every one's hands, and so many deserve to be noticed here, and seem to have equal claims on our regard, that it is difficult to make a selection. In addition therefore to those already referred to, and the ancient " Apologies*," I shall now particularize only Jenkins's "Reasonableness and Evidence of the Christian Religion," Bishop Stillingfleet's "Origines Sacræ,' and the "Sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures," collected in 3 vols. fol. 1739.

On particular subjects,-Bishop Newton on The Prophecies, West on "The Resurrection of our Saviour," and Lord Littleton on The Conversion of St. Paul," may be consulted with advantage; and Mr. Hume's abstruse and sophistical argument against Miracles will be found completely refuted by Drs. Adams, Campbell, and Paley.

Of the institutions for illustrating the truths of Christianity, and defending them against modern opposers, the first that deserves to be noticed is Mr. Boyle's Lecture, which was founded at the latter end of the seventeenth century, when that worthy man appropriated an annual sum of fifty pounds, as a salary to some clergyman of the church resident within the bills of mortality, for preaching eight sermons every year against notorious infidels, &c. It was not expressly required, that they should be published †, but a collection of very valuable sermons preached in consequence of this institution, was made and published as above.

The Lecture founded at Oxford, in 1778, by the Rev. John Bampton, Canon of Salisbury, and hence known by the name of the the Bampton Lecture, has likewise produced some very able and excellent discourses. And next to these two may be mentioned the Tylerian Society, erected at the Hague in 1786.

In regard to the opposers of Christianity, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian the Apostate, are perhaps the most distinguished of the ancients; and in later times, Lords Herbert and Bolingbroke, Hobbes, Tindal, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, and Thomas Paine, have stood foremost in the ranks of infidelity. In our days, schemes have been formed, and plans have been artfully and deeply laid, for the utter extirpation of

The chief of the ancient Apologists for Christianity, in opposition to the reigning Theology, were Justin Martyr, Tatian, Apollinaris, Athenagoras, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Origen, St. Cyprian, Lactantius, and Arnobius.-See Reeve's Apologies, in two vols.

8vo. 1716.

+ Hence they have not been generally published, but the Lecture is still continued; and 2 vols. of excellent Sermons, lately preached at it, have been published by Mr., now Bishop, Van Mildert.

Christianity. A conspiracy was set on foot, and warmly supported, by not a few of the most distinguished literati and others on the continent of Europe, for the express purpose of banishing the very name of Christianity from the world, unless perhaps in so far as to retain the memory of their merits in suppressing it: but they had scarcely reaped the first fruits of their exertions, when their object was happily discovered by the friends of religion; and notwithstanding all the art, the zeal, the wisdom, and the exertions that were employed for effecting it, this conspiracy has hitherto in a great measure failed, and I doubt not will finally prove abortive; for Christians know who has said, that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against" their religion*.

The writings on both sides are thus characterized by Dr. Doddridge:-"I own," says that able and excellent author, "the defenders of the Gospel have appeared with very different degrees of ability for the work; nor could it be otherwise among such numbers of them: but on the whole, though the patrons of infidelity have been masters of some wit, humour, and address, as well as of a moderate share of learning, and generally much more than a moderate share of assurance; yet so great is the force of truth, that (unless we may except those writers, who have unhappily called for the aid of the civil magistrate in the controversy,) I cannot recollect, that I have seen any defence of the Gospel, which has not, on the whole, been sufficient to establish it, notwithstanding all the sophistical arguments of its most subtile antagonists. This is an observation, which is continually gaining new strength, as new assaults are made upon the Gospel. And I cannot forbear saying, that as if it were by a kind of judicial infatuation, some who have distinguishod themselves in the wretched cause of infidelity have been permitted to fall into such gross misrepresentations, such senseless inconsistencies, and such palpable falsehoods, and, in a word, into such a various and malignant superfluity of naughtiness, that to a wise and pious mind they must appear like those venomous creatures which are said to carry an antidote in their bowels against their own poison. A virtuous and well-bred Deist must turn away from some modern pieces of this kind with scorn and abhorrence; and a Christian might almost be tempted to wish, that the books with all their scandals about them, might be transmitted to posterity, lest when they come to live, like the writings of

See the late Professor Robison's "Proofs of a Conspiracy," or the Abbé Barruel's work on Jacobinism.

some of the ancient heathens, only in those of their learned and pious answerers, it should hardly be credited, that ever the enemies of the Gospel, in such an enlightened age, should be capable of so much impiety and folly

* "

COUNTRIES WHERE FOUND, NUMBERS, &c.

The grand subdivisions of the Christian religion are,—the Greek and Eastern Churches, of which the former is subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople;-the Church of Rome, or the Roman Catholics, who acknowledge the authority of the Pope; and the Protestant or Reformed Churches, whose members reject it.

The Greek and Eastern Churches, including the Armenians, Nestorians, Coptes or Cophts, &c. comprehend all Christians in European and Asiatic Turkey, viz. in Greece, the Grecian Islands, Syria, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Arabia; in Astracan, Casan, Georgia, and Mingrelia; and likewise the Christians in Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia; together with almost all those in the Russian empire, both in Europe and Asia.

The Church of Rome is established in Italy, Sardinia, France, Spain, and Portugal, and their dependencies; in many of the states of Germany, and in seven of the Swiss cantons; and comprehends, besides, many Christians in Great Britain, Ireland, and other Protestant countries in Europe, as well as in Asia, America, the West Indies, &c.

The Protestant or Reformed Churches, including the Lutherans, Calvinists, the united Church of England and Ireland, &c. are established, one or other of them, in Great Britain and Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, many states of Germany, part of Switzerland, &c. Many Christians in Asia also, and in the Asiatic Islands of Ceylon, Java, the Moluccas, &c. and by far the greater part of the Christians in North America, the West Indies, &c. are Protestants.

All the inhabitants of Europe profess the Christian religion, except those who are Jews; about one third of the inhabitants of Turkey, who are Mohammedans; and some of the Laplanders, and others inhabiting the extreme northern parts, who are Pagans.

Three Sermons on the Evidences of Christianity, pp. 106-7.—These remarks hold equally true in regard to the writings of those who have opposed the Gospel since those sermons were written. Had the learned Doctor lived to see Paine's Age of Reason, and some later publications, what, may we suppose, would he have thought or said of those performances?

Although, by the providence of God, Mohammedans and idolaters have been suffered to possess themselves of those places in Asia and Africa, as well as in Greece, where the Christian religion formerly most flourished; yet Christians are still to be found, more or less, in many parts of both those quarters of the world.

In Asia, most part of the empire of Russia, the countries of Circassia and Mingrelia, Georgia, and Mount Libanus, are inhabited only by Christians; who are also to be met with, in great numbers, in every other part of Asiatic Turkey, and in Persia alone to the amount of 200,000, as well as in all the Eastern dominions of Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland.

The professing Christians in our Asiatic territories are said to amount to nearly 800,000, exclusive of the Roman Catholics, who are numerous. Ceylon alone contains about 280,000 nominal Christians, nearly equally divided between both communions. The St. Thomè Christians, on the coast of Malabar, are calculated to amount to 150,000; and the Portuguese Christians on the same coast, to 36,000. Notwithstanding the vicissitudes that Christianity has undergone in China, it still subsists there; but the number of professing Christians spread over all the Chinese empire is not thought to exceed 160,000, while in the kingdom of Ton-quin and Cochin-China they are said to amount to 200,000.

Roman Catholic missionaries have been long and successfully employed in propagating their doctrines in the most distant regions of Asia, and in many of the islands in the Indian seas and Protestant missionaries of various denominations of Christians, besides those sent out and supported by the venerable Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, the Church Missionary Society, and the London Missionary Society, are now engaged in publishing the important truths of Christianity in the different countries of the East. The London Missionary Society has now in Otaheite also, Eimeo, and some other islands in the Pacific Ocean, about sixteen missionaries, who have laboured there with so much success that the whole population is now professedly Christian*.

In Africa, besides the Christians in Egypt called Coptes or Cophts, and in the kingdoms of Congo and Angola, the islands upon the western coasts are inhabited by Christians, as is also

* See a late work, entitled "The History of the Propagation of Christianity among the Heathen since the Reformation," by Dr. W. Brown; and the "Missionary Register," a periodical work replete with valuable in, formation.

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the vast kingdom of Abyssinia. Christians are also numerous in all the dependencies of European powers in Africa; as at Melinda, &c. in Zanguebar; at the Cape of Good Hope, Sierra Leone, &c. &c.

Christianity prevails also throughout all the dominions of Europeans on the large continent of America, as well as in the West Indies, and other American islands; and those Christians that extend farthest north and south, as in Canada and the Portuguese settlements, are Roman Catholics, whose religion is also established in all the American dominions now or lately subject to Spain.

After all, it is a painful truth that Christianity is of very small extent, compared with those many and vast countries overspread with Paganism or Mohammedism; for, by a calculation, ingeniously made by some, it is found that, were the inhabited known world divided into thirty parts, nineteen of them are still possessed by Pagans, six by Jews and Mohammedans, two by Christians of the Greek and Eastern Churches, and three by those of the Church of Rome and Protestant Communion.

If this calculation be accurate, Christianity, taken in its largest latitude, bears no greater proportion to the other religions than five to twenty-five, or one to five. Besides, it was made before New Holland, New Guinea, and various other islands in the Pacific Ocean, were discovered; how much greater, then, must the numerical difference now be between the extent of ground possessed by those enjoying the light of the Gospel, and that inhabited by those who are still groping in the regions of Pagan darkness and the shadow of death!

If we regard the number of inhabitants on the face of the globe, the proportion of Christians to other religionists is not much greater; for, according to a calculation made in a pamphlet, published originally in America, and re-published in London in 1819*, the inhabitants of the world amount to about 800,000,000, and its Christian population to only 200,000,000 ;-viz. in Asia, 2,000,000; Africa, 3,000,000; Europe, 177,000,000; America, 18,000,000.

That the Christian Religion should still be confined to so small a part of the globe, and yet have enlightened so small a proportion of its inhabitants, seems to be one of those

This excellent pamphlet, which deserves to be widely circulated and carefully read, is entitled, "The Conversion of the World; or, the Claims of Six Hundred Millions of Heathen, and the Ability and Duty of the Churches respecting them;" by the Rev. Gordon Hall and Rev. S. Newell, American Missionaries at Bombay.