to all men, and, from the evidence by
which it was accompanied, had brought numbers to acknowledge the
heavenly source from which it is derived, than the detestation of it
previously entertained burst forth in all its violence; and it is
apparent that this had been widely and openly expressed before any
imperial edicts were directed against the Christians. Tacitus, in the
celebrated passage in which he mentions the disciples of Jesus, and
which refers to a period not more than thirty years distant from the
ascension, represents it as notorious in Rome, that Christ, during the
reign of Tiberius, had been put to death as a criminal; he asserts that
his adherents had long been odious on account of their enormities; he
laments that their destructive superstition had found its way to the
capital of the empire; and he attributes the melancholy fate to which
they were condemned to the general persuasion, that they were actuated
by hatred to the whole human race. It is necessary to keep this fact
steadily in view, to form an accurate idea of that opposition which
Christianity had to encounter. This opposition is not to be estimated
merely by reference to particular statutes, or even to be considered as
fully exhibited when we have gathered together the public proceedings
which have been recorded in history, or deplored in the writings of
those who sought to avert them. It is to be remembered that even when
the laws which the frantic zeal of some of the emperors had enacted were
repealed, the general law of the empire was still in force; that it was
competent for every one who had the cruelty to do so, to turn it against
the Christians; and that the firm, though mistaken, conviction that the
Christian profession involved in it the most revolting impiety, the most
tremendous guilt, and the most dangerous hostility to the best interests
of the state, would lead numbers to indulge their antipathy, when little
notice was taken of the sufferers, and would keep the disciples of the
hated faith in a state of unceasing alarm. (See _Persecution_.) What was
the effect of this depressing situation? Did it check the dissemination
of the Gospel, or confine it to the men by whom it was preached? So far
was this from being the case, that from the period of the death, and, as
it must here he termed, the alleged resurrection of Jesus, it was
embraced by immense numbers in all the countries to which it was
conveyed; and even while they were contemplating the sacrifices and the
trials to which, by attaching themselves to it, they would be exposed,
they did not hesitate to relinquish the religion in which they had been
educated, and to exchange for misery and death all the comforts which
the strongest feelings and propensities of our nature lead men to value
and to pursue. Finally, imperial Rome bowed to the religion it had
persecuted, and the emperor Constantine became a Christian.
3. The propagation of Christianity assumes a new aspect after it became
the religion of the empire, and was guarded by the protection and
surrounded by the munificence of imperial power. The causes which, in
the first stage of its existence, had most powerfully acted against it,
were now turned to its support; and all the motives by which men are
usually guided led them to enter with, at least, apparent conviction
into its sanctuaries. Not only was persecution, after the reign of
Constantine, at an end, but with the exception of the short reign of
Julian, who, having apostatized from Christianity, and become
intoxicated with the fascinating speculations of the Platonic
philosophy, was eager to raise the temples which his predecessor had
laid in ruins, promotion and wealth and honour could be most effectually
secured by transferring to the Gospel the zeal which had been in vain
exhausted to preserve the sinking fabric of Paganism and idolatry. The
emperors, who had displayed their zeal and their attachment to the
religion of Jesus, by forcing their own subjects to profess it,
conceived it to be their duty to communicate so great a blessing to all
the nations which they could influence; and when they found it necessary
to declare war against the savage tribes which pressed upon the
frontiers, or forced themselves within the precincts of the empire, they
carried on hostilities with the view of rendering these instrumental no
less to the diffusion of their religious tenets, than to the vindication
of their authority, and the security of their dominions. The vanquished
invaders felt little reluctance to purchase the forbearance or the
clemency of their conquerors, by submitting to receive their religion;
and this species of conversion, so little connected with the great
objects which revelation was designed to accomplish, leaving, in fact,
all the gross superstitious practices and all the immoral abominations
which had previously existed, was boastfully held forth as a decisive
proof of the triumph of the Gospel.
4. The foundation of the empire, not long after the days of Constantine,
began to be shaken: and it experienced numberless assaults and
convulsions, till it was finally divided into the eastern and western
empires. The luxury and wealth which had enervated their possessors, and
destroyed the heroism and intrepidity by which their ancestors had been
distinguished, presented the most powerful temptations to the lawless
bands which, driven from the sterile regions of the north of Europe, had
pressed forward to seek for new and more favoured habitations. The
feeble attempts to turn aside, by bribery, these ferocious barbarians
increased the danger which they were intended to remove; and the history
of Europe presents, for several ages, the disgusting spectacle of war,
conducted with an atrocity eclipsing the stern virtues which sometimes
were strikingly displayed. But although the insubordination of this
turbulent and sanguinary period was little favourable to the mild
influence of genuine Christianity, it did not prove so fatal to it as
might have been apprehended; and it was even instrumental in extending
its nominal dominion. Mankind, when scarcely emerged from barbarism, and
attached to no particular country, but seeking wherever it can be found
the food necessary for themselves and the flocks upon which they in a
great measure depend, although they entertain those sentiments with
regard to religion which seem almost interwoven with our nature, feel
little attachment to any one system of superstition, and are open to the
reception of new doctrines, which an association with what they value
may have led them to venerate. When, accordingly, the tribes which
finally overran the Roman empire had ceased from the destructive
contests by which they got possession of the regions that had long been
blessed with civilization and enlightened by science, they surveyed with
amazement and with admiration the people whom they had conquered; they
were delighted with the luxuries which abounded among them; they were
charmed with their manners and customs; and they eagerly conformed to
institutions from which they hoped that they should reap what the
original inhabitants of their settlement had enjoyed. The religion of
the vanquished they contemplated with reverence; they connected it with
the wealth, the refinement, and the power which they saw spread around
them; and they easily exchanged the rude and careless worship of their
native deities, for the polished and splendid devotional rites, which,
with the most imposing solemnity, were celebrated by the Christians.
Hence, they soon embraced the religion by which it was believed that
these rites were prescribed; and they communicated it to the nations
with whom they still maintained an alliance. There is no doubt that
motives very little connected with the conviction of the understanding
led to the progress of Christianity now described; and, in fact, that
progress was occasioned by causes so different from those which should
have produced it, that, had circumstances been changed, and had the
religion of Jesus been continued to be persecuted by the most powerful
states, multitudes who affected to revere it would, upon the same ground
on which their veneration rested, have exerted themselves to deride its
tenets, and to exterminate its professors.
5. But it was not the secular arm alone that was stretched forth to lead
men to the reception of Christianity. The church, after it had been
firmly established, and had, amidst the riches and honours with which it
was endowed, forgotten that it should not have been of this world,
conceived it incumbent, as an evidence of its zeal, or, as was too often
the case, for extending its power and its influence, to make attempts to
substitute the cross of Christ for the emblems of Paganism. In
accomplishing this object, it employed different means. But although the
conversions which took place, from the establishment of Christianity
till the restoration of learning, or the reformation, which forms a new
æra in the dissemination of the Gospel, were often unfortunately very
far from planting the word of life in the hearts of those to whom it was
conveyed, they were very extensive. They reached to almost every country
in Europe; to Arabia, China, Judea, and many other parts of Asia; and
the obscure tribes, to whom no missionaries were despatched, gradually
conformed to the religion of those more powerful states upon which they
depended, or to which they looked with respect or veneration.
6. Mohammedanism, however, arrested the progress of Christianity in some
of these countries, and humbled it and oppressed it in others; but since
the reformation, and especially within the last century, it has been
extended, not so much by conquest, as by the legitimate means of
colonization, and by missions and education, to the most distant and
important parts of the world, to China, India, Africa, the American
Islands, and those of the Pacific Ocean. The zeal, self-denial, and
successes, of those missionaries, who have been sent forth within a few
years by various Protestant societies, and their great successes form,
indeed, a splendid section in the modern history of the church. They
have sown the seed in almost every land, and the fruit has spread itself
throughout the world.