be re-established, fince they had committed that horrid crime against the Saviour of the world. This was a bold affertion in the good man, who knew how this people had been fo wonderfully re-established in former times, when they were almost swallow'd up, in the most desperate state of defolation, as in their deliverance out of the Babylonish captivity, and the oppreffions of Antiochus Epiphanes. Nay, he knew that within lefs than a hundred years before his own time, the Jews had made fuch a powerful effort for their re-establishment under Barchocab, in the reign of Adrian, as fhook the whole Roman empire. But he founded his opinion on a fure word of prophecy, and on the punishment they had fo juftly incurred; and we find, by a long experience of 1500 years, that he was not miftaken, nay that his opinion gathers ftrength daily, fince the fews are now at a greater diftance from any probability of fuch a re-establishment, than they were when Origen wrote. SEC SECTION IX. 米米 1. The lives of primitive Chriftians, another means of bringing learned Pagans into their religion. II. The change and reformation of their manners. III. This looked upon as fupernatural by the learned Pagans. IV. And strengthened the accounts given of our Saviour's life and history. V. The Jewish prophecies of our Saviour, an argument for the heathens belief. VI. Purfued: "T HERE was one other means enjoyed by the learned Pagans of the three first centuries, for fatisfying them in the truth of our Saviour's hiftory, which I might have flung under one of the foregoing heads; but as it is fo fhining a particular, and does fo much honour to our religion, I shall make a diftinct article of it, and only confider it with regard to the fubject I am upon: I mean the lives and manners of thofe holy men, who believed in Chrift during the firft ages of Chriftianity. I fhould be thought to advance a paradox, fhould I affirm that there were more Chriftians in the world during thofe times of perfecution, than there are at prefent in these which we call the the flourishing times of Chriftianity. But this will be found an indifputable truth, if we form our calculation upon the opinions which prevailed in those days, that every one who lives in the habitual practice of any voluntary fin, actually cuts himself off from the benefits and profeffion of Chriftianity, and whatever he may call himself, is in reality no Chriftian, nor ought to be efteemed as fuch. II. In the times we are now furveying, the Christian religion showed its full force and efficacy on the minds of men, and by many examples demonftrated what great and generous fouls it was capable of producing. It exalted and refined its profelytes to a very high degree of perfection, and fet them far above the pleafures, and even the pains, of this life. It ftrengthened the infirmity, and broke the fiercenefs of human nature. It lifted up the minds of the ignorant to the knowledge and worship of him that made them, and infpired the vicious with a rational devotion, a strict purity of heart, and an unbounded love to their fellow-creatures. In proportion as it fpread through the world, it seemed to change mankind into another fpecies of Beings. No fooner was a convert initiated into it, but by an eafy figure he became a New man, and both acted and looked upon himself as one regenerated and born a fecond time into another state of exiftence. III. It is not my business to be more particular in the accounts of primitive Christianity, which have been exhibited fo well by others, but rather to obferve, that the Pagan converts, of whom I am now speaking, mention this great reforma reformation of thofe who had been the greatest finners, with that fudden and surprising change which it made in the lives of the most profligate, as having fomething in it fupernatural, miraculous, and more than human. Origen reprefents this power in the Chriftian religion as no less wonderful than that of curing the lame and blind, or cleanfing the leper. Many others represent it in the fame light, and looked upon it as an argument that there was a certain divinity in that religion, which showed itself in fuch ftrange and glorious effects. IV. This therefore was a great means not only of recommending Christianity to honest and learned heathens, but of confirming them in the belief of our Saviour's hiftory, when they faw multitudes of virtuous men daily forming themselves upon his example, animated by his precepts, and actuated by that Spirit which he had promised to send among his Disciples. V. But I find no argument made a stronger impreffion on the minds of these eminent Pagan converts, for ftrengthening their faith in the hiftory of our Saviour, than the predictions relating to him in those old prophetic writings, which were depofited among the hands of the greatest enemies to Christianity, and owned by them to have been extant many ages before his appearance. The learned heathen converts were astonished to see the whole history of their Saviour's life published before he was born, and to find that the Evangelifts and Prophets, in their accounts of the Messiah, differed only in point of time, the one foretelling what should happen to him, and the other describing those very particulars as what had actually happened. This our Saviour himself was pleased to make ufe of as the strongest argument of his being the promised Meffiah, and without it would hardly have reconciled his Difciples to the ignominy of his death, as in that remarkable paffage which mentions his conversation with the two Difciples, on the day of his refurrection. St. Luke, chap. xxiv. verfe 13. to the end. VI. The heathen converts, after having travelled through all human learning, and fortified their minds with the knowledge of arts and sciences, were particularly qualified to examine thefe prophecies, with great care and impartiality, and without prejudice or prepoffeffion. If the Jews on the one fide put an unnatural interpretation on these prophecies, to evade the force of them in their controverfies with the Chriftians; or if the Chriftians on the other fide over-ftrained feveral paffages in their applications of them, as it often happens among men of the best understanding, when their minds are heated with any confideration that bears a more than ordinary weight with it: the learned Heathens may be looked upon as neuters in the matter, when all these prophecies were new to them, and their education had left the interpretation of them free and indifferent. Befides, thefe learned men among the primitive Christians, knew how the Jews, who had preceded our Saviour, interpreted these predictions, and the several marks by which they acknowledged the Meffiah would be discovered, and how thofe of the Jewish Doctors who fucceeded him, had deviated from the interpretations and doctrines |