I wave for the present the obvious difficulty, that even if this view will account for the success of the apostles, it leaves the attempt as inexplicable as before: unless. we suppose them endowed with such sagacity and foresight, as deliberately to have calculated on all these contingent advantages, and, having thus surveyed the country, where their campaign was to be conducted, to have laid down the whole matured plan of conquest. With this caution, the Christian advocate distinctly admits the cooperation of these secondary causes, though, drawing a different conclusion, he argues, that together they appear to designate the appointed period of the promised Messiah, the fulness of time, when the Redeemer was to be born into a world thus prepared for his reception. But while he acknowledges their concurrent assistance, he denies their sufficiency, either to account for the origination of such a faith, or to secure its success, supposing the system of Christian opinions casually struck out by the sagacity of its one or many teachers.

Indeed nothing appears more extraor

dinary in the whole history of the Gospel, than the remarkable harmony and coincidence of what may be called the mediate and immediate interference of the Deity. It is partly by the influence of predisposed human means, partly by direct interpositions of divine power, that the new religion is disseminated. We discern the hand of Providence in both. The whole course of human events seems to a certain degree controlled and superintended, in order to prepare a way for the teachers of the Gospel. All worldly affairs conspire with singular and unaccountable uniformity to this end. But yet much is wanting. wheels are prepared, but the machine must be set in motion by some extraneous power. To overcome the first resistance, and break down the strong impediments which remain, a vigorous and decisive impulse is required, which can be traced to no other than that which sent the planets on their journey through the abyss of space, the one Great Mover of the material universe. For on closer investigation, this prearrangement of the world for the reception of a new reli

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gion was not merely insufficient to account for its origin and success, but was counteracted and counterbalanced by impediments arising out of the same constitution of human affairs, partly out of concurrent circumstances, but chiefly out of the inadequacy of the human means employed for the purpose. Discarding Providence, if I may so speak, from this previous general administration of the world; leaving the great drama of history to human passions alone, neither directed nor overruled by the presiding Deity; taking the world as it existed at the period when Christianity appeared; conceding that the Jews spread abroad merely in consequence of their national character, or the circumstances of their history; that the extension of the Greek language resulted solely from the successful ambition of Alexander, the universal peace from the judicious policy of the Romans; let us send forth these men into the world, with no credentials but those of dexterous imposture, or the fanatic adoption of certain doctrines, of which they had no other testimony to produce, but the

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intrepidity of their own assertions: and having so done, fairly balance the advantages and disadvantages arising from the existing state of society.

1. Among those remarkable circumstances which appear to the unbeliever fortuitous, to the Christian a signal evidence of the predestined purpose of the Almighty, but which is acknowledged on both sides to have contributed to the progress of Christianity, the dispersion of the Jews demands our earliest attention. Philosophically considered, no problem in the political history of mankind is more curious, than the coexistence of this singular people with every nation, without their abandoning in the least their hereditary distinctions. Almost all other migratory tribes either entirely supersede, or gradually melt into the mass of the people among which they settle; they imbibe insensibly foreign habits, customs, opinions, laws, even religion; the difference of manners, language, in some instances, of features and complexion, wears out by degrees; intermarriages connect the whole into one society, and every gene

ration tends to diminish both the physical and moral differences of the people. The Jews remain perpetually separate and distinct; however completely denationalized as to their place of birth, they are never so in customs or character; they mingle in many of the transactions of life, but are never incorporated with the society around them; if, as in the case of the Alexandrian Jews, their habits and studies undergo a partial change, the more striking lineaments of their national character remain uneffaced. But to whatever cause we ascribe this peculiarity in the history of the Jewish people, the fact, that, at the time of the apostles, they were spread throughout the world, is undeniable. During their whole later history, their migratory habits had been fostered and encouraged by many concurrent causes. In war they were swept into captivity by thousands, in peace they

2 Αὕτη δ ̓ εἰς πᾶσαν πόλιν ἤδη παρεληλύθει, καὶ τόπον οὐκ ἔστι ῥᾳδίως εὑρεῖν τῆς οἰκουμένης, ὃς οὐ παραδέδεκται τοῦτο τὸ φῦ λον, μήδ' ἐπικρατεῖται ὑπ' αὐτοῦ. Strabo apud Josephum, Ant XIV. 7. 2. Compare Philo. Letter of Agrippa in the Leg. ad Caium, where he enumerates the nations among which they had spread; also Joseph. B. J. II. 16.